aka small tribe; creative network-sized?

Malcolm Gladwell on Rick Warren's Mega Church-through-TeamWork model. Robert Putnam says "There were these eight people and they were all mountain bikers-mountain bikers for God. They go biking together, and they are one another's best friends. If one person's wife gets breast cancer, he can go to the others for support. If someone loses a job, the others are there for him. They are deeply best friends, in a larger social context where it is hard to find a best friend.".. Putnam goes on, "Warren didn't invent the cellular church. But he's brought it to an amazing level of effectiveness. The real job of running Saddleback is the recruitment and training and retention of the thousands of volunteer leaders for all the small groups it has. That's the surprising thing to me--that they are able to manage that. Those small groups are incredibly vulnerable, and complicated to manage. How to keep all those little dinghies moving in the same direction is, organizationally, a major accomplishment."

Chikai Ohazama: The future of news is conversation in small groups with trusted voices. I feel like my news consumption these days is like those sushi boats. I sit down and the news just streams by and I pick out the articles I like and read them. Very efficient and also a little bit of fun. But I’ve been stuck at the sushi boat bar of news for far too long, watching the same imitation crab rolls go by. I need a better way to consume better information. (more)

On West Wing recently the prez said roughly Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. I just found out's that's a quote from Margaret Mead.

Candidate for the 2004 Presidential Election Democratic Party primaries (more)

Zephyr Rain Teachout (/ˈtiːtʃaʊt/, born October 24, 1971)[1] is an American attorney, author, political candidate, and professor of law specializing in democracy and antitrust at Fordham University.[2] In 2014, Teachout ran for the Democratic Party nomination for governor of New York and lost to incumbent governor Andrew Cuomo, receiving 34% of the primary vote.[3] In 2016, Teachout was a candidate for the United States House of Representatives in New York's 19th congressional district.[4] Teachout won the Democratic primary before losing to Republican John Faso...She served as the director of Internet organizing for the 2004 Howard Dean presidential campaign. In 2009 she helped found the Antitrust League.[13] She was the first national director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes transparency and accountability in government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyr_Teachout

Blue State Digital is an adtech[1][2][3] that specializes in online fundraising, and campaign consultancy.[4] The company was founded by 4 former staffers of the Howard Dean 2004 presidential campaign.[5][6] The company became notable after providing digital strategy and technology services for the 2008 and 2012 Barack Obama presidential campaigns... Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign pioneered new applications of new media to engage voters and raise campaign funds.[citation needed] In 2004, four former Dean staffers—Jascha Franklin-Hodge (CIO), Clay Johnson, Joe Rospars (CEO), and Ben Self—founded Blue State Digital[8] to provide campaign technology (voter database, fundraising technology, and campaign recruitment)[9] and strategic services... In 2007, the company was recruited in the early phases of the Barack Obama'2008 US Presidential campaign[15][7] to provide technology services, and for Rospar to create and lead the internal new media strategy team. These technology services included web hosting, an online fundraising product called BSD tools,[16] and a custom social networking platform (my.barackobama.com). Over the course of the campaign, more than $500 million was raised, millions of volunteers were mobilised, and an online database of 13 million supporters was created,[17] This was reported in the media as being, in large part, due to their platform, and services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_State_Digital (more)

non-profit who spends most of their money on fund-raising, and paying their CEO $750k/yr.

Democracy for America (DFA) was a progressive political action committee headquartered in Burlington, Vermont. Founded by former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean in 2004, DFA led public awareness campaigns on a variety of public policy issues, trains activists, and provided funding directly to candidates for office, until it ended operations in 2022.[1][2] At its peak, the organization had dozens of local chapters and more than a million members in the United States and internationally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_for_America (more)

co-founder, K-HOLE; now writing the 8ball newsletter https://www.8ball.report/

Opinion | The Missing Obama Millions. Much of the political commentary since the presidential election has focused on two groups of party switchers: those who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016 (Trump Voter) and those who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. (more)

aka ObamaForAmerica, OrganizingForAmerica

No We Can't. As the polls were closing in Massachusetts on the evening of January 19th, turning Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat over to the Republicans for the first time in half a century, David Plouffe was busy reminiscing about the glory days. The president’s former campaign manager was nowhere to be found at the sprawling war room of Organizing for America, the formidable grass-roots army he had forged during the 2008 campaign (more)

aka OFA, the site that ate my.barackobama.com by giving control of it to the DNC

Micah Sifry: Inside the Fall of Obama’s Grassroots Army. On July 20, 2008... Christopher Edley had invited them to join a “Movement 2.0 Brainstorming Group.” Together, they would ponder a crucial question: how to “sustain the movement” should Barack Obama, who was still a month away from accepting the Democratic nomination, go on to win the White House. (more)

Dylan Matthews says Chris Hughes wants another chance. Hughes — worth around $400 million, according to Forbes — is aware of his role in building this culture. He also knows that he’s hardly the first rich business leader to turn apostate and critique the capitalist processes that enriched him. But he’s unique in an important sense: He’s the first founder of a major tech firm to call for that firm’s dismantling (Facebook). (more)

David Talbot: How Barack Obama Really Did It. Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign manager and Internet impresario, describes Super Tuesday II–the March 4 primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island–as the moment Barack Obama used social tecnology to decisive effect. The day’s largest hoard of dele­gates would be contested in Texas. Hillary Clinton’s camp had about 20,000 volunteers at work in Texas. But in an e-mail, Trippi learned that 104,000 Texans had joined Obama’s social-­networking site, www.my.barackobama.com. In Texas, MyBO also gave the Obama team the instant capacity to wage fully networked campaign warfare. After seeing the volunteer numbers, Trippi says, “I remember saying, ‘Game, match–it’s over.’” (more)

Kate Albright-Hanna: How The Cool Kids Killed Obama’s Grassroots Movement. Eight years ago, I was trapped inside the Barack Obama Presidential Transition office in Washington, D.C., watching the life and soul drain out of the thing we had birthed and nurtured in Chicago for almost two years. (more)

Trump’s mixed messaging leaves Dems struggling to find a way forward. Unlike the first time Donald Trump won the presidency, Democrats are not expecting major protests. Instead, Democrats across all levels of government are plotting more cautiously open approaches to Trump. (more)

Peter Overby: The Fate Of Obama's Net Roots Network. Just two weeks after the historic election, Barack Obama campaign officials sent an e-mail to roughly 10 million "Obamamaniacs" and volunteers who had registered with the campaign online, asking them what the president-elect should tackle in the months ahead.... from campaign manager David Plouffe. (more)