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How to Make Big Things Happen

Damon Centola
Little, Brown Spark, 2021

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Overview
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

Social scientist and communications professor Damon Centola explains the common errors in the way most people think about messaging and influence. Social media provides researchers with unprecedented access to granular data on how social change and innovation propagate through networks, and one major finding is that they don’t spread primarily through celebrities or influencers. Instead, social change relies on mutual support systems that emerge from small communities on the periphery of networks. The way people connect then shapes how they accept – or don’t accept – new social norms, ideas and products.

Take-Aways

  • Despite their popularity, influencers do not drive social change.
  • Social change is not a virus or a meme. Exposure through weak ties is not enough to solidify a social innovation.
  • Innovations cannot succeed without successfully leveraging social networks.

About the Author

Damon Centola is Elihu Katz Professor of Communication, Sociology and Engineering in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also leads the Network Dynamics Group. 

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