Connect!

OK, here is last week’s presentation on Network-Centric Advocacy to participants in the Open Society Institute’s “Connect US” initiative. You can download the handout version – 1 MB PDF.

Keep in mind that this a very visual and dynamic presentation, below is an outline of the text and links – a pale shadow of the actual presentation. I may post a Flash version later, but you just have to have me do it in person to get the full effect. 🙂

 

 

1. What is all this “blog” stuff?
   And why should I care?

network-centric advocacy!

Ruby Sinreich, lotusmedia.org

thanks: Connect US
Martin Kearns, network-centricadvocacy.net

• If one voice for justice is a powerful statement…
  How about 1,000?

• Outline

  How has society changed?
  People are less connected… and more connected.

  What is the goal?
  Small change v. big change

  Where’s the strength in a network?
  Network structures

  What does network-centric advocacy look like?
  Some examples

• How has society changed?

• People are contact-averse
  Folks don’t want to be on lists. Many would rather “bowl alone” than engage in the community.
  more about ‘bowling alone’
• But they still get together
  People are naturally organizing themselves, or at least getting things done.
• Information is decentralized
  Examples of movement action, a.k.a. memes:
  “Memo Gate” was just individuals, but seized upon by the right

 

This probably used to happen all the time, but unless you worked for a big media outlet, the discovery would be for naught.
Enter distributed knowledge and non-hierarchical communication channels…

• Movements make themselves
  Other examples of movement action, a.k.a. memes:
  Stop Sinclair. Progressive bloggers built the narrative, struck while the iron was hot.
  http://www.sinclairwatch.org, http://sinclairaction.com
• Distributed knowledge
  Examples of movement action, a.k.a. memes:
  Wikipedia: distributed work – collective voice
  http://wikipedia.org
• Network-centric warfare
  Examples of movement action, a.k.a. memes:
  Network-centric warfare (I’m not making this up!)
  Smart mobs

 

Black Flags Are Deadly Signals as Cornered Rebels Fight Back
– New York Times, 12/12/04

• How has society changed?
  People are finding new ways to connect while abandoning some old social structures.

• What is the goal?

• Not just a law
  A legislative change, or a successful movement to change society?
• Not just a leader
  An empowered organization, or a successful movement to change society?
• Not just an organization
  The individual orgs don’t go away, they just collaborate more, and interact with supporters differently.
• The network can’t be stopped!
  Build a broad movement and the “head” can never be cut off.

 

“How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. … Children shoot soldiers at point blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically.”
– Pentagon flier for a screening of “The Battle of Algiers”
http://slate.msn.com/id/2087628/

• What is the goal?
  An effective grassroots movement for change is a network that includes organizations but transcends their boundaries.

• How do things get done by the network?

• Individuals make the network
  Individual decisions form the collective choice.
• Network Structures
  Different structures have different functions
  Most networks are a combination of these.
  network topologies
• Social networks are unpredictable
  Social networks move in strange and mysterious ways.

 

“… unlike many adult networks, there was no core group of very sexually active people at the high school… Instead, the romantic and sexual network at the school created long chains of connections that spread out through the community…”
– OSU Research News

• Where’s the strength in a network?
  Decentralization makes it impossible to “cut off the head.”

• What does network-centric advocacy look like?

• Shared stories
  Photo album with pictures tagged as “activism”
  http://flickr.com
• Shared “folksonomy”
  Tagging: it’s not graffiti, but…
  It IS a grassroots medium of self-expression.
  Ruby’s picture of a protest –> Ruby’s pictures tagged “protest” –> everyone’s pictures tagged “protest”
• Collective knowledge
  Tagging: cumulative weight
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/
• Blogs
  What’s a blog?

 

• first person voice
• community/dialog
• open archive
• database/syndication

 

• Blogs?
  Blogs: first-person – authenticity
  chanadbahraini.blogspot.com
• Blogs.
  Blogs: syndication – aggregation
  NPOblogs.net
• Blogs!
  Blogs: community – movement building
  dailyKOS.com
• Shared labor
  Distributed work: AdvoKit allows distributed volunteers to campaign any where, any time, as much or as little as they want
  http://AdvoKit.org
• Shared voices
  Distributed work: MoveOn’s “Bush in 30 Seconds” campaign let activists make commercials, raise money to air them, and choose the winner.
  moveon.org/bushin30seconds
• Shared resources
  Open source software: collaborating and sharing
  Open source democracy: ?

 

Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public…
Open-source software is any computer software distributed under a license which allows users to change and/or share the software freely.
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

• Shared knowledge
  Amazon reviews = collective intelligence
• Personal connections
  People connecting: Meetup, evite, 43things, friendster, etc….

• What does network-centric advocacy look like?

 

• Strong Social Ties
• Common Story
• Dense Communication Grid
• Shared Resources
• Clear Windows of Opportunity

5 points of “Network-Centric Theory” by Martin Kearns

• Resources
  http://www.movementasnetwork.org/
  http://www.network-centricadvocacy.net/
  http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1382/
  http://smartmobs.com
  https://lotusmedia.org