• Get social (new movement – face to face and online). You need to get on the phone and on the road. Get out there and socialize. Do more dinners and cast your feelers for opportunities to collaborate 30-60 percent wider than you normally do. Double the number of your regular trusted advisers. It will be good to blow off stress, add to the richness of your work and build redundancy and outreach capacity you may need to build teams, gather information and find work. Spending more social times with collaborative partners will take the edge off the stress caused by the same projects with less staff. Social ties may matter as much as ties with your peers in your organization or your managers.

• Reconnect with the common story you have with your peers and the common language you share with other progressives. Work in campaigns and advocacy has, of late, been too concerned with explaining nuance of differences because there are so many groups and so much overlap. The tension and division created by this legacy of infighting and competition will be ramped up as resources shrink. But what is good for the group may not be good for the activists and actors.

It is time to reconnect with your personal priorities and motives, as well as with the voice you share with your peers. The actors must realize that we have much more in common with partners that we compete with locally and across the county. Brand loyalty is not a great strategy in a climate of disruption. Foundations are also going to be losing staff, donors are going to move on and some groups and campaigns will be merging. Partners you stab in the back may be the only groups moving legislation in a few months. It will serve you well to spend time rediscovering the common language of the movement.

• Broaden your skills. The movement is undergoing a transformation. Make sure you hone some specific skills that will enable you to operate effectively as teams become spread father apart and groups cut overhead. Learn how to use some of the free network tools that are valuable in day-to-day operations; shift your perspective on what is possible. Learn to use Skype. Use an RSS reader, go to training course on communications, figure out how to blog. Set up an account on Facebook and Linked-in and tune in once a week to understand how they work. Pick up skills need for long-distance team management or project management.

• Redefine your role. Pick new network roles (weaver, operations, director). Lead in new ways. Network leaders must monitor resources, communications, responsibilities, feedback and output. They must be able to see and respond to trends, and have the power to make decisions and redirect energies as appropriate. Network weavers must be able to bring together network resources, tie the network together and reconnect fractures. The network must also have people supporting network operations.

• Broadcast your skills, talents and costs. In the nonprofit sector, we have a huge opportunity to retain more of the money that we do have within our networks. But first we need to better understand the skills, talents, and capacity available. What are the resources that partners within our networks need? What can you deliver and how can you advertise it? Each organization needs to be able to pitch its services, labor, field organizing capacity and management skills to others across the movement so that they can leverage their existing investments. Individuals will need to document and communicate their own skills and talents. As nonprofits cut back, the staff who bring in revenue or reduce overhead are going to be the last to go.

Generate cash flow and opportunities. In tight times, everyone should be looking for cash flow ideas and opportunities. All of us need to be reminded that we have multiple bottom lines and one of those bottom lines is that revenue needs to meet expenses. Be supportive and be flexible.

• Borrow. Start asking for help. A big part of building ties actually starts by incurring social debt. In a network-based economy, it is essential that each individual understand how to borrow. Borrowing is the currency of issue and political networks. Each request increases the value of the market.

We also need to understand that the more we borrow, the more likely it is that we'll share. So we need to ask freely for help and support. We need to borrow people's conference rooms, borrow staff, printers, location, facilities, or support for an event. The more that we can operate on a borrowed economy, the less financial economy that we'll need to depend on.

Borrowing helps build trust, and creates interactivity across a broader part of the network. It is important to make sure that our network doesn't seize up in tough financial times.

The other side of the mandate for all staff to borrow is the mandate for all staff to share. Share your input, interest or your knowledge. Help people learn lessons quicker. What did you borrow in the last week? What did you share?

• Scan the widest area of the field. It's really important now to broaden your radar. You don't know where the next challenge or the next opportunity lies. You don’t know which partners you might have the ability to work with, or how your issue may pop in this environment.

It is critical that you start to scan a wider field of knowledge for two reasons: --It affects your job, and your opportunity to add to the cash flow for your organization. --By scanning the field, you will see the trends. You will be able to jump on a policy opportunity with others. You will be able to notice where people are gaining traction, and where the resources are.

It is critical to learn how to scan huge swaths of the news, and of feedback from your peers. Make sure you are on the right list-servs, or divvy up that task across your staff. Make sure you read RSS feeds and use Google alerts. Go to briefings, meetings, conferences, gossip grapevines, and news sites. how to guide

If you find something interesting, pass it on to the right people or the right lists. Publish your findings. Try to create or participate in the echo chamber that gets louder and louder around legislative and funding opportunities. In a networked world, thought leadership comes from the analysis process, not the information itself. Publishing and sharing your thinking is a critical survivor skill for a network.

• Provide feedback. In the new economy, with large coalitions and collaborations being run on fewer resources, it is more important than ever that we provide feedback on what works and what doesn't: feedback on observed trends from other peoples' activities, feedback on their skills, reputations, and contributions. Without a central boss, feedback is the only way we can control the network. Feedback is the mechanism for collaboration and synchronization. It is the mechanism for enforcing norms and ostracizing troublemakers.

Success “bubbles up” when we learn what works and what doesn't work, and increase our movement’s “trial and error” capacity. The mechanism for that is process is feedback, and it starts with the members of the movement providing it.

• Get your finances in order and know your needs. Surviving disruptions is going to require that people understand their risk and options as the job market collapses. Most people can’t focus on work if they are worried about losing a job, house, car or health benefits. Go through your personal “worst-case” scenario planning so you understand what you need, and make sure you understand what it will take to keep safe. Feeling out of control adds to stress, and not knowing your breaking point puts the life you are building at risk.Continue to focus on what is fun, important and meaningful to you.