Last week’s Crikey had an article by former Australian Institude head-honcho Clive Hamilton, arguing that Australia needs “a new brand of environmental radicalism”. Hamilton writes: After a high-pressure meeting in Canberra, in which the government dangled the carrot of a 25% cut in Australia’s emissions, the Southern Cross Climate Coalition — comprising the ACF, WWF, [...]
The climate denialists in the Coalition has a simple message about the carbon price: It’s a tax. Taxes raise prices. Prices on electricity, fuel and other things therefore will go up. What about the alternative? The problem for progressives is that our arguments are nuanced. We don’t necessarily see the world in Manichean absolutes, black [...]
There’s been a lot written about the role that Facebook and Twitter has played in the overthrow of the Mubarak regime in Egypt – and also Ben Ali in Tunisia – so I thought I’d add my own thoughts. There are two main things I want to focus on: 1. The power of weak ties [...]
Imagine a parallel universe where the Great Crash of 2008 was followed by a Tea Party of a very different kind. Enraged citizens gather in every city, week after week—to demand the government finally regulate the behavior of corporations and the superrich, and force them to start paying taxes. The protesters shut down the shops [...]
Deloitte’s third annual State of the Media Democracy report was recently released and it has some interesting reading for union communication professionals. Within that decision-making process, recommendations continue to be a powerful influence. Overall, 53% of respondents said they had decided against making a purchase based on an online recommendation, but among 18-24- and 25-34-year-olds [...]
The battle to preserve collective bargaining in America is taking place in Wisconsin, after a Tea Party backed Governor announced budget cuts – not only to pensions and pay – but also to basic human rights. The big risk – and this is why it’s so serious – is that if unions lose in Wisconsin, [...]
Over at Creative Unions is an interview I conducted with Paul Degenstein, the Chief Creative Officer of Canadian creative agency NOW Communications. NOW put together this fantastic video for the Manitoba’s Government Employees Union, entitled “Woke”. It does a fantastic job of creating a strong emotional connection with health professionals whose jobs rarely have a [...]
So, you’ve downloaded my free e-book on Social Media for Unions, read my tips on how unions can use Facebook… what, you want more? Ok. You asked for it. Here are four more tips on using Facebook for union organising and communication that you can’t afford to ignore when you set up your union’s Faebook [...]
I get fairly regulary requests from a range of groups – unions, community organisations, political groups – for assistance in designing a leaflet, newsletter or poster. Most of the time, I’m happy to help, but sometimes the job is too big, fiddly or time-consuming for me to assist. That’s why I’ve started up a boutique [...]
It now appears that Tony Abbott’s tactics in Parliament of consistent obstruction and negativity is directly lifted from the extreme Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. While reading a profile on McConnell in The Atlantic Magazine, I came across a discussion of his tactics that seem remarkably familiar. But McConnell didn’t waste the crisis, either. He [...]
When Save the Children campaigner Jerry Sternin arrived in Vietnam in 1990, he was tasked with reducing child malnutrition. The foreign minister told him, “You have six months to make a difference.” It was made clear to him that he would not receive much government cooperation. The conventional view was that child malnutrition was caused [...]
Australia has had the SPAM Act since 2003. The Act is very clear: Under the Spam Act 2003 it is illegal to send, or cause to be sent, unsolicited commercial electronic messages. The Act covers email, instant messaging, SMS and MMS (text and image-based mobile phone messaging) of a commercial nature. It does not cover faxes, [...]
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