On iTunes a few months ago I ran across what is Canada's only straight-to-pod audio show...

http://ourtimes.ca/Features/article_98.php

Since the review of FB appeared in Our Times, (see http://ourtimes.ca/Talking/article_87.php) I snuck back on to keep in touch with a grandkid who had moved to the UK for work. It wasn’t long before the bug got me though, and I got booted-off for the third, and last (I swear!) time.

This time it was support for the striking eggheads at York U. I posted info about a the CUPE e-campaign on the walls of as many union-related groups as I could find.

Facebook figures that was me spamming, even though the groups on whose walls I posted the info were all union-focused and they received no complaints. So gone I was.

Speaking of the Bad Book, we’ve been reminded that Facebook is as good an organizing tool for the anti-union folks (in this case business students at York U) as it is for us. Aside from the groups themselves, there have been several (thankfully small) anti-strike rallies organized using FB. As well as a couple of technically impressive blogs.

We don’t see enough union education and training online. It should be a natural for us as online education leaps with a single bound many of the obstacles (cost, distance, schedules) traditional union education methods face.

With web-comfort and access rising in the past few years the remaining major obstacles are organizational inertia (ahem!) and clunky yet wildly software.

Moodle intends to change that. It is, of course, open source software. It’s been around since 2002 but is really taking off. There’s a large base of users who are continuously fine-tuning it. Check out Moodle’s blog for an impressive list of organizations using it for online education.

http://moodle.org/

John Wood commented:

And it's extensible - even going into Second Life so you can share a classroom around the world with (you guessed it) Sloodle: http://www.sloodle.org/moodle/

LabourStart's Union group on the photosharing site Flickr.com (that's right, no 'e') just hit the 400 members mark. That means there are 400 trade unionists around the world with photography as a hobby who are posting their work to our group.

At almost the same time we saw (literally) the 3,701st photo posted to the group, the latest being a shot of Kamal Abu Eita announcing the formation of the Independent General Union of the Real Estate Tax Collectors in Egypt. I’m mentioning this because this photo illustrates (pardon the play on words) the geographical diversity of the subjects of the photos in the group. Unlike much of what’s on Flickr, our group isn’t quite so focussed on the global north.

If you haven’t already visited the group, do so at:

http://flickr.com/groups/union/

The following was sent to folks on the Stop The War listserve in the UK:

Dear friends,

Facebook today deleted an event set up by the Stop the War Coalition publicising the 2nd national demonstration against Israel's attacks on Gaza, with no explanation. Around 20,000 people had been sent invites to this event.

Stop the War urges all supporters to do everything they can to build for this weekends demonstration, including inviting your contacts to this event again to ensure the biggest turn out on Saturday.

In solidarity,

Stop the War Coalition
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

I think we're sometimes surprised when an employer or some other anti-union type uses the not-so-new-anymore media to organize against us. Something about still being stuck with the idea of the internet as an insurgent medium I think; somehow more ours than theirs.

Silly. A good way to get caught with our pants down.

This week CBC and SRC are reporting on OCTranspo's use of YouTube in trying to get their final offer through a forced vote.

http://www.radio-canada.ca/regions/ottawa/2009/01/07/008-oc-transpo-youtube_n.shtml
and
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2009/01/07/ot-090107-transit.html

Meanwhile, back at the York U. strike, anti-union students are doing all kinds of interesting, if wrong-headed, things with Facebook, blogs and such.

I've had a blog, Blogadder, over on Blogspot for a while.  I'll be bridging between the two by duplicating some selected postings here for a bit as I make the move over.  I'd rather be here and here only, but, frankly, I am stupidly attached to the name of my blog.  Stupidly because it was John Wood who actually came up with it, and because my attachment is rather remarkably ego-centric.

:-)

If you want to catch all my old posts, you can find them at Blogadder.