Following the recent idea to create elected ambassadors and my post about channelling our energy, I have an idea. I think the concept of elections are very powerful. While not a perfect mechanism, it is a good one. So I’m bouncing ideas around trying to figure out how we could use elections within CouchSurfing.
We want to avoid resistance from the established systems. So I think using the term Ambassador will cause confusion. However, a group of people could quite reasonably choose to elect a “community leader” or “community representative”. That idea got me thinking about creating a CouchSurfing member council.
A group of democratically elected representatives who have the permission of the community to address matters on their behalf. This could be a very powerful mechanism. These individuals could serve as a channel for members to interface with the CouchSurfing organisation.
I think most people agree that communication is the biggest operational problem facing CouchSurfing right now. A mechanism like a member council could help this process. If there was one person for each town / city, speaking on behalf of the community, the voice would carry a great deal of weight. Likewise if the system scaled up to regional / national representation.
Of course, there is a great risk that it would simply create politics for the sake of politics. But I do believe it could work.
Does anyone have experience of designing systems like this? Any experience in organisations of this nature? Would anyone care to share their comments / feedback / criticism / etc?
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