Monthly Archives: September 2011

Leadership does not have to come from established organizations — leadership can emerge from communities and without an institutional relationship. In other words, people can organize without organizations. The recent examples of social uprisings in the middle east are examples of emergent, non-organizational organization, as are the recent riots in London (it’s not all positive). Closer to home, the recent community response in the Mad River Valley to Tropical Storm Irene shows it is possible for a decentralized yet “organized” response to a natural disaster in parallel to the usual institutional responses from government, nonprofit and for-profit businesses. All of these recent examples are possible because of modern social media. Continue reading →