Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Here Comes Everybody follows this tradition. For Shirky, this essential excitement comes down to an optimism about the open-ended possibilities of organizational forms made viable by the web.

One of the reasons that Here Comes Everybody holds up comparatively well in 2022 against its contemporaries is Shirky’s willingness to recognize how broader social forces might thwart the “inevitable” effects of a technology on society.

Everyone wants to be picked, but no one wants to organize the collective ‘we’.

It’s the ‘we’ that creates a school of thought, a movement, a network, a culture.

Curate, connect, organize and lead.

The notion of the “organization man”—a term popularized by William H. Whyte’s seminal 1956 book that describes the subsuming of individual agency in service of a large corporation—is giving way to the rise of “micro-entrepreneurs,” or free agents, creators, freelancers, and independent workers who utilize digital platforms to make a living by lever... See more

First, we get distracted by the inclination to make the group as big as we can imagine. After all, the change is essential, the idea is a good one. It’s for everyone.

Except that’s a trap. Because a group that’s too large cannot be coherent or organized.

Or perhaps, we blink and settle for a group that’s too small. Change requires tension, and if our... See more

People might be enthusiastic and capable of some level of self organization but they also require directions and guidance and someone to answer their questions. Most successful crowdsourcing efforts are products of a robust collaboration between the crowd and the individuals guiding them. These people focussed the collective and corrected for some ... See more