A fun seminar at the TUC the other week, on how unions might be able to use blogging to influence public policy debate. Great economic policy blog case studies and tips from Tom of Labour and Capital and Richard of Tax Research, and a side order of demagoguic simplification from Paul Never Trust a Hippy, who very thoughtfully wrote up some well-worth-a-peek notes to share around.

I got my own 5 min waffle in, and this is pretty much what I said. Blogging is a technology (basically the combination of 3 ideas: simple and freely available publishing, loose networks and conversation through comments and links, and simple republishing and syndication via RSS to help people follow a blog), which lends itself very well to six scenarios that unions might well find themselves in.

• Insight – Judy McKnight, the former General Secretary of NAPO, maintained a blog during a lengthy review of the Government’s offender management systems (NOMS). As the consultation and legislation had profound implications for their profession, her blog was keenly followed by concerned members, and using the blog Judy could post immediate updates herself as soon as there were developments or milestones, giving members a view directly into the process and the union’s work.
• Profile – SEIU’s Andy Stern blogs at popular US group blog Huffington Post. This gains him an instant audience of people who are interested in politics, and means he is being seen in the same place as other influential polticial commentators. One caution though is that he loses control over comments, and has to rely on HP to moderate his blog. In the UK, union leaders such as Brendan Barber,Tony Woodley and Mark Serwotka have taken a similar approach with the Guardian’s comment blog CommentIsFree, but an interesting example comes from Unite AGS Tony Burke, who blogs on trade magazine PrintWeek’s own group blog. Tony represents the printing section of Unite, and this is an ideal way for him to get the union’s message unmediated onto a site well used by members and potential members.
• Co-ordination – During the campaign to stop luxury clothing firm Burberry from moving production from Wales to China, local GMB officers and activists used a blog (Keep Burberry British) as a focal point to keep people up to date with the dispute. The diary format meant that anyone who wanted to stay up to date with the fast moving campaign had one bookmark to visit, for updates, photos, videos, events and actions from a number of activists.
• Sharing – BuyoutWatch is a blog from the International Union of Foodworkers, tracking private equity buyouts. They list and link to influential articles and research to keep people in the union movement up to date with an important new area for them – a kind of shared reading list.
• Engagement – AFL-CIOnow is a very ambitious project from the US union federation. It was launched because a hostile US media seldom takes notice of union news. The AFL-CIO have identified the burgeoning US political blog scene (many times bigger than our own) as an area of media where they can potentially have significant influence. The project is as much about engaging with other bloggers as about writing their own blog, and the staff (probably the only staffers in the union movement with the job title of ‘blogger’) read and comment on many more pieces than they actually write. They build relationships with friendly bloggers, and have had a lot of success in getting some very popular sites to cover union stories and opinions, and come to the AFL-CIO for comment. And in a nice twist, the coverage on influential blogs has helped boost their regular media coverage, as journalists pick up AFL-originated stories from blogs like Daily Kos.
• Collaboration – The GM Workers’ Blog is run by the European Metalworkers’ Federation. It’s an open group blog linking workers in different GM plants around the world, to help grassroots activists be better informed about developments and possibilities in other parts of the company, by talking direct to each other through posts and comments.

Blogs may be fashionable, and it can be a bit lonely to be the last kid on the block without one, but they’re not just for Christmas and before starting one, it’s worth investing the time in working out what you’re doing with it.