| Saul Alinsky |
Our friend Michael Silberman over at Echo Ditto made some excellent observations about what technology means for good old fashioned organizing in a recent Echo Ditto blog post. This is a line of thought I traverse frequently having been inspired by Saul Alinsky, the father of community organizing, and organizing models such as asset-based community development. While many organizing models were developed before the Internet became mainstream, I agree with Michael that good on-the-ground organizing principles apply when doing online work. Still, I have an unsubstantiated hunch that the community of "old school" organizers, perhaps represented by an organization such as The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), hasn't cross-pollinated much with the new generation of online organizers that might be found at The New Organizing Institute (NOI). Seems to me that there's a big opportunity to innovate at the intersection of these realms. Any thoughts?