Forum Post: The biggest problem I see Occupy having to address short-term...

...is the possibility that it will choke on its size. The bigger a coalition is, the more diverse it is. The flip side of that is that the bigger a coalition gets, the more likely its members are to hold differing or even completely opposite views. The greater that general discord is, the less likely it is that enough people will be able to agree on damn near anything, and in turn the more discordant a movement's followers are the harder it is to mobilize that movement toward concrete systemic action.

Having a leader or a group thereof is the way that you beat that paradigm. You pick a group of however many people you want to run things and make policy decisions on a day-to-day basis, and then you agree to abide by those policy decisions assuming that they fall within reasonable, collectively understood boundaries. You then also include some means of holding your leaders accountable for the cumulative effects of their actions on a regular basis.

You don't even have to call them leaders, or even to centralize the duties of a leader in one group. Just set up a general logistics workgroup responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the protesters and massing large groups of them where necessary. Set up a PR workgroup composed of sober, articulate, clean-cut moderates who are capable of appealing to people fairly far outside our standard political and socioeconomic demographics to convince them to vote for people we trust.

Set up a political workgroup (or in fact affiliate officially with the 99% Declaration) to manage any political campaigns or primary runs attempted in the name of the Occupy movement (including the selection of candidates, but those candidates would need majority approval from the rest of the movement before actually running) that would be responsible for PR efforts, fundraising, and general campaign management. Then just give the finance workgroup a voice in and a position reporting to the logistics workgroup, and there you go.