USA.CAN ORGANIZATION DESIGN

USA.CAN has its origins in the My.BarackObama.com networking system that emerged when Barack Obama declared his candidacy for President in January 2007. It is now unfolding its own network system and website, and we are grateful and appreciative of all those who founded and guided the initial development and vision of the network.

Today, we are building an array of features intended to support Community Action Networks anywhere in the USA.

More or less, in simple terms, our system looks like this:

• One "mother network" that contains and holds together all participating groups and networks and organizations. Anyone who is a member of a USA.CAN state or issue network is also a member of the "mother" network.

• Participants manage their own email subscriptions, and can join or quit network groups as they choose, in accordance with the new member policy (are applications for new membership required for this group?).

• We have created a group for every state in the USA, and for every issue listed in the Blueprint for Change, or in the Issues/Agenda listed at http://www.whitehouse.gov

• Each group is managed by an administrator, who can add new members, and select the settings and options for the group.

• In addition to the State and Issue groups, we are also creating "topic" groups, on relevant subjects of interest.

• Every group can have as many "subgroups" as desired or appropriate. In the case of the state groups, we are organizing separate groups for every county, and each county group has its own administrator.

• Types of groups thus include:
  • State groups -- one for every state
  • County groups -- developed as subgroups of the State group
  • Special groups - developed for any purpose by a group administrator
  • Issue groups -- one for every issue -- with subgroups as desired and appropriate
  • And -- we anticipate -- the option for individual members to create groups on their own, perhaps linking together their contacts (friends).

• In all our interactions, we encourage a policy of friendly mutual respect and careful workmanship. We are aiming for a reformation of "politics as usual", and we believe the natural and healthy instincts of people everywhere, if encouraged in the right way, can emerge as a vibrant force for the betterment of society.

USA MATRIX - OUR "FIFTY-STATE STRATEGY"

One central feature of our system is our image-map navigation intended to link to every county, city, and zip code in the USA. We started off with maps from the US Census Dept., and now we've got them clickable into our database, connecting states and counties to the big picture.

There's going to be many ways to navigate in this system, but one easy way to get to a geographical location is to click the USA MATRIX link, and work your way through the states. We're starting to organize a database on every county, including county officials and the leading administrators in every locale around the US.

You can link to just about any locale-related group in the network this way. We'll keep adding features as the network grows.