*** Statewide GA, and the Communications Working Group ****
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MysticalAtheist
Mar 15, 2012, 11:57:48 AM3/15/12
to Occupy VT Community Development
Greetings to everyone who attended the Statewide GA, and to everyone
who did not but looks forward to a statewide Occupy community!
The conference had several interesting panels with questions from the
audience, and when the conference was over, the Statewide GA,
initiated by Occupy Central Vermont. While the final panel was
rolling, I met with a small group of attendees interested in
"networking, media and outreach". During the GA and working group
breakouts, a few more people came in. These people are the new people
that have been invited to join Occupy Vermont Community Development.
I hope it's ok that since the group has not been active, I am using it
for a related purpose - to connect people across the state.
People who gathered were responding to my invitation to talk about
"networking, media and outreach", which meant many things when we
talked about it. I hope everyone felt free to express their ideas. And
I hope that if there are further thoughts, anyone who has them will
express them.
In this letter I offer my vision for the Communications Working Group.
We can do other things as needed, and bud off new groups with
different missions, as needed.
My aspiration for this group springs from my aspiration for Occupy,
the global movement, to empower the transformation of our political,
economic and social relations, so that we all become - so the plants
and the animals and the rivers and mountains become - important and
worthy of the opportunity to persist and live with integrity and
vibrancy.
From this broad vision, my aspiration for Occupy Vermont is to empower
us all to participate in the transformation of our state and country,
and for each of us to participate in our mutual empowerment, through
the tools and opportunities that Occupy makes possible. My aspiration
for the communications group is to create the channels of
communication which joins us all together, into one movement, in a way
that is not dependent upon an office staff and a newsletter, but
operates directly through each of us, through our shared
participation.
If you have a different, or additional, reason to come together, under
the rubric of "networking, media and outreach", that is your reason
for joining, please tell everyone.
These are my thoughts about what we might do and offer the movement:
1) Provide immediate channels of communications between local groups -
In the short run provide human infrastructure for that communication.
2) Build, strengthen, lighten, install, systems of communication. This
has two dimensions:
a) human
b) technological
Human Infrastructure
My mental picture of this network is of a ring - like a circle of
people in a room talking to each other - where each person is talking
to their local people - as if you had a phone link to another circle
that included your local people. These local people may or may not
have subsidiary rings, like particular working groups, etc.
Any person could step into any ring at any time, and identify as a
person to channel information from and to the rings of people at their
particular locality. There would likely be redundancy at any level in
the network. This redundancy is helpful, in that it would offer
multiple channels and opportunities for communication. It could be
problematic if people think "not me not today, so-and-so can do it.",
without communicating with the other person about the particular
communication. These people in the same node - is anyone wondering
what a node is? - would need to be very clear with each other about
task division. "I'll pass that message."
In this vision, our role is transparent and rapid communication. The
state would be divided up into self-identified regions, each with its
own "Occupy" group. Each region would have its own person or persons
in the state-wide ring. These persons would have responsibility for
ensuring they are known to all of the people in their region.
Alternatively, these state-wide-ring persons could identify region
level contacts, such as point persons for a GA or working groups,
through whom communications could travel. Local structure would be up
to the local people. The goal is to be sure that everyone knows
someone in the network, who can get a message through the network to
anyone anywhere.
Presumably, many of these messages would simply establish direct
links. "Hey, I'm in direct action in Burlington and I want to talk to
people in direct action in Rutland. Here's my email." Our Burlington
person would forward the message through the state-wide ring to the
Rutland person, who would forward it to the Rutland direct action
people. At this point we have done our job and step back.
Another use is a rapid response announcement system. "The police are
closing on our encampment! Come help!" A message like this would
activate the phone tree - the same network only using telephonic
messages.
There will be two core responsibilities for anyone who intends to
actively participate in communications rings. Keep awareness of
everyone in the main circle (have both email and phone contact info),
and make sure everyone you know in your area knows that you are
connected to the state-wide ring. Actively offer to help connect
people.
