There are only a few more topics I have laid out for this Digital Tribes series of posts. The next few are centered on group organization, because not knowing where you stand or how to influence your status is one of the worst forms of stress.

You hear a lot of social media proponents (of which I am one) espouse transparency and merit based value assessment. This is one of the great promises of the digital participation age

It can feel like a Kafka-esque nightmare when you don’t know how things work and where you stand with in a group. People will stay in terrible situations rather than dive into the unknown, because “at least” they know what they are dealing with.

Groups prefer transparent governance, whether that is a monarchy, dictatorship, federalism, democracy or anything else. When the forces that drive decisions are opaque, corruption or conspiracy charges surface along with discontent.

For the purposes of building community in this wild west we call social media, there are very real, practical lessons to be gained from Native American tribal governance practices.

(Image of Chief Quanah Parker of the Kwahadi Comanche thanks to Commons.Wikimedia.org) 

In the next few posts, I will dig into the applicable tribal models of:

1. Merit based valuation

2. Consensus driven leadership

3. Tribe versus clans/ bands

Discussion of these 3 topics are intended to give online community leaders and participants a tribal foundation for their organization and governance options. 

I am always looking for good, current examples to explore in my digital tribe posts. If you have any examples of community organization or governance models that went wonderfully right or terribly wrong, please do share in the comments below, or email me: dgtltribe@gmail.com