That’s an easy one: they want to! OK, smarty, then what makes them want to change? Now I got you. People change because they want to, but there is a lot more to it than that. Simply wanting to change is usually not enough to bring about a permanent change in someone's life style, especially if what they are being ask to change is something they have been doing all their lives.

 Educators tell us there are three main factors those effect human behaviors. Those factors are Knowledge, Attitude, and Behavior itself. There has been enough ink expended concerning those three variables to float a boat.

 In fact the direct progression from knowledge through attitude to behavior it is a myth. Real life, outside the ivory towers of academia, has shown that there is no cause and effect relationship between the three. Oh dear, I can hear the screams that statement generated all the way to Africa! Still I stand by what I just said, and if you’re smart you will take the experiences from some very costly research into commercial marketing and advertising as proof.

 Marketing people know there is no cause and effect relationship between the three. How do they know? Because they listened to the educators, tried it in the real world, on real people, and then used some real testing to find out that the theory was real wrong. That’s how I know.

 If you find a drunken marketing expert - not very hard to do - and get them to be totally honest - a much harder thing to accomplish - they will tell you that they do not have the foggiest idea what the relationship among the three actually is. We do know the three are interrelated in some fashion that experts do not understand clearly enough to put into a theory that actually works. That said, the three are very powerful elements in every communications campaign we create.

Research has proven that people who respond to your messages in the way you want usually don’t understand the problem any better than the ones who ignore your efforts. Back to square one, in theory that is.

 The real questions are what cause people to act the way we want and what can we do to encourage them to act that way?  Let’s take a look at what is known about motivating people and what actually works.

 Behavioral changes come about through the conscious decision of individuals to make an active change in their daily lives. Change happens when an individual perceives that the change is beneficial and the surrounding environment supportive (conducive). Where as individuals are frequently interested in learning and adopting concepts that will improve their lives, they are very reluctant to do so if in exchange they must surrender their image of self, their cultural identity, or their social values.

 When we talk about change we are talking about convincing individuals to adopt a certain modification to their life style. We hope that modification will become permanent. By convincing enough individuals to adopt our modification, at the same time, we change a societies behavior.

 Notice I inserted the statement “ at the same time?” That is because social change is a lot like nuclear physics, it’s like an atomic bomb - well in this case a people powered bomb. The people are the atoms buzzing around in the orbits of their daily lives. That is, until we come along with our campaign and insert additional energy into the system.

 That energy, in the form of our campaign, starts a reaction, it changes some of the people it touches, they in turn touch others and - pay attention this is important - if we have inserted enough energy at all the right places those new people are effected by our energy plus the energy of the first people so that more people become effected. It’s like a chain reaction, or not - if you get it wrong. The “or not” depends on the amount and effectiveness of our input. Too little input or in effective campaigns never reach critical mass.