At the Tipping Point

The Tipping Point is a great book about the factors that cause an idea to "tip" over and become widely adopted. It's the difference between feeling like you're pushing a noodle uphill vs trying to keep up with the tire rolling downhill. There are several factors that create a tipping point. Some, like the "stickiness factor" can be synthesized by creating messages, communication and even marketing that "sticks" to the target audience naturally and organically. Other pieces are less easy to coordinate like the need for people to network, understand and sell the ideas (all different roles).

Today I caught myself telling someone that I really didn't expect our Business Intelligence initiative to start taking off so quickly. After working for nearly a year with my team and colleagues to research, test and market the value of the technology I'm spending a full 50% of my time now preparing charters, steering committees and presentations to secure resource commitments. It's as though a glacier doubled in size overnight or a snail traversed a county in a day. It's stark.

I'm also surprised at it's lack of isolation. As one sponsor is positioned to support and sell the initiative, dedicating her own resources to make it happen, another is beginning to emerge with a different set of requirements and a new found mandate for long awaited change from his CFO. Other parts of our organization are pursing similar paths and barriers to collaboration are evaporating. Information is beginning to flow across silos and saturate. Fear is being replaced by excitement.

So while winding down this afternoon I decided that perhaps I'm witnessing a tipping point under way. I'm not sure how much of it's due to the work of my colleagues, the current business landscape at work or the passion of our new found sponsors for the utility of this technology but it's exciting to switch from educate and sell to prepare for launch.

T minus 60 minutes and counting....