Here is a thought provoking overview of business strategy ( the ideas ~slide 24 on complements and core business). The focus is on the power of platforms and drives home the advantage to building an "ecosystem" of activity that builds on itself and in the process drives the platform success. (Think Apple App store)
We are NOT applying this strategy in a social change context. (YET) We do see some of this in voter registration, Change.org, and SumofUS.org but very little at the issue or state level. This trend of networking people together into movements IS the opportunity for the organizers of this generation. Increasingly, the complex issues we must address can only be solved with successful networked responses.
We must start thinking about the network effects of the way that we organize. Our actions as organizers, policy advocactes, and nonprofit managers have effects that extend beyond our organization. We must start to organize ourselves to launch campaigns and organizing in a way that each effort drives down the costs of civic participation (not increases the tax on the people we all need to engage).
As organizers, we must focus on the protocols for better user engagment for the public (not just on our issue). As organizers, we need to focus on winning in the new economy created by the networked world. We must work in new ways to reconnect and invent new ways for large and small organizations to thrive in the age of platforms and networks.
