In addition to the development of these tools, what other factors might influence the spread of microparties?

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point [i], identified three factors which relate to the way in which an idea can spread through a population. These relate to the people who spread in the information, the 'stickiness' of the message and the environmental context it is heard in.

"Epidemics are a function of the people who transmit infectious agents, the infectious agent itself, and the environment in which the infectious agent is operating. And when an epidemic tips, when it is jolted out of equilibrium, it tips because something has happened, some change has occurred in one (or two or three) of those areas." [ii]

He described three types of people who can be crucial to the take-up of a message, product or idea. The Connectors are people with friends, acquaintances and social ties that are capable of bringing together a community or even groups of communities; the Mavens are people with detailed information about how a market works and who share it with others; and the Salesmen are people with a charismatic ability to convince the listener of their argument.

It is not hard to apply any of these personality types to the political arena. The Connectors are in effect the community organisers who bring together people with an interest in the topic, the Mavens are the policy specialists with an in-depth knowledge of the issues and the policy details and the Salesmen are the people with the confidence to be the public face of the party.

Of these personality types, the identification of Mavens may particularly be key to the spread of parties representing professions, provided they can convince the public that they are acting out of a desire to improve services rather than protect vested interests. Gladwell notes: "The fact that Mavens want to help, for no other reason than because they like to help, turns out to be an awfully effective way of getting someone's attention." [iii]

So those microparties which can find the right balance of these types of people may find they have the most success.

One point to note is that microparties have been described here as having little presence offline.  But those which can combine these types of talent into a broader organisation may become those which grow to become mid-sized parties with a significant media presence and greater public awareness.

The 'stickiness' of a message, the content which makes it memorable, is another area with significant application to politics, and could be seen as a counterpart to the soundbite, although that grew out of the need to convey a clear message in a short broadcast news report.

"Is the message – or the food, or the movie, or the product – memorable? Is it so memorable, in fact, that in can create change, that it can spur someone to action" [iv]

If there is a way to make a political message 'sticky' then the experimentation and variations amongst large numbers of microparties may increase the chances of finding it.  As Gladwell wrote: "There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it." [v]

'Stickiness' is a concept that large parties with complex messages across a range of issues will struggle to apply, which may partly explain why highlighting values rather than policies, as discussed earlier, can seem preferable to them.

But for a microparty with a focused message, this concept may have greater salience. Finding the words that will move people to action could be simpler if it applies to a message such as 'Vote for Birmingham' or 'Vote for the NHS'. In this regard it could appeal to the people for whom the policy is a dominant aspect of their life, through work or social role. If parties can therefore connect to people's identities then their messages may not even need to be that 'sticky' to lodge in the memory.

Gladwell's third factor was the overall environment for the issue at hand. "Epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur," he argued. [vi]

So in terms of voting behaviour, the context for the microparty tipping point is the internet and the Long Tail cultural changes it is producing.

And the tipping point may not be that far away. For example, the number of votes cast for 'others' does not need to increase much further from where it currently is before the role of these parties and candidates gains greater awareness.

It may need little more than for some of the many Independent candidates to coalesce around shared themes, and the microparty tools could speed this process significantly.

There are other lessons from The Tipping Point which might also apply to politics and microparties.

Gladwell says that "small close-knit groups have the power to magnify the epidemic potential of a message or idea" [vii]. He also cites the 'Rule of 150' as a guide to the number of members a group can have before it ceases to function efficiently.

These could be additional factors which support the development of microparties. They are, after all, a small but well-motivated group of people focused on advancing a particular cause.

A final point to note from the book relates to the types of people through whom an epidemic needs to spread.

The Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen are the people who make it possible for innovations to overcome the chasm between innovators and early adopters on the one hand and the 'early majority' and 'late majority' on the other. As the book says: "They are translators: they take ideas and information from a highly specialised world and translate them into a language the rest of us can understand." [viii]

"What Mavens and Connectors and Salesmen do to an idea in order to make it contagious is to alter it in such a way that extraneous details are dropped and others are exaggerated so that the message itself comes to acquire a deeper meaning. If anyone wants to start an epidemic, then – whether it is of shoes or behaviour or a piece of software – he or she somehow has to employ Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen in this very way: he or she has to find some person or some means to translate the message of the Innovators into something the rest of us can understand." [ix]

For the purpose of the ideas set out here, particularly in Part II, the notion of a tipping point need apply only to the spread of microparties, rather than to a point at which structural change in the political-governance systems are required. However, the spread of microparties will result in a requirement for just this change.

Gladwell's conclusion also provides a rebuff to arguments that there is no scope for bringing about dramatic change.

"In the end, Tipping Points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of intelligent action. Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push – in just the right place – it can be tipped." [x]

It is also possible to find examples of how internet tools are already available which put into practice some of the ideas outlined in The Tipping Point, and which point to the potential for microparty tools to have a dramatic, tipping point-style, effect.

Meetup.com is a service which aims to make it "easy for anyone to organise a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face".

"Meetup's mission is to revitalise local community and help people around the world self-organise. Meetup believes that people can change their personal world, or the whole world, by organising themselves into groups that are powerful enough to make a difference." [xi]

Scott Heiferman, co-founder and CEO of Meetup, speaking at the Personal Democracy Forum Europe 2009 event, suggested that government could become a platform for people-to-people conversation. "We have more power than ever to unleash collaboration and collective action," he said. [xii]

Many of the groups organising on Meetup already focus on friendly  and like-minded political debate. What is currently missing are the previously discussed tools to take this on to the next level, where these groups become parties.

Footnotes:

[i] Gladwell, M. (2000), The Tipping Point, London: Abacus.

[ii] Gladwell, M. (2000), p. 18-19.

[iii] Gladwell, M. (2000), p. 67.

[iv] Gladwell, M. (2000), p. 92.

[v] Gladwell, M. (2000), p. 132.

[vi] Gladwell, M. (2000), p. 139.

[vii] Gladwell, M. (2000), p. 174.

[viii] Gladwell, M. (2000), p. 200.

[ix] Gladwell, M. (2000), p. 203.

[x] Gladwell, M. (2000), p. 259.

[xi] Meetup.com, available at http://www.meetup.com/about [December 29, 2009]

[xii] Heiferman, S. (2009), speaking at Personal Democracy Forum Europe 2009, MP3 audio file. Available at http://civicolive.com/pdfeu/files/2009/11/Scot-Heiferman-Keynote.mp3 [December 23, 2009].