Comments on: When the union's inspiration through its Twitter feed shall run… http://www.johninnit.co.uk/2010/02/02/when-the-unions-inspiration-through-its-twitter-feed-shall-run/ occasional scrapbook of a labor geek Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:02:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Dave Plummer http://www.johninnit.co.uk/2010/02/02/when-the-unions-inspiration-through-its-twitter-feed-shall-run/#comment-319 Dave Plummer Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:43:00 +0000 http://www.johninnit.co.uk/?p=998#comment-319 It's murder on the thumbs! It’s murder on the thumbs!

]]> By: Dave Plummer http://www.johninnit.co.uk/2010/02/02/when-the-unions-inspiration-through-its-twitter-feed-shall-run/#comment-318 Dave Plummer Sun, 07 Feb 2010 11:10:15 +0000 http://www.johninnit.co.uk/?p=998#comment-318 Fons, I use Tweetdeck and have, currently, four different accounts, each following different people/organisations and each for different purposes, eg: @pcs_euston is the union branch @dwhcoalition is for a local campaign Having different accounts makes it easy to follow different things and I'm sure many people have many more than four! Fons, I use Tweetdeck and have, currently, four different accounts, each following different people/organisations and each for different purposes, eg:

@pcs_euston is the union branch
@dwhcoalition is for a local campaign

Having different accounts makes it easy to follow different things and I’m sure many people have many more than four!

]]> By: Fons Tuinstra http://www.johninnit.co.uk/2010/02/02/when-the-unions-inspiration-through-its-twitter-feed-shall-run/#comment-317 Fons Tuinstra Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:48:27 +0000 http://www.johninnit.co.uk/?p=998#comment-317 Thanks for sharing this, John: over the past few months I see an upsurge in trade-union related tweets. Changes with this tool take place very fast and it is good to have a place to share experiences. Your sub-division of twitterati is very useful, unfortunately the number of twitter-issues is much bigger. A short introduction of myself: currently I'm helping the WageIndicator (collecting salary information now in 46 countries) to find their way in this new land of opportunities of the new media. That is no strictly a trade union angle, but comes of course close. Before that I worked as a Dutch trade union journalist and as a foreign correspondent in China - and that is where I saw how the new media can really transform a society. Twitter is one of the tools and i think it is useful to share some of the dilemma's we face: it is too early to even suggest their might be too many solutions around. 1. Personalized voice works best, but how can you personalize a twitter account for an organization? Most of my (China, new media) constituency is not very much interested in the wage-information I have, so I have split off @wageindicator from my more personal comments. Not a nice solution I find myself. 2. Following friends is a problem and the list only work partially. I have become extremely selective in following friends. Of course, you kick out obvious spammers and people who have more than 50,000 friends and would never read your tweets. But where to draw the line: twitter has become part of my digital radar screen (where I would read in the past newspapers), and you also do not want to miss interesting information. 3. Sending information out is similar tricky in this 2-way filter twitter is. Initially I have been sending out anything on salaries that sounded interesting: striking garbage men in Nepal, dropping wages in Japan, cut in public services in Ireland. I enjoyed doing that for a few months, but my colleagues felt it was just too much, too much clustered in sudden bursts of information. Now we are going to be more selective, although drawing a line will still be a challenge. 4. Getting the right interface is important. Like John, I'm using hootsuite.com now, although it has some disavantages (it goes dead when you are not online, and you miss a chunk of tweets from other time zones), it does not translate, like tweetdeck does, or twittefall. Just a few issues, I hope for more input from other or upcoming users. Thanks for sharing this, John: over the past few months I see an upsurge in trade-union related tweets. Changes with this tool take place very fast and it is good to have a place to share experiences. Your sub-division of twitterati is very useful, unfortunately the number of twitter-issues is much bigger.
A short introduction of myself: currently I’m helping the WageIndicator (collecting salary information now in 46 countries) to find their way in this new land of opportunities of the new media. That is no strictly a trade union angle, but comes of course close. Before that I worked as a Dutch trade union journalist and as a foreign correspondent in China – and that is where I saw how the new media can really transform a society.
Twitter is one of the tools and i think it is useful to share some of the dilemma’s we face: it is too early to even suggest their might be too many solutions around.
1. Personalized voice works best, but how can you personalize a twitter account for an organization? Most of my (China, new media) constituency is not very much interested in the wage-information I have, so I have split off @wageindicator from my more personal comments. Not a nice solution I find myself.
2. Following friends is a problem and the list only work partially. I have become extremely selective in following friends. Of course, you kick out obvious spammers and people who have more than 50,000 friends and would never read your tweets. But where to draw the line: twitter has become part of my digital radar screen (where I would read in the past newspapers), and you also do not want to miss interesting information.
3. Sending information out is similar tricky in this 2-way filter twitter is. Initially I have been sending out anything on salaries that sounded interesting: striking garbage men in Nepal, dropping wages in Japan, cut in public services in Ireland. I enjoyed doing that for a few months, but my colleagues felt it was just too much, too much clustered in sudden bursts of information. Now we are going to be more selective, although drawing a line will still be a challenge.
4. Getting the right interface is important. Like John, I’m using hootsuite.com now, although it has some disavantages (it goes dead when you are not online, and you miss a chunk of tweets from other time zones), it does not translate, like tweetdeck does, or twittefall.
Just a few issues, I hope for more input from other or upcoming users.

]]> By: Dave Plummer http://www.johninnit.co.uk/2010/02/02/when-the-unions-inspiration-through-its-twitter-feed-shall-run/#comment-316 Dave Plummer Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:11:17 +0000 http://www.johninnit.co.uk/?p=998#comment-316 Twitter's been an absolute revelation, for trade unionism and wider activism. It's undoubtedly the quickest way to get information straight from the horse's mouth, assuming the horse's mouth Tweets quickly enough. Twitter’s been an absolute revelation, for trade unionism and wider activism. It’s undoubtedly the quickest way to get information straight from the horse’s mouth, assuming the horse’s mouth Tweets quickly enough.

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