Evolving the PBA Through Empowering Its Members

Today has been one incredible panel after another. The last panel, Are Political Parties Obsolete? was very inspiring. Over the past few months, I've been unable to think of any realisitic ways to take the Progressive Blog Alliance to the next level. I've been talking with several people in the back channels; unfortunatly, the ideas discussed stalled, generally for two reasons:

1. Executing the idea would require us to dramatically increase the PBA leadership's level of control over the members.

2. The idea assumed that our 200+ bloggers would actually do what we told them to.

Now, there are a few Jacobians in the alliance who might disagree with my insistance on keeping the PBA as non-hierarchial as possible. I'm open to debate on that, however, I strongly feel that we should not respond to our growth by creating stronger power structures. Rather, I think we need to change the focus of our organization, and begin to expand upon our current function as a blogroll and a decentralized news/opinion collective. The PBA has always been about empowerment, community, and mutual benifit. Though we've made mistakes, deep down we've always strived to create an oasis of intelligence and humanity, in this bizarre and vulgar world we call the internet. Its time we take our legacy a step further. So here is what I propose:

In addition to PBA news/opinion, I want to add two new "institutions":

1. An online school for digital activism. Basically, this school's goal is to teach anyone interested on how to use the latest content-management/community building platforms (i.e. Civicspace, the platform that PBAHQ runs on), and the strange art of building internet based movements.

2. Web hosting for PBA members who want to launch venture projects. The online school would act as an advisorary body, and refernce library for the members that decide to take advantage of our infastructure. We'd require these projects to be geared towards the empowerment, organization, or education of the progressive movement. Other than that, I'd want us to be very open minded. If I think ya'll are serious, than I'll find the funding to do this. 

Those ideas are just two out of many. Lets get the PBA actively growing and evolving again. I'm sorry that I haven't been giving our alliance the attention it deserves. However, SXSW, and the brilliant minds that I've talked to have truly reminded me of its value, its potential, and its uniqueness. But enough of my lecturing

Everyone, where do you want to go? How can I help? How can we improve our alliance? The one thing we aren't touching at the moment is the blogroll. Please understand that the blogroll is a volatile issue, and I think we best address it when we have a better idea of how we want to diversify our alliance's scope, and empower its members. I'll be posting this entry to the PBAHQ, of course, but I have to proof read it first. Now, I have got to run to the next panel. I'm crazy late.