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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/5758
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The key is to establish a strong foundation first. Someone who is resistant to change will need to see why change is necessary, how it can be accomplished easily and cheaply, and _then_ feel the pressure of "all the cool kids are doing it."

If you don't establish the reason why change _must_ happen, then social proof will look like flash-in-the-pan.

I would suggest first demonstrating the advantages of the new over the old, and then the benefits of adopting the new practice which comes at the modest expense of a tiny little paradigm shift.

Once you've established a sensible and strong argument for the adoption of the new practice, _then_ you can leverage social proof as additional support.

> CVCS has been the standard since it became necessary to do something other than copy material to a dated folder in the "Backup" file. However, methods of software production have changed since CVCS was introduced 20 years ago, resulting in performance bottlenecks and cranky people wasting time on the nets while waiting for their code to be ready. DVCSs solves the classical frustrations of CVCSs, such as avoiding merging hell and commit races. The adoption of DVCS creates a versioning environment that is more natural for workers, resulting in geometrically increased productivity and infinitely scalable cooperativity. Training workers to use the new format takes less than a week, and once adopted, it quickly becomes intuitive. They can version in their sleep.
> 
> Many sensible, knowledgeable, and successful people have already recognized the genius of this plan. They shag frequently with beautiful, famous, and wealthy people. We recommend you adopt this practice as well, since everyone will be doing it in the future.

What you want to do is establish why this is a good practice, how it can be adopted especially by people who are familiar with the old practice, and then give a little peer pressure. That way, the reader will feel more like they will be on the cutting edge rather than just jumping on the bandwagon.

Original score: 7