blogs

Some interesting thoughts on group's anthropology

1. Edward Hall’s “Beyond Culture,” "Fortunately, something is known both empirically and scientifically about the influence exerted by size on groups and the effect of size on how the groups perform. Research with business groups, athletic teams, and even armies around the world has revealed there is an ideal size for a working group. This ideal size is between eight and twelve individuals. This is natural, because man evolved as a primate while living in small groups…Eight to 12 persons can know each other well enough to maximize their talents. In groups beyond this size, the possible combinations of communication between individuals get too complex to handle; people are lumped into categories and begin the process of ceasing to exist as individuals. Tasks than can’t be handled by a group of eight to 12 are probably too complex and should be broken down further. Participation and commitment fall off in larger groups — mobility suffers; leadership doesn’t develop naturally but is manipulative and political."
2. The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information
3. http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000U6&topic_id=1
   

Here some citycita.org reviews around the blogosphere: thank you all to spread the word

In chinese:

http://www.neweb2.cn/archives/475.htmlhttp://blog.iseeny.com/web2style/item_1817.html

In spanish

Hipertextual -bitelia//

Citycita, herramienta de organización para grupos de usuarios

We can all agree that the internet is mostly an extremely good thing and has generally enriched our lives as a medium that has fostered a greater level of connectivity and interactivity between human beings worldwide. As a complementary tool to the burgeoning plethora of communication platforms – sms, mobile phone, videophone – it evidently enhances our capacity to interact with each other .

However, the problems start when we start to use the net as a substitute for physical interaction. Dr Thomas Lewis, with his particular expertise in neurobiology has used the psychobiology of emotion and human relationships to try and establish the relationship between the physical presence and the capacity to communicate precise and detailed information. Face-to-face communications, it seems, are the best way to get across intense information in business.

Punk is perhaps the most overused word of our time whenever we talk about popular culture: punk rock, cyber-punk......not a day passes without some artist, musician or designer claiming to be influenced by the punk movement, setting him/herself up as the natural heir of the punk movement or describing him/herself as having that prized but oh-so-difficult-to-define trait -" punk attitude".

Why is this so? Well, I think the major reason why punk still remains a particularly pervasive, relevant cultural movement is due to the essential, absolute truth of it's central credo : self-organized, autonomous motivated groups can get together, challenge the status quo, ignore the establishment and blow away all pre-conceived ideas of how to be culturally active. This unleashed a tidal wave of cultural creativity that swept away the huge musical behemoths of the day ......and still reverberates to this day.

Although an organizer will normally try to attract as many members to his/her group as he/she feels comfortable with, be sure to identify and weed out members who are continually inactive. If they don't contribute to the group and don't tend to attend events, then maybe you need to consider whether those members are valuable enough to retain. At the end of the day, it's up to you, as the organizer, to establish your criteria for selecting and retaining members.To make sure you your group is a success and well attended, here are some tips:

• Print out and distribute some business cards/group fliers to anyone you think is a good fit for your group. Give them to your assistant organizers and any willing members so they can distibute them too.

Summary

Based in Paris, France, citycita is proud to present and provide a powerful group-organizing tool to bring people together for friendship, learning, activism and more.

We believe in the power of local groups formed around common interests to enrich people's lives and revitalize the democratic process.We also believe that the creative potential of the net can only be truly harnessed by self-organizing autonomous groups of like minded, committed radical individuals.

Seth godin releases 3 free ebooks which focus on  non-profit marketing issues .

A must read :
- Flipping the Funnel for Profesionnals
- Flipping the Funnel for Politicians
- Flipping the Funnel for Non-Profits