Collaboration and Coordination

Description:
Social distance is seen as a measure of intimacy between groups and individuals. The degree of intimacy directly affects the degree of influence that one individual may have over another. Skillful management of social distance is becoming more important for leaders as hierarchies are becoming flatter. Leaders now need distance to establish perspective, to see the big things that may shape the future of the organization, and closeness, to know what is really going on inside their business; and they cannot rely on hierarchy to supply the former. This movement between closeness and distance is like a dance, with leaders basing their movement and timing on refined situation sensing skills.

Description:
A brief article giving the background of the Living Wage movement, and explaining some of the strategies that have contributed to its success. As presented, the Living Wage movement could serve as an effective model for progressive coordination in other policy areas.

Description:
The primary goal of the National Voice (NV) coalition was to increase civic participation by historically under-represented voters for the 2004 election season. Its efforts were exceptionally successful, reaching millions of people. NV’s strategy was to work with non-partisan, community-based groups to assist them in their efforts to register and turn out their members, clients, constituents and neighbors to vote. NV also created the NOVEMBER 2 coordinated get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaign, which linked the major non-partisan voter registration groups into a single coordinated campaign with advertising, media events, and dissemination of collateral materials that could be used by many GOTV organizations.

Description:
Excerpt: “Communities are built on connections. Better connections usually provide better opportunities. But, what are better connections, and how do they lead to more effective and productive communities? How do we build connected communities that create, and take advantage of, opportunities in their region or marketplace? How does success emerge from the complex interactions within communities? This paper investigates building sustainable communities through improving their connectivity – internally and externally – using network ties to create economic opportunities. Improved connectivity is created through an iterative process of knowing the network and knitting the network.”