This human infrastructure then provides the means by which we consult,
share, recruit, cooperate, quickly and efficiently, in those cases
where an electronic medium is not optimal. Be sure you build your
human infrastructure in your local area, so that when a message comes
through, especially a phone tree message, you can send it along to the
persons who need to get it!
Technological Infrastructure
Besides providing the human infrastructure for communications, by
providing those other services, we will have a heightened awareness of
the demands we might place on our technology. We can help design and
implement the internet based system which will help us all stay
informed and make decisions at a distance. Right now there are several
platforms, of which the blog-like web site managed by Occupy Central
Vermont is one of the better in Vermont. There is also a platform
being developed by NYCGA (http://www.nycga.net/) which is designed to
facilitate communications between individuals and occupy groups, and
Burlington's Ben will have more to say about that in the future.
I have put a version of this letter on the Community Blog OYO, which I
set up as a forum for anyone to express opinions. If you sign up
there, you can also put up postings. In the medium of a blog, we can
write comments to a previous posting, or write a new one. This might
prove very efficient. But it is an experiment. The link there is
http://occupyyouropinion.blogspot.com/. I think you can request emails
to notify you when some one uses the web site.
Otherwise, everyone getting this letter is on the list-serve,
https://groups.google.com/group/occupy_vt_com_dev, unless you got it
after someone else forwarded it to you. If so, feel free to sign up!
Loose ends
At least some of the folks who signed up over the weekend, are now on
this list serve. Hopefully more soon. When the list of folks who want
to participate in the communication rings begins to solidify, I will
send resend the list to everyone. If you were already on this
listserve, please post your preference - do you want to serve as a
link between the state-ring and local groups? What is the local group
you are connected to? What is your information? If you want to hide
this from public viewing, you can send it to me directly, <vision.
2...@burlingtontelecom.net>. Or you can just listen to the conversation.
Also, it would great to know what issues you are dealing with locally,
that the rest of us might help with.
I hope you are as excited about this working group as I am. I look
forward to staying in touch and learning more about everyone. Write
soon, write often!
who did not but looks forward to a statewide Occupy community!
The conference had several interesting panels with questions from the
audience, and when the conference was over, the Statewide GA,
initiated by Occupy Central Vermont. While the final panel was
rolling, I met with a small group of attendees interested in
"networking, media and outreach". During the GA and working group
breakouts, a few more people came in. These people are the new people
that have been invited to join Occupy Vermont Community Development.
I hope it's ok that since the group has not been active, I am using it
for a related purpose - to connect people across the state.
People who gathered were responding to my invitation to talk about
"networking, media and outreach", which meant many things when we
talked about it. I hope everyone felt free to express their ideas. And
I hope that if there are further thoughts, anyone who has them will
express them.
In this letter I offer my vision for the Communications Working Group.
We can do other things as needed, and bud off new groups with
different missions, as needed.
My aspiration for this group springs from my aspiration for Occupy,
the global movement, to empower the transformation of our political,
economic and social relations, so that we all become - so the plants
and the animals and the rivers and mountains become - important and
worthy of the opportunity to persist and live with integrity and
vibrancy.
From this broad vision, my aspiration for Occupy Vermont is to empower
us all to participate in the transformation of our state and country,
and for each of us to participate in our mutual empowerment, through
the tools and opportunities that Occupy makes possible. My aspiration
for the communications group is to create the channels of
communication which joins us all together, into one movement, in a way
that is not dependent upon an office staff and a newsletter, but
operates directly through each of us, through our shared
participation.
If you have a different, or additional, reason to come together, under
the rubric of "networking, media and outreach", that is your reason
for joining, please tell everyone.
These are my thoughts about what we might do and offer the movement:
1) Provide immediate channels of communications between local groups -
In the short run provide human infrastructure for that communication.
