One of the more memorable and meaningful moments of the 20th century was the fall of the Berlin Wall. As with any big thing, there were a series of events that lead to it finally tumbling down. I guess that's why the German's celebrated the 20th anniversary of the wall coming down by setting up a huge domino topple.

I continue to see it everywhere I look... One thing leading to another, then another, and so on until something big happens. Often we think we can't make the big things happen, but after years of working to set up and tip my own topples in motion I know that I can change things. I haven't tried to do anything as audacious as knocking down something like the Berlin wall. But think about... Someone did! The idea was started, others joined in, and the unimaginable happened.

I bet the people who know they had a big hand in making the wall come down today feel very proud and empowered to do even more because I learned first hand that one small thing can lead to another. And when you think about it, the wall coming down was just another domino in the chain of making the world a little less messed up.

Thanks to my friend Terry Gold for first alerting me to the topple in Berlin.

Today I came across this video on YouTube. I know a lot of people are starting to get desensitized, and a even "sick of hearing about" world hunger. "Please, not another hungry kid in Africa!" Or, "What about hunger here in the U.S?" Honestly, I have that reaction at times also. But, I'm not going to let that get in my way of sharing this video for a few reasons:

1. It speaks directly to the point of Domino Theory and the mission of Topplers: to inspire and motivate people around the notion that when one thing leads to another amazing/suprising things can happen.
2. What if you could do something like this, then track how it lead to others, and so on? If the domino topple fell and you could actually see your domino in the chain? That's the whole idea behind starting Topplers. Giving people a way to set big things in motion, see their impact, and in doing so inspire themselves and others to set other things in motion. We're working to build a social impact network that does exactly that.
3. And of course, maybe this video motivates you to act, and even if we can't track it all, we can know something happened that might not have otherwise.

One last thing: I'm very close to posting "Kate's Topple." I'm really excited to get this going and see how Topplers can help Kate accomplish an important and inspiring dream. It just happens that her topple is related to children in Africa.

Hello Readers.

A little Bird chirped the other day and reminded me just how long it had been since the last blog post. I was actually just getting ready to write a few new posts, and the chirp was just the motivation I needed to get moving!

For my first post a little news…

Non-Profit Status
We’ve made great progress on becoming a 501c3 non-profit organization. The IRS process isn’t easy, and it’s definitely time consuming. We hope we’ll be granted non-profit status by the end of the year. Having this in place is essential to our goals for the rest of this year and 2010+.

Board Update
Last spring the board completed Toppler's first strategic plan. Each month we have an “official” board meeting to review our progress and discuss open issues. We also meet weekly to keep things moving between board meetings. Over time we’ve learned how important it is that we do a few things well vs. all the things we would like to do (including blogging/updates/etc). We regularly prioritize what “must” get done vs. what we would “like” to get done. All in all, we’re making great progress on the “musts” and we expect that will pay off over time. The “likes” still inch along, including the Blog, Facebook updates, and Twitter/tweets.

New Website
Honestly, this has been one of the more frustrating experiences for the Topplers team this year. We’re so anxious to improve what we currently have, but at the same time we need it to be “right.” We’ve met with a number of generous organizations and individuals who have volunteered a lot of know-how regarding building and promoting the kind of site we’re envisioning. They have all rightly asked that we narrow our focus for the first version of the site. We’re working on that, and still hope to have a new site up this year (even a if it’s just a baby step along the way to our grand vision).

2010 Plans to release 10,000 Dominos
The board is currently reviewing several plans to release up-to 10,000 dominos next year. We expect that dominos will be released in waves in conjunction with events/programs throughout the year. We’re also evaluating a “big bang” approach.

We will certainly do our best to keep everyone informed, and please know that we’re working hard to bring Topplers to life and make a big impact in 2010. As our plans firm up there will be lots of ways for “Friends of Topplers” like yourselves to help.

I have 2-3 new blog posts in the works. My plan is to have those published over the next couple weeks.

The other day I was thinking about how the Domino Theory core principles are playing out with regards to the Topples I’ve been working on for the last year and a half. Put another way, why (or why not) have my dominos started other dominos in motion.

After thinking about this for a while, and reviewing the Core Principles, I’m realizing there’s something new to consider: Topples stall when dominos “teeter” and aren’t “encouraged” to tip. In some cases encouragement means a gentle reminder, other times it takes restating of the purpose of the topple, inspire them once again, explaining what to do next, and motivating them to keep the topple in motion. In a real domino topple it's not uncommon to see people assist the topple keep going when a domino doesn't fall.

This brings up an interesting point…

It takes courage to tip a domino (pass one on), and even more courage to say “hey, have you passed your domino yet.” No one likes to nag.

This got me thinking just how important it is for topplers.org to have some kind of “reminder system” to let you know you have a standing domino, and encourage you to keep the Topple in motion by passing it on. This takes the personal nag out of the equation.

We will definitely have this functionality built into the new website (as always if you want to help with topplers.org v2.0 let me know). For now, I will try to get a hack in place to make the current site do this. Obviously no one would be happy with a website that nags a lot, but I think one or two gentle reminders via email would be fine. Also, we could let the previous domino owner know that the next domino in the chain is teetering (and then they can decide if they want to encourage action.

Overall Toppling gets easier when there’s an underlying system like topplers.org to support it. When the new site launches I’m sure dominos will tip with more frequency and the Topple won’t “stall” as much.

But, Domino Theory isn’t all about the website. It’s more generally about how to take a dream/idea/hope and make it happen by inspiring, educating, and motivating people around you to help. And in turn, asking that they do the same through a simple act, thus creating an ever expanding group of people helping the dream/idea/hope come true.

When there’s not an “email reminder” to assist, and a domino teeters, you must find the courage to follow-up and ask again. Or, make sure you tip LOTS of dominos to increase the chances that some fall without follow-up. The problem with the “wider” approach is that this needs to be continued over and over. It’s one thing for the originator to set up a lot of dominos, but another thing to expect a domino later in the topple to tip lots of other dominos next (because they are rarely as inspired or motivated as the topple originator).
Next step for me: a gentle reminder to all the people who have dominos one down the chain from me. I will remind them of why they received the domino, what to do next, and motivate them to act. Automated or not, this is the next, because experience has taught me, often a domino needs a little assistance to tip over and keep the Topple in motion.

In case you haven't checked out topplers.org lately I wanted to let you know a few things:

- We recently made some small changes to the main page. Added some widgets (blog and twitter), and moved the news stories front and center.
- Also, there have been a few dominos moving. You'll see that in the news feed.
- Lastly, we just finished our requirements document for Topplers v2. Lots of neat ideas in there, and hopefully we'll find someone to help us make it happen. If you know anyone who is a web designer, web programmer, etc., who could help please have them contact info@topplers.org.