Coffee, doughnuts and tipping points

Well, all of you who couldn’t make it to coffee last Friday lost out. Not only did you miss the last coffee morning of 2006, but you missed out on some delicious Voodoo doughnuts (pictured above, minus the ones we ate). It’s okay… my family appreciated me bringing these treats home.

Apparently many people had deadlines to meet, but Alison, David and I wanted the caffeine, sugar and discussion. Though David just stopped by for the coffee and Voodoo, so Alison and I sat back and talked about the future.

She’s thinking about a lot of the same stuff I’m thinking about… career moves, next steps, the way the industry is changing, and our roles as catalysts in the industry. I find it interesting that several people I’ve talked to in my generation (I’ll be specifically vague on age and say mid-to-late thirties) are going through self-evaluations on their career goals and personal objectives. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re getting older, maybe looking to the future, and trying to determine what we want to be doing in 10, 20 and 30 years. Or maybe it’s a generational thing of wanting to build something for ourselves that we can enjoy during our lifetimes. Or it could be just coincidence.

I think it’s more than coincidence. Having read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell while traveling a few weeks back, I think it has more to do with the idea of Connectors, Mavens and Salespeople. With the rise in popularity of blogs, more and more people are becoming Connectors, meaning the people that connect people together, and the people that connect ideas together. These Connectors also happen to be Mavens in the sense that they know about change happening and talk about it. Finally, they’re Salespeople, selling the idea of change. You can see many of these people in the lower right sidebar of my blog.

I think personal, career and industry change has reached a tipping point within many of my generation. They happen to be reading the same stuff I’m reading and thinking about the same stuff I’m thinking about. So now it’s our duty, our right, and our opportunity to make this change happen. The idea of change has “tipped;” now it’s time to do something with it.