DFNYC, 100,000 Strong, Scalable Organization

Money, Message, Organization
Does Hell Have A Kitchen?
2006: When DFA Could Really Grow
Blogging Is Scalable Media
The One Voice Concept
One Blog One LinkUp One Atom

If you can not register, you can not vote, at least not in this country. In Nepal, you don't have to register, you just show up at the booth. I think the system in Nepal is superior. Democracy is about having no barriers between the voter and the booth. Correct that. All that was before the king's coup of 2/1.

If you will not get a Blogger account, you can not participate in the one voice concept. It is like registering. But then universal blogging also makes possible two other things, among others: (1) scalable media, and (2) scalable organization.

I have talked about scalable media earlier: Blogging Is Scalable Media.

In this blog post I wish to touch upon the concept of a scalable organization.

Say we are serious about taking the Congress back in 2006 - I know I am - and we wish DFNYC to grow accordingly. What would be the best way to do it? What would be the best way to grow from 100 to 1,000 to 10,000 to 100,000? Is there a point where it becomes too much for the central leadership? With the traditional way of organizing you do reach that point pretty fast. With the scalable organization concept, you never hit that point. The smallest unit can keep splitting like amoeba endlessly and the organization stays healthy and vibrant like there were no bricks in the sink.

About 10 members form the basic unit. It could be a LinkUp, it could be a House Party group. As soon as they hit 20, they split into two. The idea is that the leader should get to know each member of the group very well, and members should get to know each other very well. This is more than collecting people for free, slave labor of phone banking and knocking doors. This is more than a political unit. This is a social unit. This is community building.

Face time for the unit is when you meet in person, once a month. Additional events are optional. Screen time is screen time. And blogging is key to it. All 10 members are members of one blog.

One Blog One LinkUp One Atom

From there you go vertical. You build a pyramid of 10. And at each level there is one monthly meeting for Face Time, and there is one common blog. The leader of a 5 deep organization might choose to attend meetings of only the two top layers. That would be a valid choice.

That is the framework for a scalable organization, scalable both horizontally and vertically. And all along the organization stays kind of structureless. There is no pyramid. Instead there is a cloud. And it is set up such that the best ideas could come up from absolutely anywhere.

How do the best ideas rise to the top? There are two obvious channels. One, the leader at one level takes it up one step, and so on. Two, the author of the idea takes it to the comments section of the person whose attention she seeks.

And the idea of blogging the echo chamber. Say DFNYC goes 100,000 strong. But then New York is already a progressive city. Don't you end up spending all your time converting the converted? Not if you blog the echo chamber, no, you don't.

100,000 progressives attending monthly meetings and vibrant in a cloud of blogs that are all connected to each other will impact the nation. You cross the city boundaries without physically bothering to.

Say at the top you have the 10 central leaders. In Nepal the communists would call it the Politburo. I don't mind if we come up with a different name. The clique? The den? The beauty of the scalable organization model is these 10 individuals do not have to work 1,000 times harder by the time the organization grows from 100 to 100,000. Because the organization is scalable. It is like Microsoft producing the first copy of Windows. The first copy is a lot of work. After that it is endless replication.

I really think I got something here.

And if each of those 100,000 individuals sign up to give $10 to the DNC each month through the Democracy Bonds program, that is $1 million for power purposes. If that can be replicated in the top 10 cities, that is $10 million. Looks like the organization is not only scalable, but also duplicable.

And once you really get this thing going, you make possible all sorts of organizing and community building. For example, I envision an Indian Caucus, as in Asian Indians, although the Native Americans get called that because when Columbus landed, it all looked so beautiful to him, he felt he was in India. Indians could reach out across geographical boundaries and create a separate semi virtual pyramid of 10. The same applies to other possible groups, and not just ethnic groups. Could be issue groups. Could be interest groups. It is upto the imagination of the members as to what groups.

What say you?

And there could be one blog for all city and town groups in one state, then one blog with 50 members for the 50 states. The existing sites, be it DFA, DFA Link, even the DFNYC site, are like a skeleton. This concept adds flesh to the skeleton. The two don't go counter to each other. And Blogger is free and so easy to use, it goes with the democracy theme. We have to be constantly thinking about the average person.

Money, Message, Organization

Money

Dean's got a great idea. The Democratic Party should seek to be funded solely by small contributions. That is the best way to get money out of politics short term.

$10 a month by a million people is $10 million for the party. Two million people is twice as much. We do have that many core supporters. They just are not roped in and organized yet.

Message

One word: progressive.
One phrase: People Power.

Message is something you work on constantly. What will sound great today will have become out of date in five years. The basic theme will still be democracy, but the presentation will have to change.

This is not a top down mechanism. For the message part, the organization is a cloud. The best ideas could come from anywhere. That is one phase of it, when you are still trying to figure things out. But once you have figured it out, there has to be discipline. We will have to have talking points. We will have to learn to stay on message. We will need a rapid response mechanism. (The One Voice Concept)

I wrote my first draft of a proposed 10 point program. (2006: When DFA Could Really Grow) Everyone is welcome to write down their own 10 point program. By the time we are ready to go out to take back the Congress, there should be only one draft left, the final draft of a 10 point program.

Here is my first draft of a five point program.

1. Balance the budget by having the top 5% pay 40, 39, 38, 37 and 36 per cent respectively.
   
2. A clear exit strategy for Iraq such that US troops get phased out and Iraqi troops step in. Proactively spread democracy the progressive way to win the War On Terror.
   
3. Universal health insurance for all children. And health care reform to introduce the market forces in the health care sector. You measure that by the adoption of information technology by the sector in all aspects of its operations. Bring the costs down for everybody.
   
4. Universal, quality, well funded public education, replete with testing but not limited to it or by it. Federally funded scholarships for the top students in all public schools to be able to attend private schools. Expand college financial aid. Collaborate with the private sector to make textbooks available online for free, ad-based. Collaborate with the private sector to introduce ad-based, free, universal wireless broadband.
   
5. Campaign finance reform, electoral reform. End voter intimidation and fraud.
   

Organization

This is key. Money and message flow out of a sound organization. I think we need to be thinking something akin to corporate mergers. I wonder if it is not time to merge DFA into DNC. As someone said last night, we have the top, and we have the bottom, now let's go get the middle.

But even if we don't merge, we need to work in synergy. There is this thing at the DFNYC site that I really dig. People can list events. And it all gets displayed in a chronological order. There has to be this one place online where all progressive events get listed. Hosts can decide if they should be open or closed or whatever. I think last night's meeting was great.

Do events, blog events. I can not emphasize this enough, especially for New York City Dems. Turn it into one big reality show, because there is an audience out there. Otherwise we spend too much of our time preaching to the converted. Like I say, blog the echo chamber and it is no echo chamber no more.

Organization is an ongoing challenge. We will perfect it as we go along.