Sitting down to eat in a restaurant and getting served is something most of us do every day without even thinking much about it. But it wasn’t always the case for everyone.

In the 1960s, sitting down at a lunch counter in the U.S. came with real danger, if you were black. The danger of verbal harassment, physical harm, and even arrest was to be expected. Yet it was the simplicity of sitting, peacefully, that became the vehicle for shifting what we take for granted today.

We’ve been exploring how Movements grow and sustain when they solve for EASE/FUN/SOCIAL.

This pattern is easier to see for movements like the Ice Bucket challenge, or even the Jogging Boom of the 70s. But maybe less clear in movements such as the Anti-apartheid in South Africa, Otpor! in Serbia, or the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Movements that came with inherent risk and danger, in which participating might mean literally running for one’s life.

It’s precisely in these types of movements that the need to strategically design solutions for EASE, FUN, and SOCIAL makes the difference between whether people show up at all.

Designing for Ease

(or for Fun or Social) is not about making the struggle appear easier. Nor is it about trivializing the stakes or the danger. Organizers of the Greensboro sit-ins didn’t lower the personal risk of sitting at a lunch counter. State violence remained a credible threat. What they did was remove the barrier between agreement and action.

To ‘make it easier’ is to deliberately remove logistical and psychological barriers that add FRICTION to shifting from passive support to active participation. Friction points, such as solving logistical issues or deciding what course of action to take. The higher the personal risk of participation, the more critical it becomes to eliminate these barriers.

This principle applies across movements. It’s why the jogging boom required reframing running as ‘jogging’ (for health, not competition). It’s why the Montgomery Bus Boycott asked one simple task: walk to work instead of taking the bus. And more recently, it’s why ICE-OUT protesters in Minneapolis taught participants how to film ICE agents without losing their protected status as a witness.

EASE is the removal of unnecessary FRICTION, so that the impulse to ACT isn’t stalled by the contemplation of HOW TO ACT.

HOW MOVEMENTS ENGINEER FOR EASE

Movements that scale remove friction at four critical points. Understanding these may help explain why some movements plateau while others grow.

1. FRICTION: CLARITY AND DECISION PARALYSIS

When people face too many options or too much ambiguity about what to do, they freeze. Movements that scale provide highly specific, immediately actionable calls to action.

“Challenge segregation”, while accurate, is still abstract. The Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins scaled and replicated to other cities because the ask was concrete and simple: occupy a seat and sit peacefully.

Sometimes, to navigate initial hesitancy, you need to ask for low-threshold practices. These "gateway actions" reveal a stepping-stone effect: individuals who begin with low-effort activities (signing petitions, sharing hashtags, wearing badges) are frequently steered toward higher-engagement acts that directly target systems. Each action builds identity and familiarity without overwhelming cognitive load.

To manage ambiguity, identify simple, granular behaviors rather than abstract goals. And reduce the decision space.

2. FRICTION: Logistical Barriers

Even when the will is strong, the flesh can remain weak. Participation often comes at a cost: time, money, energy, legal risk, even childcare.

While the Montgomery Bus Boycotts had a simple ask (don’t ride, walk), commute time and distance didn’t always make that possible for everyone. To facilitate life while adhering to the cause, the boycott organized carpools to lessen the burden. Meetings were held around the Sunday church service, making use of both space and a time when everyone would be together.

These aren’t nice-to-haves. They’re necessities that make participation possible when the additional risks (like losing your job because you stopped taking the bus) make joining too costly, even despite the cost of losing the cause.

Structural availability matters. The degree to which you have time to offer and that time won’t come at the cost of your job, your family duties, or your standing in the community make the difference between participation and abstaining.

Identify the concrete costs of participation, and work to reduce them.

3. FRICTION: Psychological Barriers

Much of the friction between agreement and action lives in the head. Fear. Doubt. The question: Can I actually do this? Will it matter?

For this, you need the right information architecture to:

• Arm with WHY - clearly identifying the problem, assigning responsibility so the participant understands why they’re acting. This shifts from abstract idealism to concrete grievance. When people understand what they're fighting against, not just for, motivation is clarified.

