COORDINATION WORKING GROUP
This infrastructure function working group addresses ways in which progressives can better coordinate communications between individuals and between distribution channels. Coordinated communications have a strong effect in setting a political agenda, as they increase the chance that any single individual will encounter an idea at least once and that a substantial portion of the population will encounter the idea multiple times, which reinforces the perception that the idea is "conventional wisdom." Strategic coordination of long-term idea-marketing campaigns with shorter-term communication efforts can powerfully advance overarching goals while simultaneously providing immediate successes, as demonstrated by the conservative political movement and by innumerable commercial marketing programs. New programs, alliances, and even new organizations may be needed to fulfill the overall function of coordinating progressive communications.
Members of the Coordination working group exchange ideas and information about:
- Existing models or templates for coordination among progressive groups-how was coordination achieved, under what circumstances and with what results; strengths and weaknesses of these models and applicability to other situations
- Cross-platform coordination (e.g., between digital, print, and broadcast media, or between audiovisual and grassroots action)
- How to increase coordination, deal with conflicts and different approaches, and facilitate change when needed
- The desirable and undesirable aspects of coordinated communications, from the standpoints of effectiveness, achievability, and desirability
- Incentives and disincentives for coordination from the standpoint of the individual participants
- Message coordination challenges
- Filtering or sorting-how new ideas enter the public discourse and how the
best ones from a progressive perspective might be identified, selected, and
promoted
- Considerations in coordinating communications between different types of organizations (501c3, 501c4, 527, PAC, for-profit, individuals, political entities)
During the March 2006 Progressive Roundtable convening, if Coordination is
your primary function area, you will have the opportunity to work with other
members of your group on specific plans for developing new ways of achieving
coordination within the progressive movement.
To get started, please contribute to the active forum topics for the Coordination working group, and visit the following coordination-related sections of our Resource Library:
