Getting to Scale

Posted by Carol Coletta on July 03, 2009

Rob Walton (Walton Family Foundation/Wal-Mart) and Peter Seligman (Conservation International) are at the Aspen Ideas Festival offering insights on scaling sustainability.  These lessons (some stated, some embellished from their remarks) seem to apply to urban leaders working to get smart ideas for next generation cities to a tipping point:

1.  Decide what it is you are attempting to get to scale and communicate it clearly. (Not particularly clear from CI's work.)
2.  Imagine what it means to get to scale and, again, communicate it clearly.
3.  Be aspirational and just go there.  If you don't make it, you will at least made progress toward something that matters.
4.  Position the change you seek as desirable, rather than a sacrifice to quality of life.
5.  Identify prospective partners with the scale and expertise you don't.
6.  Gain the ability to evaluate the impact plans will have on the things you care about. (CI has used this with NDRC in China.)
7.  Add the change you seek to the evaluation of personal performance. (Wal-Mart has done this with sustainability.)
8.  Be passionate.  Turn people (especially young people) on.

Do you have ideas to add?