• Arm with HOW - Offer specific solutions, strategies, and tactics so participants don’t need to figure out what to do next. This removes the friction of uncertainty. When participants know how to respond, even in worst-case scenarios, the fear becomes manageable.

• Arm with WHEN - more specifically, answer ‘why now’, instilling urgency to act today and not wait til some tomorrow.

Additionally, arm, but don’t overwhelm. As a rule of thumb, a participant should be able to understand and execute a baseline action in under five minutes. If you haven’t achieved this, the information isn’t sufficient, and you need to reassess whether it’s too light or you’re overloading.

Also, don’t deny the fear. Embrace it. Design with fear in mind, so that participants are more willing to act now rather than waiting for a fear to vanish that may never go away.

Provide just enough to move someone from bystander to active participant, without paralyzing them. Make the connection between their existing values and the movement's ask obvious,so that acting is a natural extension of their identity.

4. FRICTION: HABITUATION AND WEAR OUT

Newton may believe that bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, but that only exists in a vacuum. In the real world, excitement and energy fade, and the everyday sets back in. If the ask can’t outlast the routine, then movement stalls.

Movements that ask for episodic heroism (big acts, rare occasions) exhaust participants quickly. Movements that integrate into the fabric of daily practice sustain engagement over months and years.

This requires practicing some human-centric design, starting with empathy for the lived experience of participants and designing movements around their actual constraints, not idealized versions of activism.

Occupy Wall Street, as one example, asked its participants to move into a park indefinitely. With no structured demands, no objective, or end date, the movement began to peter out, ultimately dismantled by police raids of the remaining encampments after 59 days. Once that happened, there was nowhere else for the movement to go.

Compare the story of Wall Street to the Montgomery bus boycotts, which was able to sustain for 381 days. Walking and carpooling weren’t sacrifices. They were a part of daily life and the movement’s sustainable norm. Able to outlast the pain the city felt in lost rider revenue until the city eventually had to cave to the demands.

Integrate participation into existing rhythms of life rather than asking for constant sacrifice. Design tasks that fit daily routines. Keep tactics fresh enough that they don't become stale or lose public attention. The goal is sustainability, not intensity.

B=MAT: THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE EASE

Everything we’ve explored here maps onto behavioral scientist BJ Fogg’s behavior model: B=MAT.

In the model, behavior happens when Motivation, Ability, and Trigger are all present simultaneously. Remove any one, and behavior stops.

In movement terms:

• Motivation = the WHY (ideology, moral clarity, conviction)

• Ability = the EASE (removing friction, lowering barriers to participation)

• Trigger = the WHEN (urgency, the specific moment, the call to action)

We often think of movements in terms of the trigger. Rosa Park arrested for riding in the white section of the bus. Stonewall riots between gay patrons and the NYC police. ICE raids in the middle of Minneapolis communities. A rigged election. A dramatic change in the law.

But it’s the Ability and Motivation that prompt action long after the flame of the trigger has subsided.

Movements succeed when movements sustain themselves. When the will of the participants outlasts the will of the power opposing it. Thus, you must always design with EASE in mind.

*as well as Fun and Social, for a later time

EASE doesn’t trivialize. EASE doesn’t eliminate the danger. EASE is part of the operational infrastructure that makes facing the danger possible.

/G4T/

In 1968, a man was stopped by police just for running down his own street. Not fleeing the scene of a crime. Just jogging. Within a decade, 30 million Americans were doing the same thing regularly.

So how did jogging go from a potentially criminal act to a cultural movement?”

Today, running is one of the most popular hobbies in the U.S., with roughly 50 million people regularly running. But in the 1960s, if you weren’t a competitive athlete or boxer, running in public made you look suspicious. Running meant you were on the run.

The story of the jogging boom in the 60s and 70s is the story of how to shift a cultural norm. In this instance, from the weird and possibly criminal to a core part of so many people’s identities.

Hitting the Wall

Movements take off when they’re EASY / FUN / SOCIAL… and sustain when they’re all three.

While running for distance may not be anyone’s idea of easy or fun, the barrier to entry is undeniably low. And the endorphin rush (aka ‘runner’s high’) keeps people coming back, turning a single run into a lifetime habit.

