Thanks so much for your contribution to the conversation! I think you raise a great point, that organizations can’t come together in any kind of partnership or collaboration and be successful without mutual respect for each other’s work, mission, strategy, and so on. I think finding organizations or groups to team up with where all parties can agree on the focus is getting easier thanks to technology and social media —organizations can now push their message out further and wider, casting a larger net, and it would make sense that with a larger net smaller or more niche organizations are able to find each other and connect.

Thanks again for commenting!

I’ve just watched your video interview with Clay Shirky, and what you’re talking about there and once again in this blog post is very interesting as well.

I don’t think the interplay between trust and accountability is as important here. Rather, I think we should just disregard which organization you’re part of, and focus more on the projects you contributed on. For example: as a freelance programmer, I have felt very involved with the organizational goals of my primary (for-profit) client back then. Officially, I was not part of the organization, but at many times my involvement wouldn’t be distinguishable from what I would I have shown as an actual employee. Main difference was that I had freedom in when I worked and for some part how much I worked per week.

The same can be said for volunteers which may only be involved for a few days in a year at a specific event, or for only one hour in the week when contributing on a certain website. But at this specific moments, I think we should count them into the organization as well.

Maybe we could redefine organization then as all the people who are active for a cause at a specific point in time. Or find a new word for it, because this might be confusing.

I don’t think I could easily give you examples of organizations which are working like this, but there must be many. Just like inter-organizational collaboration, this is all about mindset. Some people already have the right mindset to do this, others don’t.

I think if you’d go digging you could find many case stories. Something that comes to mind right now (because I researched it recently) is the network that the Obama campaign team has set up: See http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/32819/what_happens_to_the_obama_network_after_the_election_2 for example.

But there must be many much less glamorous (and smaller) success stories.

People who have been involved in social media, blogs, twitter etc for some time definitely have an edge with regard to “intellectual” collaboration. They already have experienced collaborating with people with much lower level of commitments than themselves. For example: A CEO who is blogging, and engages with her commenters. I’m not sure if everyone who is doing this recognizes how groundbreaking this really is though, and also not that they might be able to apply it throughout their (formal) organization.

You may also like to read up on “The Gig Economy”:
http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/02/03/web-workers-the-changing-face-of-the-gig-economy/
http://genxfinance.com/2009/02/10/are-you-part-of-the-gig-economy-if-not-you-might-want-to-start-thinking-about-it-now/

Many different trends we are observing now have some common origin. There’s a trend towards more freedom, more trust, and more flexibility.

I’m really fascinated by the OpenRSA work and have been following it loosely via your blog and Dave Brigg’s blog. For other readers who are also interested, are there any public ways to follow or collaborate other than the wiki and blog you linked to? Are the workshops open to people (who are geographically available) to attend?

What do you see as the biggest challenge in moving something like the RSA into a networked or flexible convener?

I think that you hit on a major issue here: trust. I think that organizations already have trust issues in most dimensions – whether it’s trusting funders to stay committed to their cause or project, trusting board members to back the vision and decision of the staff/executives, trusting other organizations to collaborate and not compete, trusting employees to represent or advocate for the organization (and not just view it as a job), trusting volunteers to stay committed, and so on down the line.

Entrusting cause champions online to push the mission and work forward with only loose ties to the organization (the networked approach) could be more than organizations can tackle with the above trust issues already working against them. Or, the networked approach could create a chain reaction starting from the outer ring and working back towards the core, creating a contract based on shared cause and trust and as that proves itself in impact, the same approach can be applied to the next ring inward, and so on.

Do you think there are any specific sectors or causes that are more prepared to move towards a networked approach than others? Are there any groups you think are already succeeding at this way of working?

Thanks again for your great contribution!