make a small impact but if that person joins a group then the whole becomes greater than the some of its parts.
If you then take that to the next stage and get a critical mass of people to accept that change then that becomes a social norm. The point at which that social norm is formed is what is called the tipping point – the point at which everyone just understands.
The tipping point is neither good nor evil, it is the point where things just change because the right events happen and cause and effect take over.
Imagine the scene some one drops one copy of a newspaper, no one sees him do it, and he’s got away with it. Within an hour the wind has turned that newspaper into 20 pages in gutters, trees and gardens. It looks like nobody cares.
So, why should the teenager find a bin for the sweet wrapper, or his mate for his drink’s can? Nobody round here cares, look at the state of the place. And so these small actions create an impression. Imagine an empty shop with a boarded up front window, a short while later look at the graffiti on the very same boards. That shop front lowers the tone, but who cares?As I said the tipping point works for good and evil. Small actions like mending the window, picking up the litter, painting over the graffiti, which on their own are only small actions, add up to a greater whole.
What really works is not when someone writes to the council and waits for them to do something, but when the people who live in the street do it themselves. It’s their street, they have ownership, they have made a difference and people have seen them show that they care. The little action of finding a bin for that sweet wrapper now has more meaning. In this neighbourhood, it matters.
The Big Tidy Up is organising events around
