Obama HQ Blogger: The Education of an Organizer

[Susan Kitchens]

Good reference worth reading. [Hat tip to Oona in The Field comments]

The importance of narrative and personal connections is something that Barack learned early on in his career as as community organizer. A recent Los Angeles Times article takes a look at the origins of some of these concepts, and the contribution that one man, Marshall Ganz, made to the philosophy of this campaign:

If Barack Obama succeeds in his historic quest for the White House, the Illinois senator will owe a large debt to Marshall Ganz's passion for such narratives -- and for the way this graying, portly man taught Obama's top field organizers to weave thousands of individual volunteers' stories into a social movement.

[Suzy]

Thanks Susan. We'll have plenty of time after the election to learn more...
meanwhile, there IS a Saturday event not too far from me, so I plan to get to it.

[Susan Kitchens]

I think we need to seek our our own resources, or participate in activities run by the O.O.F. (the Saturday events are OOF run). I know that Patrick takes seriously the direction from the campaign to stand down on independent online activity, so I don't expect to hear from him about his activities. (He left this site and all his helpful comments went with him.) One thing I mentioned to him (he was originally intending to blog it, then said, Oops, sorry, guess not) was keeping a personal diary about the experience. You may not let it all out in real time, but a record of activities would be good -- if only to keep straight all the events of a high-energy whirlwind time.

[Suzy]

The Harvard site for Marshall Ganz gives PDF format materials. Also videos. I was thinkikng they might be a focal point for some Fieldhand meetings. So exciting that he trained the Obama Organizing Fellows.
Hope we hear from Patrick, and some of the other Fieldhand Organizing Fellows.

[Susan Kitchens]

Cool, thanks for that. (and it's a hyperlink now. It is automatically linked)

Have been reading Barack Obama's Dreams from my Father... which has a whole section about his experience as a community organizer.

[Suzy]

There is also a gold mine of information from Marshall Ganz on Community Organizing from his Harvard workshops: icb.do?keyword=k2139http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k2139

oh, rats - that isn't appearing as a hyperlink! and Susan has already emailed me & told me how to do it. sorry....but it's worth reading! Really it is.