But none of that gains traction if you quite literally run the risk of breaking the law, or look like an oddball to your neighbors.

SOCIAL in movements is more than a communal effort. It’s about shifting social norms through observed behavior.

Prior to the running boom, exercise was often viewed through the lens of labor or sport. The idea of ‘fitness’ as a proactive health requirement for the average office worker wasn’t mainstream.

Or as the father of long-distance running says,

The Wake Up Call

A series of events shifted the entire framing, starting in the Cold War. Pres. Eisenhower’s heart attack in 1955 shocked the nation. Here was a former five-star general and Allied Supreme Commander, brought down by his own heart. The event exposed a larger crisis: sedentary office work, poor diet, and tobacco use were creating an epidemic of heart disease.

But the moment also sparked something else: a realization that physical preparedness was a matter of national security. And in the context of Cold War competition with the Soviet Union, that looked like weakness. If Americans were physically deteriorating, what did that say about American strength?

The anxiety was real enough to move policy. In 1956, Eisenhower launched the President's Council on Youth Fitness, establishing standardized fitness testing and physical education as a matter of national preparedness. Fitness wasn't health. It was defense.

The Vigor Era

By 1961, President JFK amplified this into a total competition with the Soviet Union—beyond missiles and the space race, into the bodies of Americans themselves:

The harsh fact of the matter is that there is an increasingly large number of young Americans who are neglecting their bodies—whose physical fitness is not even a part of their daily lives... and such neglect can only lead to a diminished capacity for citizenship…

We do not want our children to become a generation of spectators. Rather, we want each of them to be a participant in the vigorous life. - JFK in Sports Illustrated

The Kennedys didn't just talk about it. They embodied it. JFK playing touch football on the lawn at Cape Cod. His brother/US Attorney General Bobby, completing a 50-mile hike (reviving an old Teddy Roosevelt order), along with many other White House staff—many in loafers, turning it into a craze that civilians copied.

The Kennedys built a bridge: from the ‘take it easy’ attitude of the 50s to the ‘burn it off’ mantra that was coming.”

The Scientific Shift

Hiking 50 miles proves fitness in a moment, not a lifetime. Two books changed that by making the case for jogging explicit.

Dr. Kenneth Cooper's Aerobics (1968) was a turning point. Cooper, a military flight surgeon, noticed his pilots could still look muscular while lacking cardio capacity—dangerous at G-forces. He built a scientific system to measure and improve oxygen capacity. But it wasn't medicine. It was data—a point system that turned exercise from vague health advice into a measurable goal.

Then came Bill Bowerman, University of Oregon track coac and future co-founder of NIKE. Bowerman returned from New Zealand convinced that running, not as a race, but as a habit, could change lives. He tested it on his athletes and older men in Eugene, and published the results: Jogging: A Physical Fitness Program for All Ages (1966).

The 96-page pamphlet did something radical: it simplified running. The walk-run-walk method (jog a minute, walk a minute, repeat) let ordinary people build cardio without collapsing. The term 'jogging' itself was novel—slow running at a conversational pace. Suddenly, anyone with shoes and 20 minutes could improve their health.

This doesn’t mean misinformation about running didn’t pervade.

It was believed that women weren’t capable of running long distances; the toll would do permanent damage, causing their uterus to quite literally fall out.

Katherine Switzer broke this fallacy, finishing the 1967 Boston Marathon as the first woman to do so, despite active resistance during the race. By 1972, women were officially invited to compete (at men's qualifying pace), and soon other marathons opened up. The social norm was cracking.

The Jogging Boom

If the 50s and 60s laid the groundwork, the 70s turned jogging into an identity.

In 1972, American Frank Shorter won Olympic gold in the marathon—the first American to win in 64 years. He became the first running pop star. Lean and heroic, Shorter made running aspirational. His participation in shorter races like the 1975 Virginia 10-miler sparked a 10K road race boom across the country.

Women further drove the explosion. Driven by Katherine Switzer’s marathon finish and the introduction of Title IX, the ‘72 CrazyLegs mini-marathon, women-led running clubs, and the runaway success of the sports bra in 1977 showed retailers that women were a massive demographic.

