Saturday, June 19, 2010

KISS Too Often Ignored

I just finished a couple of weeks of training and PD with my co-workers. There I co-facilitated a workshop on new tech and what to encourage local unions to look at and use.

A rough survey of what's out there and in use provided the expected feedback regarding online tools. Websites, blogs, Facebook, even Twitter are in use. Scattered and not often integrated use, but in use.

SMS/texting on the other hand gets no respect. A pity really. Simple tech, everyone has it, works well elsewhere and gets great reviews from some of my favourite unions (the Botawana Miners Union comes to mind) but we don't use it.

How many campaigning and organizing rules does that break? Pretty much all but the one that says 'don't punch the people you're trying to organize in the head'.

The lost opportunities were underlined this week as the stories about how the recent strikes by autoworkers in China were organized and sustained. Even the New York Times took notice. Click HERE to view their coverage.

Sigh.