Office Space - Occupy Style by AnthonyT

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Office Space - Occupy Style

POSTED BY: ANTHONYT
UPDATED: Thursday, December 1, 2011 07:58
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Thursday, December 1, 2011 5:50 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/01/exclusive-inside-the-offices-of-o
ccupy-wall-street/?hpt=hp_bn2

Hello,

I found this interesting. What would you call this? Organic organization?

I am not sure I understand the leaderless concept, because clearly there are people who must make ultimate decisions about things. Someone issued that badge the reporter wears. Moreover, if CNN has this exclusive access, someone decided that, too.

It would be interesting to participate in this movement merely to see how they are organized and how they accomplish things, and who makes the final yay or nay decisions on a day to day basis.

I will say this- it looks like a relaxed work environment. I wonder what it would be like to do something I care about and enjoy, in the manner I enjoy it, all day long.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Thursday, December 1, 2011 7:03 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Well, I can tell you how it works here, and we're modeled after the main OWS group, tho' different groups handle things differently. The main thrust is that there ISN'T any one person who has the "final say".

First we meet in committee--last night was ours, "Outreach", we're about eleven people. We spend a couple of hours discussing possible outreach things we can do--and deciding some ideas should be presented either to other committees or the GA. Ideas are proposed, we discuss them, add to them or subtract from them, then hone it down to a general proposal. If we need someone to do something specific, someone volunteers. For example, I volunteered last night to participate in the "Occupy Cafe". That's a weekly conference call of Occupies around the country (and some international). They share information, get ideas from one another, and groups will announce when they're going to have an "action" coming up that we can all support. I will be taking notes, then reporting it to the GA. That's one example.

It's a messy process, but at the end we've got several proposals to put in front of the GA and some ideas that we tabled because they are too far away and we'll deal with them later (like the 4th of July action), or we haven't come to a consensus so we'll discuss the idea again at the next meeting.

We take those proposals to the "Facilitator Meeting", which happens on Saturdays just before the noon demonstration (which is followed by the GA). There we present our proposals and the facilitation group discusses them, hones them further for brevity, and then they're presented to the GA, which makes the ultimate decisions on them by "consensus". Consensus SHOULD be everyone, but of course little would get agreed on by 100%, so each group decides what percentage of people that will be--for us it's 90%.

The GA then decides by consensus if proposals should be adopted or not, people suggest additions or deletions, indicate if they have problems with the proposal and what those problems might be (at which time we discuss how to solve those problems, etc.). The most serious is a "block" which means "I have moral or ethical problems with this proposal and will leave the group if it is passed". That is rarely used; if that happens, the GA discusses the issue and decides if they can modify it so consensus can be reached or the idea should be abandoned. The other signals are used during the discussion. Fingers up for "I agree", down for "I disagree", neutral for "I'm on the fence", cupped-hand "C" for "I need clarification", one finger in the air for "I have or need further information", and others. The hand signals are a really useful thing, as they keep it from becoming a shouting match and people talking over one another.

Luckily, we've been allowed to use an amplifier (thank you San Rafael!) so we don't have to use the "people's mike"--I didn't like that much, but was grateful for it at first because my hearing's not great and I couldn't make out what was being said at the front (I tend to sit somewhere outside the group 'cuz I smoke).

Once consensus is reached, propsals either go back to their committee for implementation or for further revision.

Where people make decisions comes in, for example, when the GA has approved (pretty much one of the first things that happens in all groups) that they will have small demonstrations in the county. It was discussed at the GA and decided on, then Outreach decides on specific times and places and it's put up on the website for volunteers to show up. Obviously if someone has a specific time or place to propose, they do that at the GA. We provide signs, and encourage people to bring their own, and one person from the facilitation group is responsible for being there at a set time with the signs, etc., then either staying the whole time or swapping off with someone else who's volunteered to take the stuff home at the end of the demonstration.

So no, there is no individual who makes the final decision on most things. Petty cash, for example, under $50 can be spent as the various committees decide, but anything over that goes to the GA. The proposal to do it that way was decided on by the GA, tho'. Essentially all final decisions are made by consensus at the GA.

To answer your specific example regarding CNN, for us it would be a case of the proposal regarding all that having been handled by the Media Committee, then it was decided to propose it by the Facilitation Group and presented to the GA for decision. Here it would have been a proposal to issue badges to media, it might have been discussed in further detail, such as if there was to be any exclusive access or not and to which media exclusivity would be given for specific instances, and then the people in the Media Committee would have had the task of doing the actual work (making the badges, approaching the media or if, as might well have been the case in this instance, responding to CNN and liasing with them).

The idea is to get as close to actual democracy as possible, and no, nobody makes any final yay or nay decisions on their own...at least not anything of import. I'm "point person" for signs, among other things; I make signs for the demonstrations since I'm unable to do much physically (tho' I participate in demonstrations, utilizing my camp chair if my back is especially bad, put flyers up around the county,and do other things which don't require a lot of physicality). People can either suggest signs or I make them on my own for each specific demonstration, or in general for Occupy or 99%, etc.

To give you an example of a proposal, one was made when we found out Marin County Sheriffs had been part of the Oakland mess (we have video). This was before I was part of Outreach, just reported on last night. The decisions had been made to approach the authorities about this and seek prohibition for any Marin County police or sheriff to be loaned out to police other counties' Occupy situations, and it was taken to the Board of Supervisors. It's in process, so the volunteer who's doing it reported his progress last night; the Supes want to make the decision behind closed doors, but that's being fought and they're being pressured to do it in the public monthly meeting instead. The person tasked with this will find out when they publish their agenda today whether they went along with this; if they didn't, we will take steps to pressure them to make the decision in the public meeting.

There's all sorts of stuff going on, too many to explain here. Outreach is in charge of putting out flyers and, among other things, liasing with other Occupy groups in Marin (we have several now, and College of Marin just started their own in response to a day of action we did there with them a week or so ago). We send volunteers to their demonstrations, etc., and they reciprocate. We also do a lot of other things; each committee has a lot of stuff in the works, but I think Outreach is the biggest and has the most to do, perhaps Media or Communications have as much, because right now our impetus is to get the message out, grow our group, and get media attention.

That's a general idea; I hope it answers your questions.

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Thursday, December 1, 2011 7:58 AM

FREMDFIRMA

That's kinda how we always worked - along with the Sand-Castle Heirarchy once a consensus is reached.

-F

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