NIKE capitalized. The Waffle trainer debuted in 1974 with cushioning, nylon uppers, and bold colorways that became NIKE’s signature. Soon, jogging apparel became street wear. You could look like a jogger even when you weren't jogging—and that mattered.

While celebrity athletes, colorful NIKEs, and tracksuits made running visible, the real infrastructure came from elsewhere.

For decades, organizations like the AAU (later the IAAF) served as gatekeepers to any organized running, focusing on elite competition. Starting in the mid-60s, more independent race directors started circumventing these through more community-focused races, so-called ‘fun runs’. The Road Runners Club, founded in ‘58, filled the gap left by the AAU, helping local organizations and advocating for women’s long-distance running when the AAU resisted. The first NYC Marathon (1970) exemplified this: it ignored AAU rules and opened to women. By ‘76, the race field had outgrown the park and was expanded to the 5 boroughs as it is today.

So the movement grew around the AAU, not through them.

By 1977, when Jim Fixx published the best-selling The Complete Book of Running, the jogging boom was at its peak. By this point, Fixx wasn’t selling running as medicine. He was speaking to 70s Type-A professionals, future yuppies, who ran to manage stress and prove they had the discipline to conquer 10 miles before work.

From Couch to Marathon

In 1970, New York’s first marathon had 127 runners, all male, racing through Central Park. Only 55 finished.

By 1980, the NY Marathon had over 12,000 runners, 11% of whom were women, and the race stretched across all five boroughs.

In a single decade, jogging went from the odd to the ordinary. Something 25-30 million Americans did regularly.

*In 1970, there were perhaps 100,000 regular runners.

What scaled it?

Four Lessons for Scaling Movements:

1. Lower the Barrier to Entry:

If your movement demands expertise overnight, you’ve built in too much friction. Even the subtle shift in language from 'running' to 'jogging' was massive. It changed the metric from time-based (beat the clock) to life-based (strengthen your heart). Find your ‘Run-Walk-Run’ and scale from there.

2. Remove the Friction

The waffle trainer. The sports bra. The jogging shorts. These weren't nice-to-haves. They made running something you wanted to do, not something you suffered through. Habits form when they're fun. Sometimes the job is identifying what's blocking the fun and removing it.

3. Social = Social Proof

Bobby Kennedy hiking 50 miles in Oxfords. Frank Shorter winning gold. Katherine Switzer finishing a marathon and not collapsing. Tracksuits becoming fashion. These are cultural bridges—proof that people like me can do this.

People don’t follow ideas. They follow people who embody those ideas. Find your proxies. Make them attainable. It should feel like: If they can do it, so can I.

4. Transition from Manual to Identity

“Bowerman’s ‘Jogging’ told people how to run.

Cooper’s ‘Aerobics’ proved why it works.

Fixx’s ‘Running’ gave it meaning.

But the real shift is moving people from doing the thing to being the thing they’re doing. Mechanics and science aren’t enough. Once they see themselves as a runner—not someone trying to run—the behavior feels aligned, inevitable, natural.

5. Distribute Power / Decentralize Permission

There’s a tendency in movements to want to hold and retain some control. However, this ignores a fundamental truth. Movements occur when the members take it over.

The jogging boom of the 70s would not have occurred without local groups circumventing the gatekeepers like the AAU, who should have been actively expanding the field instead of exerting tight control.

Movements scale fastest when you distribute control to the people closest to the action. Don't ask permission from the gatekeepers. Build the infrastructure that serves the actual movement, not the institution.

The Cool Down

There’s a real Monkey See Monkey Do aspect to movements. Few of us have the confidence to be the first to step out there, particularly when the prevailing POV is telling us quite the opposite. Social isn’t just about sharing; it’s primarily about erasing those inhibitions for others. Seeing the behavior in others and feeling confident, you can a) do it too and b) won’t be an outcast for doing so.

Suddenly, a movement doesn’t feel alien anymore; it feels inevitable. Until it eventually just feels pedestrian because it’s forever shifted the status quo.

/G4T/