The Blog Workers Industrial Union does many things for its members and the newest, most exciting thing is ... an email list where we pass around information on jobs that might fit bloggers and other sorts of online organizers.
So let's talk about this list and about the other stuff we do for our people.
Beth set up the jobs email list a couple of weeks ago. So far all of the jobs have been political operations and non-profits. We've seen about fifty posted so far and we've just started digging into the various sources where such information is found. Even before this we had a flow of these sorts of requests from the campaigns we're helping and the Democratic party's push into social media coupled with economic hard times are likely to make this service increasingly popular.
If this sounds like something you need you can drop a note to bwiubs at that gmail thing, or you can call the union hotline at 832-4BWIUBS.
There's an ad hoc diary promotion machine. Those of us with large Facebook followings selectively mention stuff that is either well written, or not getting attention due to being posted at a bad time, or if it's a particularly hot issue. There is a Progressive cabal on Twitter and that's good for getting a lot of eyeballs on an issue that wouldn't normally come to DailyKos, but it's even more moody than the hotly pursued wreck list. I've got fifty or sixty people in my Google Talk who might write a diary here or there and a couple of truly eager folks who text me when they put something up.
Any time this promotion stuff comes up there's a glass shattering level of sniveling over the fact that there are methods for getting one's writing seen beyond pressing publish and crossing your fingers. I've never really understood why anyone would complain about not understanding how such things work, but as an autistic adult I'm used to being excluded from this, that, and the other for reasons I find either silly, or inscrutable, or both.
As for what I (Stranded Wind) do and why: I like to see Democrats get elected and it's all the better if they cleave to Progressive values. If I get a diary that is consistent with the current legislative efforts and well written I'll give it a bump. Probably two thirds of what I pick up is just stuff that I like the looks of, some of which fits for my Twitter followers, and the rest of which might interest my Facebook connections. I'm easy to locate on Facebook, Twitter or Google Talk, so you've got no excuse for not knowing how to activate such things for important diaries of your own.
Using the word 'union' to describe what we do has proven to be a stroke of brilliance; we encapsulate the goofy, puckish, fast moving blogosphere in an entity with a name familiar to politicians and we act like a real union, providing the ground troops and specialists for campaigns. This, coupled with Beth's campaign background and the various places she serves lets us get into campaigns that wouldn't normally talk to bloggers, and we make it a point to invite others along for the ride. We always try to get with the state blogs if we're having a call and issues, contacts, and calls that are national in scope get passed around in Google Talk or by phone. The best way to get involved in this is to fire up Twitter, hunt up the bloggers that intersect with the #p2 hashtag, and start up a conversation.
We were in D.C. a few weeks back and one of the things we came away with was a demo account for Salsa. We've got a full featured Senate campaign site for Alcott Bambakias and about half a dozen people who are working to master the system. There are free trainings every day provided on Salsa Commons but there is a bit of a learning curve. One of our members has climbed it and he will hand hold new people as they come along. We're going to be taking on some real world projects in this area and goals based education in an existing system with mentorship available is generally a better mode for adult learners than sitting them down with a book.
PeanutButterPAC came out of our little collective and this training stuff will result in not only people having better job opportunities, but we think we'll turn that into a for profit consulting thing as well. It might end up being part of Progressive PST or it may be independent – that's still being decided. I'd like to see more economic development like this – there are a lot of good ideas that die for want of a tiny bit of support, and we've really got to stick together given the economic conditions we face.
So, that's that. You can find the Blog Workers Industrial Union & Benevolent Society on Facebook, you can locate Spedwybabs or StrandedWind on Twitter if you have more questions before joining, and if you have something you want to organize that needs just a little nudge we're ready to help.