How do You Get People Fired up?

Posted by Lisa Hochgraf

Yesterday at FORUM Partnership Symposium in "Indy," William Azaroff of Vancity Credit Union, Vancouver, British Columbia, greeted me by asking, "What's new?"

I shared my excitement that my town (Mendon, N.Y.) had voted the night before to fund a new library with a bond issue of $1.35 million. I said I had thoroughly enjoyed being part of the group of volunteers that had worked to get people fired up to vote yes.

William, a leader in the development of the changeeverything.ca site, knows all about getting people together to do positive things. Changeeverything.ca encourages Vancouver residents to share what they would like to see change--and a lot of very positive action has come out of the discussions on the site.

"It takes some lead time," William said, to get people going. "You need a plan."

The library vote was the same way. It took a plan to get the bond issue approved. The town board, the library trustees and members of the Friends of the Mendon Public Library worked together to get the word out.

What else does it take? I bounced another idea off of William.

It related to Tim McAlpine of Currency Marketing and his keynote yesterday about the one-year anniversary (today! Happy Anniversary!) of Young & Free Alberta, a highly successful social media campaign designed to get members of Gen Y in Alberta fired up about getting a free checking account with Common Wealth Credit Union. Tim suggested that the campaign worked in part because it was first entertaining (with fun videos, blog posts and celebrity appearances by spokester Larisaa Walkiw), and then informational (about the associated free checking account).

The library vote information wasn't "entertaining," I suggested to William. But his take was that pulling on people's heartstrings about how a new library would serve various segments of the community and perhaps draw the community closer together overall might serve the same purpose of getting people fired up.

Have you successfully inspired action among your staff or members lately? How did you do it? What elements of your effort made you successful? How do you get people fired up?