Lessons from America: political organisation
This dropped in my In Box overnight.
Other recent attempts have failed because they were either so "top-down" and/or poorly-managed that they choked volunteer leadership and enthusiasm; or because they were so dogmatically fixated on pure peer-to-peer or "bottom-up" organizing that they rejected basic management, accountability and planning.
The architects and builders of the Obama field campaign, on the other hand, have undogmatically mixed timeless traditions and discipline of good organizing with new technologies of decentralization and self-organization.
Hat-tip Chris Kenyon travelling on Ubuntu open source software business in the US.
The Barack Obama campaign is trusting bottom-up organisation that understands basic management, accountability and planning.
Talking of which our local Labour Party branch met last night - again 20% of total membership were either present or unavoidably absent. Every member hd been sent a notice last week by eMail, hand-delivery or post. An election campaign meeting had taken place at the weekend. A newsletter was agreed for local distribution. Volunteers to write contributions to our election manifesto have been signed up. And the evening was rounded off with a fund-raising supper, which added £40 to our coffers after room hire and postage costs were paid.
Our aim is to campaign for a City of London for all. With a Labour government using tax payers money to underwrite London as a world financial centre, there is a political dividend to be realised from people who live and work here.
This approach is very high on my agenda as a newly elected constituency section member of Labour's NEC.
