johninnit

People sometimes ask me “John, why should trades unions get involved with Twitter?” No, honest, they really do, my life is *that* exciting at times…

My standard response is that it all depends. The microblogging service Twitter is potentially attractive to unions as it’s something of a liberal and Labour ghetto, and it gets a lot of column inches for being flavour of the moment and making people look modern. However, Twitter is almost a platform in search of a utility, and different people/unions might get very different things out of it, or of course nothing at all, depending on how they naturally want to communicate. (more…)

Nice little video roundup of some IBEW locals in the States, who are using MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter in their campaigns.

Hat tip AFLCIOnow

Just arrived in Liverpool, ready for this year’s TUC Congress (www.tuc.org.uk/congress2009), which is worryingly my eighth one (I hope there’s some kind of medal). I’m pretty chuffed with some work I’ve been doing on a separate site Congress Voices, which aims to collate social media coverage of Congress, linking people here at the event with the millions of UK trade unionists that this parliament of unions represents.

You can find it at www.congressvoices.org , but if you are blogging, Tweeting or Flickring about Congress, it will hopefully find you! I’ve already noticed a few Tweets coming in on the hashtag #TUC09, and any flickr photos shared with user tuc.org.uk will also come to our attention. The site also provides a commentable agenda, where users can have their say on the motions under debate, which is another first. (more…)

Friday is the unions’ global protest day in solidarity with our colleagues in Iran. Free trades unionists there have been harshly repressed in recent years, with many in prison for organising unions outside the approved ‘puppet union’ structures, or for daring to hold May Day celebrations.

I’ll be outside the Iranian embassy on Friday with colleagues from the TUC, ITF and UK unions. There’s more information on the demo at the TUC site,  if you’re able to come along (12:30-13:30 at SW7 1PT). (more…)

Okay – I’ve succumbed to the inexplicable Twitter frenzy that everyone seems to be afflicted by of late, and will be tweeting away at the Put People First G20 march and rally in London this weekend. It could actually be fun to see how well a crowd of activists are able to report live from a big event like this. (more…)

Thanks to Roger for pointing out this piece in the Graun today about Alan Johnson’s political twitterering.

I can see the attraction of microblogging for putting your worthiness about, without the efforts of writing a full-on short-term leadership blog. As Alan’s e-Campaigner Stuart Bruce says:

“Being secretary of state for education and employment is a critical job and there is no way Alan could do a blog properly. It’s better to not blog than to do it badly. Most people don’t have a clue what senior politicians do. Using Twitter gives a real insight and clearly shows that he’s an ordinary guy.”

I’m not so sure about his other suggestions on how Twittering is a more inclusive format than blogging:

“Only 60 % of UK households use the internet regularly. Mobile phone penetration is nearly 100 %. Twitter is a way of making the campaign much more accessible to most people.”

In principle, sure, Twitter is great for letting those of us without a computer keep in the loop. But I’d question not just how many people have ever heard of Twitter in the UK that don’t already have internet access too, but how many people outside of the bloggerati – that least representative group of Labour members – have the faintest whit what all this is about in the first place.

This is where I think the lovely democratic potential of web2.0 often falls down. It can spread like lightening through people who are already linked in to it, but new services lack the marketing money or revenue shares to get into the places they need to be to be seen by Jo/e Punter – on the sides of London buses, or integrated into the phone networks’ portals.

Any hint of a glorious dawn of 1-1 communications with our elected leaders should be grabbed at whilst we can though – it looks to be winding down already in the USA. Facebook have a special category for US politicians now. You can’t be a friend of John Edwards (Alan’s comrade in twittering) any more, but instead get the chance to register yourself to support him – something a fair way different!

However it’s good to see that Alan & Stuart are taking their gimmicks seriously and are on the ball on keeping things updated – my facebook friend request was reciprocated much quicker than from most of my real friends

My gimmick tip to Stuart (tho he’s most likely doing it already) – a well-touted MyBlogLog profile. Most political bloggers would be disproportionally well flattered if it looked like Alan had been reading their pages!