Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

No effort at creating group value can be successful without some form of governance. People are basically good, when they are in circumstances that reward goodness while restraining impulses to defect.

The problem of getting the promise right is unlike traditional marketing, because most marketing involves selling something that will be made for the listeners rather than by them. ("Buy Cheesy Poofs" is a different message from "Join us and let's invent Cheesy Poofs together").

The number of people who are willing to start something is MUCH smaller than the number of people willing to contribute once someone else starts something.

As the size of your network grows, your small-group pattern, where everyone connected to everyone, would first become impractical, then unbuildable. Let the small groups connect tightly, and then you connect the groups. But you can't really connect groups - you connect people within groups. Instead of one loose group of 25, you have 5 tight groups ... See more

Meetup.com is most appealing to people who share some philosophical outlook but have no support from the broader culture.

Anyone who predicts the death of cities has already met their spouse.

Revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new technologies - it happens when society adopts new behaviors.

Imbalance drives large social systems rather than damaging them. Only 2% of users ever contribute, yet that is enough to create profound value for millions of users.

People like to consume media, but they also like to produce it ("Look what I made!") and share it ("Look what I found!").