2) Build, strengthen, lighten, install, systems of communication. This
has two dimensions:
a) human
b) technological
Human Infrastructure
My mental picture of this network is of a ring - like a circle of
people in a room talking to each other - where each person is talking
to their local people - as if you had a phone link to another circle
that included your local people. These local people may or may not
have subsidiary rings, like particular working groups, etc.
Any person could step into any ring at any time, and identify as a
person to channel information from and to the rings of people at their
particular locality. There would likely be redundancy at any level in
the network. This redundancy is helpful, in that it would offer
multiple channels and opportunities for communication. It could be
problematic if people think "not me not today, so-and-so can do it.",
without communicating with the other person about the particular
communication. These people in the same node - is anyone wondering
what a node is? - would need to be very clear with each other about
task division. "I'll pass that message."
In this vision, our role is transparent and rapid communication. The
state would be divided up into self-identified regions, each with its
own "Occupy" group. Each region would have its own person or persons
in the state-wide ring. These persons would have responsibility for
ensuring they are known to all of the people in their region.
Alternatively, these state-wide-ring persons could identify region
level contacts, such as point persons for a GA or working groups,
through whom communications could travel. Local structure would be up
to the local people. The goal is to be sure that everyone knows
someone in the network, who can get a message through the network to
anyone anywhere.
Presumably, many of these messages would simply establish direct
links. "Hey, I'm in direct action in Burlington and I want to talk to
people in direct action in Rutland. Here's my email." Our Burlington
person would forward the message through the state-wide ring to the
Rutland person, who would forward it to the Rutland direct action
people. At this point we have done our job and step back.
Another use is a rapid response announcement system. "The police are
closing on our encampment! Come help!" A message like this would
activate the phone tree - the same network only using telephonic
messages.
There will be two core responsibilities for anyone who intends to
actively participate in communications rings. Keep awareness of
everyone in the main circle (have both email and phone contact info),
and make sure everyone you know in your area knows that you are
connected to the state-wide ring. Actively offer to help connect
people.
This human infrastructure then provides the means by which we consult,
share, recruit, cooperate, quickly and efficiently, in those cases
where an electronic medium is not optimal. Be sure you build your
human infrastructure in your local area, so that when a message comes
through, especially a phone tree message, you can send it along to the
persons who need to get it!
Technological Infrastructure
Besides providing the human infrastructure for communications, by
providing those other services, we will have a heightened awareness of
the demands we might place on our technology. We can help design and
implement the internet based system which will help us all stay
informed and make decisions at a distance. Right now there are several
platforms, of which the blog-like web site managed by Occupy Central
Vermont is one of the better in Vermont. There is also a platform
being developed by NYCGA (http://www.nycga.net/) which is designed to
facilitate communications between individuals and occupy groups, and
Burlington's Ben will have more to say about that in the future.
I have put a version of this letter on the Community Blog OYO, which I
set up as a forum for anyone to express opinions. If you sign up
there, you can also put up postings. In the medium of a blog, we can
write comments to a previous posting, or write a new one. This might
prove very efficient. But it is an experiment. The link there is
http://occupyyouropinion.blogspot.com/. I think you can request emails
to notify you when some one uses the web site.
Otherwise, everyone getting this letter is on the list-serve,
https://groups.google.com/group/occupy_vt_com_dev, unless you got it
after someone else forwarded it to you. If so, feel free to sign up!
Loose ends
At least some of the folks who signed up over the weekend, are now on
this list serve. Hopefully more soon. When the list of folks who want
to participate in the communication rings begins to solidify, I will
send resend the list to everyone. If you were already on this
listserve, please post your preference - do you want to serve as a
link between the state-ring and local groups? What is the local group
you are connected to? What is your information? If you want to hide
this from public viewing, you can send it to me directly, <vision.
2...@burlingtontelecom.net>. Or you can just listen to the conversation.
Also, it would great to know what issues you are dealing with locally,
that the rest of us might help with.
I hope you are as excited about this working group as I am. I look
forward to staying in touch and learning more about everyone. Write
soon, write often!
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