Geeking Out
I can’t wait until nextgen Google Glass (or a competitor) lets me sleep through every meeting. Or make funny faces, during video calls, that no one else can see.
As more and more of us use our phones to organized direct actions, we become vulnerable to authorities’ control of the cell signal. These folks are figuring out work-arounds for protest movements.
Reputation, Reputation, Reputation
Do you organize people in jobs that require criminal background checks? A new program the FBI is rolling out may incorporate photos from those programs into facial recognition searches for actual criminals.
Facebook wants to help you find your friends—where they are hanging out in real time. And they say they won’t use that data to target ads. At least, not until their next privacy rejiggering.
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
The Swiss continue to move in the direction of being the first country to provide a guaranteed basic income to every citizen. Meanwhile, organizers of this subreddit are planning a MayDay Thunderclap supporting basic income.
New York City is not just promoting worker-owned co-ops—they’re partnering with them to fulfill government contracts.
Car-sharing with apps is great—if you happen to live in a big city, with lots of users, that is. But what if we could use the principles of customer/driver verification for hitch-hiking, a much more likely method of ridesharing in rural communities?
Organizing Theory
Can a crowd-funding approach to fundraising also lead to more activist donors? And while we’re on the topic of crowd funding—IndieGogo put out a great video series about how to make your project a success—here’s the first one.
Greenpeace figured out how to make an MMORPG out of deforestation spotting, to engage thousands of online activists in reporting illegal logging.
What’s Going On in the Workforce?
Imagine that every US company with more than 35 employees had to make seats on the board for employee representatives. That’s how the Danes do it.
Some of us in the US may have a hard time thinking of Chinese trade unionists as major allies in the fight against Walmartization. But these Chinese trade unionists took on Wal-Mart head on.
American Greetings company came up with a novel way of pointing out the millions of hours of unpaid labor that some of us do every day.
Is technological change responsible for the inequality that exists in the United States? This history professor says no, it’s really our public policy and a lack of union density that creates our unfair society.