Change: How to Make Big Things Happen

with Damon Centola

Hosted by Mark Sutcliffe Podcast Non-Fict Science

Admission

Free

Friday

Jun , 2021

12:00pm

Eastern

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Damon Centola

An utterly fascinating read that will challenge some of your core assumptions about how social change happens. As a leading sociologist and expert on social networks, Damon Centola reveals that if you want to change beliefs and behaviors, influencers are overrated and sticky ideas aren’t always enough—and he explains what really causes the rise of movements and the diffusion of innovations.

Adam Grant

Broadcaster and entrepreneur Mark Sutcliffe sits down with Damon Centola, Director of the Network Dynamics Group at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of the bestseller, Change: How to Make Big Things Happen.

When it comes to lasting change in what we think or the way we live, the dynamics are different: beliefs and behaviors are not transmitted from person to person in the simple way that a virus is. The real story of social change is more complex. When we are exposed to a new idea, our social networks guide our responses in striking and surprising ways.

Drawing on deep-yet-accessible research and fascinating examples from the spread of coronavirus to the success of the Black Lives Matter movement, the failure of Google+, and the rise of political polarization, Change presents groundbreaking and paradigm-shifting new science for understanding what drives change, and how we can change the world around us.

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The Authors

Damon Centola

Damon Centola is a Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is Director of the Network Dynamics Group. His widely cited work has been published across several disciplines in the world's leading journals, including Science, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Human Behavior, The American Journal of Sociology, and Journal of Statistical Physics. His speaking and consulting clients include Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Cigna, the Smithsonian Institution, the American Heart Association, the National Academies, the U.S. Army and the NBA. Popular accounts of Damon's work have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Wired, TIME, The Atlantic, and Scientific American.