Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog » facebook http://chieforganizer.org Author of Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:22:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Public Space in Palermo http://chieforganizer.org/2009/06/22/public-space-in-palermo/ http://chieforganizer.org/2009/06/22/public-space-in-palermo/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:41:31 +0000 jstuart http://chieforganizer.org/?p=1661 Catania The four women from Palermo had been peppering me with questions throughout the organizing workshops.  Clearly they were up to something, so it was not surprising when they finally arranged to visit with me for a couple of hours to get advice on their campaign.   At the simplest they [...]]]> P1010004Catania The four women from Palermo had been peppering me with questions throughout the organizing workshops.  Clearly they were up to something, so it was not surprising when they finally arranged to visit with me for a couple of hours to get advice on their campaign.   At the simplest they were trying to win the designation of public space in the historic district of central Palermo and shut down the square to vehicular traffic permanently to create a cultural and traditional public space.

They had created a committee of about 50 committed activists.  They had a Face Book site with about 500 of their friends and FB “friends.” They had won some initial skirmishes on this issue over the year or so of their fight by getting the City Councilors to move their dozen parking spaces from this area to another not far away.  The Greek Orthodox and one other church had agreed to support them, though other businesses in the area had not been won over.  They had done several public events including a whole series of things in the square one weekend when they had convinced the city to give them a shot.  They admitted that they had become media darlings and got very good press.


They had done a good job with great energy.  They had a huge amount going for them.   Unfortunately they had no real base.  This problem of activists with good ideas, looking for shortcuts in the naïveté that being “right” is enough to win, and not doing the work to create real organization or a wide and deep base, seems epidemic worldwide.

These women had gotten the religion though and were committed to building a base behind their effort.  They were also anything but naïve.  The city officials may not be taking them seriously yet, but with more discussion it became clear that their agenda is deeply political and rooted in an analysis that the city administration is dysfunctional and democratically corrupt.  With a big win in the middle of Palermo under their belt, each one of them could be dangerous, and with an organization someday, they could be powerful.



]]> http://chieforganizer.org/2009/06/22/public-space-in-palermo/feed/ 0 Twitter Tutorial http://chieforganizer.org/2009/04/20/twitter-tutorial/ http://chieforganizer.org/2009/04/20/twitter-tutorial/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:45:21 +0000 wade http://chieforganizer.org/wp/?p=1248  Santiago    Katia Soriano, Ercilia Sahores and myself jumped out early to drive to Santo Domingo to meet with the Catholic Relief Service to see what it would take to build a partnership.  We got back mid-afternoon to catch up with a “get to know you” session that the leaders had run along with Judy Duncan [...]]]>  Santiago    Katia Soriano, Ercilia Sahores and myself jumped out early to drive to Santo Domingo to meet with the Catholic Relief Service to see what it would take to build a partnership.  We got back mid-afternoon to catch up with a “get to know you” session that the leaders had run along with Judy Duncan and the rest of the staff.  We then plowed into the meeting again to tighten down plans and programs for ACORN International.
    The highlight was a discussion facilitated by Josh Stuart from ACORN Canada on how ACORN International should use Facebook and Twitter.  Our heads were spinning.  
    Bottom line, number 1:    we are becoming fans!  And, if you don’t know what we mean, you will see when we ask you to become fans of ACORN International.  
    Bottom line, number 2:     We are all going on twitter so we can keep up and follow the work of all of the organizers around the globe in a cheap and easy fashion.  Be there or be square!
    Turned out that Twitter is already wildly popular according the organizers in the Dominican Republic, but it also seems that is because the porners are sending web links.  Hmmm.  Someone got there first, but we’re going to catch up.



]]> http://chieforganizer.org/2009/04/20/twitter-tutorial/feed/ 0