Marketing and Outreach

From the way different topic file,
I think that number crunching would be a
great service for presumptive union supporters. Assuming that there is anyone
who would do this for free. I'm just throwing it out there as an idea. Like for
example people who are good at statistics
and using sas, or stata or similar. Frequently unions feel they could prove something or another with some data they
have gotten but may not have a lot of people
on board who know much about statistics.

People oftentimes think of web sites and
then run headfirst into the problem that
people can be very cagey about what goes
on a web aite. So they often end up with little. But there's probably a lot more computer-related things that need to be done if people got away from the web site
thing, IMHO.
Certainly there are many possibilities with games and alternate reality type environments. Anyone who knows how to program games could get all the ideas in the world to promote unions, I think.

http://www.ipdi.org/
Sounds like an interesting report (but it
costs $20):
"Person-to-Person-to-Person: Harnessing the Political Power of Online Social Networks and User Generated Content

What's a campaign, non-profit, or advocacy group to do when the public wants individualized, interactive, on-demand content thisveryminute? The good news is that the tools for building active social networks already exist. They are surprisingly affordable, and they seem to work well for both national movements and small, local campaigns. Person-to-Person-to-Person takes what you already know about human nature and incorporates the concepts in an affordable, tangible way into strategy.

Release Date: September 15th, 2006"

You can read the executive summary for free,
tho.

Publicised by infoworld:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/09/15/HNsocialnetworkpolitics_1.html

An old post buried deep in the forum mentioned the idea of a CoD organizing committee. It occurred to me that one of the first, and easiest functions this committee could fulfill would be to greet new members personally, explain a little about the site (recent and frequent topics, core member bios, goals), and encourage them to post something, most likely experiences, on their CoD blogs.

This idea is a lot like the designated "greeting committee" on Wikipedia. These committee members bring new members into what feels a little more like a community of interest, with just a little personal touch. Actually finding new members is a different function entirely - but its definitely worthwhile to encourage better participation from existing members.
And maybe other functions could be charged to committees in the future? What do others think, and who would be interested?

OK, this quiet litte corner of the Internet has been plugging along for about 9 months now. It's got a few loyal posters and there's generally some pretty interesting and controversial stuff up here. We've built up a membership of 120 names. I don't think that's too bad for a web site about a fairly obscure topic and the relatively meager brain energy I've devoted to the site.

The use of networking is what will make this site a community that leverages the member’s talents to "realize the full potential of Internet technology."

Of course it is always risky to attempt to tell organizers that it may be a good idea to revisit fundamentals now and then, but hey, let’s think about this idea "networking".

Doing a Google search of "networking" brought up this hit,
http://www.orgnet.com/BuildingNetworks.pdf

If you take the time to read this PDF file I believe you will find new appreciation for the importance of networking. There is a difference between describing what something does and explaining why it is so, I am told. This short paper attempts to do just that.

I hope I’ve gotten you curious enough to not only check it out but to do some real networking for the goal of getting unions to use more Internet technology

bty, I did not write it and have nothing to do with it.

Cheers,
Tony

If you have ideas for who the Communicate or Die community shold reach out to and encourage to join, please comment here. Also, please indicate if you are willing to do some of the footwork involved in contacting them. This should be a team effort.

It has been brought to my attention by Tony Budak that Art Shostak maintains a list of union webmasters. I will volunteer to contact Art to see how he feels about using it to help promote this site to them.