Blog fights happen. Sometimes for attention, but most of the time because someone is really pissed off about something. And don't count out big media, they jump right in too when they feel it.
No one's ever written down any rules for blog fights that I know of. But there are some unspoken rules and guidelines.
Here are a few core strategies:
Blog Fight Rules Of Engagement
Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/S3F1w6PkGsw/
We, as social change organizations, exist to enable the power of our supporters. That is how change happens. Through getting thousands of people to take mass action. Through getting one person to pressure a decision maker. It is the power of our supporters, collective or individual, that we are trying to enable. That's why social change organizations exist--to leverage supporter power over time.
We need to know the best way to use that power. Part of it is strategy--what kinds of actions need to happen? Marches? Politics? Direct service? And part of it is knowing what power our supporters possess so they can help us get those strategies enacted.
Know Thy Supporter
We need to know where people are and we need to meet them there. We need to invite them to act in a way that is powerful for them. We need to ask the CEO to leverage her relationships with decision makers for us. We need to ask the committed student to be creative and bring his networks. We need to ask the first-time donor to sign a petition.
It's about appropriate analysis of our power base and the application of it in service of bringing about change. The Midwest Academy talks about doing a "power analysis" as part of every campaign. What are we trying to get done? Do our supporters have the amount and right kind of power to do it?
With 100 supporters, we can know them all and know how to be in relationship with them. At the scale of thousands or millions we can only do this analysis with the support of data. Data on who they are. Data on their interactions with us. Data on what they've done before. Data on what they've chosen not to do when asked.
