In the past most NGOs communicated with their members in a typical hub-and-spoke network: The NGO sits in the middle, information flows from this center to the members, money flows back from the members to the NGO. David Wilcox has written an interesting post about the ways how that is model was successful in the 20st century but will not work in the 21st.
Embedded in the post is an excellent interview with Clay Shirky (author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations) ,
where he describes the positive and negative aspects, the fears and opportunities that the changes evoke in NGOs. If your members can find each other and communicate laterally, without even going through you as an organisation (but using your name to find each other or even to attach to their activities as a lable), do you fear the loss of control and try to restrict this or can you find creative ways of channeling this energy and these activities for the benefit of your organisation and your cause?
Apart from the thought provoking content I also like how David uses simple network diagrams to make his point:
Source: David Wilcox, socialreporter
Filed under: exploring new ideas, Other people's work |
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[…] Net-Map have embedded a 5 minute interview with Clay Shirky and they discuss the role of NGO’s in mobilsing and using their networks. Here’s the picture drawn to summarise the different network … […]