The ultimate success for any idea is a movement. Movements happen when an idea captures the hearts and minds of others. They want to join us and the idea begins to take on a life of its own.
But how do you hit that tipping point? What's the secret sauce?
At Pepperdine University School of Law, we've seen a movement grow the past five years. Our students are on fire for Global Justice. They are future lawyers with many lucrative opportunities, yet they burn to serve the poor at home and around the world. Instead of racing for the corner office in a big firm, they wanted to seek justice for "the least of these."
We watched as a movement began to grow. In a few short years, Global Justice became the number one reason that students chose Pepperdine. Students started choosing our school solely for Global Justice. Demand for our programs far outgrew capacity. Any event packed the house.
No one really knows what will inspire the masses-every marketing company and cause wants that answer. Alas, there is no formula. But, there are strategies that work-secrets often overlooked by would-be movement builders.
These are the strategies that worked for us:
1. Tap into the Heroic
Deep down, we all want to be heroic. We want to save lives and accomplish extraordinary feats. We want to matter to someone else.
When we demonstrate the heroic, people are drawn to it. Why? We picture ourselves in the shoes of the hero.
As American scholar and author, Dr. Jean Houston, once wrote, "We all have the extraordinary coded within us... waiting to be released." How do we explain our admiration for extraordinary people? How else can we account for our fascination with superheroes? It's coded within us. Just watching children pretend to be Superman should convince us of a natural inclination toward the heroic. If we are indeed created in the image of the Ultimate Hero-the Savior of the world-how can we not desire to be heroic ourselves?
We all have a hero gene longing to come alive; just waiting to be released. Still, all too often, our causes seem unheroic. They are stale; I can't picture myself a part of it.
To create movements, we need to release the heroic in others.
2. Craft the Experience
Life is about the experience. And, the most successful ideas focus on the experience.
Going to Starbucks is an experience-dim lighting, eclectic music, the smell of coffee, and earthy colors all release an emotion.
The CrossFit craze is an experience. Why else would people join a gym at $150 per month to do body weight exercises? CrossFit tapped our curiosity about the intense physical training of our military and packaged it into an experience for everyone.
I recently brought a group of students to refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border. While walking through a camp, one student remarked: "I feel like I'm watching myself in a movie." This out-of-body sensation is the nexus of our reality and the experiences we desire.
For those of us building movements, we need to think about experience in the way that Apple thinks about design. Design is how we interface with the computer. Experience is how we interface with our soul. Like the rest of the computer industry, most causes overlook the experience.
I try to create Global Justice field experiences that breed that my-life-is-a-movie sensation. Such experiences invest people for life. But it goes much further. In building movements, as in theatre, it's all about the details. Do our brochures and websites participate in the experience? Are our hallways and offices part of the experience as well?
3. Give Ownership
Too often, I've been let down by would-be movements. While they may captivate me with the heroic, I click on "Get Involved" and I'm left with three options: pray, donate money, and write to Congress. Important? Yes. But, ownership in the movement? No.
We want to point to something, even just one tiny portion of the world that we can say we had our hand in making better. As movement builders, we have the obligation to create a space for others to own part of the idea-to have a little portion of the movement to create.
It's like the "T-Shirt Effect"-if you give someone a t-shirt, they will do almost anything for free. Why? Because its a public badge of honor that we were there; we were part of something bigger than ourselves.
In the Global Justice Program, we create a space for our students to create new ideas, projects, and partnerships. Even if we don't know what to do with the results, it's easier to steer a moving ship than start from a standstill. And our students will forever own part of the movement.
Final Thoughts
Too often, our ideas fall short. We alienate our audiences from the heroic, we keep them at arm's length, and never provide an experience. Employ these strategies to watch ideas bloom into movements.
Jay Milbrandt is a lawyer and director of the Global Justice Program at Pepperdine University School of Law. He is the author of Go and Do: Daring to Change the World One Story at a Time.
