It's probably healthy to have moments of self-doubt from time-to-time, and I'm experiencing one now; so I thought it would be appropriate to share it with Communicate or Die viewers since the doubt in question is about the efficacy of the kinds of technology I generally discuss here. It occurred to me to explore this issue while doing my weekly search for cool new stuff that might be of use to unions, and feeling like ... blah. Like, how many new tools can we use? How many different ways to communicate with people can we handle? Is all this stuff a distraction from more important matters for unions?
I'm just wondering if the digital explosion is built on a foundation of hype so immense that I might be wrong about pushing the newest tech overmuch. After years of chasing after the new new in online technology, and seeing the kind of corporate types that when all is said and done still do the lion's share of technological development in our society, I get worried that - to use an old abolitionist expression - "you can't use the master's tools to bring down the master's house." Or to put that in a labor context, you can't use the boss' tools to bring down the boss' house."
I don't believe that's the case. But I'm surfacing these issues up because I have a feeling that many viewers feel this way sometimes. I can hear people saying (and have actually heard some saying) "who needs this web-based social networking crap, we'll just put out newsletters and campaign bulletins like we've always done, and we'll phone bank when we have to, and we have rallies and pickets and potlucks and trainings, and at the end of the day all that will do far more to reach, recruit, retain and inform members than any electronic gizmos."
It's fairly obvious that if people think a particular technology is just reinventing the wheel - for example, there's a trend of people abandoning PDAs in favor of traditional paper calendars because PDA's just don't cut the mustard for some - they are not likely to take it very seriously. Especially established institutions like unions.
However, if a technology is a game-changer - like those oft-mentioned social networking sites and blogs - and a whole audience of potential institutional partisans is a mouse click away just waiting to be contacted, then institutions like unions are a whole lot more likely to see the wisdom in making use of them.
Now here at Prometheus HQ, we try to discuss technologies here that we think are going to be game changers, but we can certainly be mollified by shiny objects as much as the rest of the talking apes - and it's hard not to get excited by the prospect of, say, having video phones on our wrists like Flash Gordon or Star Trek or something.
But I really want to hear from viewers on this issue this week. How much do you think having web sites and all the whiz bang tech that goes with them is helping or harming your union organizing efforts, internal and external communication, and relevance to society in general. Good, bad, mixed or indifferent?
You may fire when ready ....
