占领华尔街运动正在走向组织化行动

    对于我们这些置身工商界内部或整日与其打交道的人来说，世界各地的占领者群体似乎跟我们心目中的组织概念有着天壤之别。

    占领者并不指望通过联邦政府来实现他们似乎极其分散的目标。他们拒绝推出某一个单一的代表性人物。此外，占领运动的目标和进程因城市不同而存在差异。这样混沌不清的运动到底涉及多少规划呢？

    然而，自从首批20人左右的示威者在9月份占领曼哈顿下城的祖科蒂公园以来，依然有几十万倍感沮丧的人不断出现在世界各地的公共场所。此后，这场运动开始涌现了一批中坚分子，甚至在9月中旬，纽约市的数百位示威者被逐出公园之后也依然如此。

    应该有不少大公司希望能够复制这个中坚力量形成的过程，也就是依靠科技把一个地方性的、平和的想法转变为一场运动。

    把占领华尔街运动的扩张描述为一个有机整体似乎有点不恰当，因为这场运动的进程更像是一段在Youtube上如病毒般引起疯狂传播的猫咪视频，而不是一株顺藤而上、有序生长的豆茎。曾经当过教师，现在已经成为一位全职占领者的贾斯汀•维德斯说，围绕祖科蒂公园的首批抗议者形成了一个支持性的系统，来满足抗议者的基本需要。他说，人们最开始要通过Twitter来接受食物、水和栖息地等方面的捐赠。

    但随着加入者越来越多，占领华尔街运动逐渐衍生出一些次级服务，比如有些人专门协调解决冲突事件，还有些人专门负责处理媒体关系（维德斯就是其中一份子）。这些支持性系统扎根的地方并不是河流、港口或其他资源丰富的地区，而是全球各地异见人士的驻扎地附近。

    几乎无限的数字空间为这种扩张提供了便利。组织者彼此之间使用共享的Google文档进行合作。并非所有文档都向所有人开放，但差不多任何人只要联系到了恰当的人，就可以访问任何一份他们想查看的文档。

    占领者通过工作小组的形式在集会上陈述各自的主张，这种小组通常由两三位志同道合的人组成。

    To those of us inside, or orbiting, the corporate world, the packs of occupiers all over the world appear antithetical to what we consider an organization.

    They don't want to achieve their goals, which seem scattered, via Washington. They refuse to have a single, representative face. Besides, the goals and processes of each Occupy movement vary by city. How much planning does it take to be nebulously ticked?

    Still, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world are frustrated enough to keep showing up in public places since the first 20 or so people took over Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan in September. Since then, the movement has started to form a backbone, even after hundreds of occupiers in New York City were evicted from the park in mid-November.

    Many big businesses would love to replicate the construction of such a backbone, using technology to turn a local, contained idea into a movement.

    It's a bit of a misnomer to describe the expansion of Occupy Wall Street as organic because it progressed much more like a viral YouTube cat video than a beanstalk. A community formed around the first crowd at Zuccotti Park to support their basic needs, says Justin Wedes, a former teacher and now a full-time occupier. People originally used Twitter to get donations of food, water and shelter, he says.

    But as more people joined, OWS developed second-tier services such as mediators to resolve conflicts and people, including Wedes, who handle press relations. And instead of sprouting up next to rivers or ports, or other resource-rich areas, these communities formed, globally, around dissent.

    Nearly limitless digital space has accommodated this expansion. Organizers collaborate with each other using shared Google docs. Not all of the documents are shared with everyone, but pretty much anyone can access any document they'd like to see by contacting the right people.

    Occupiers present their ideas at general assembly meetings via working groups, which are made up of two or more people with a common cause.