But never mind our organizational homes. As individuals we can jump right in without further ado. And what better way than with our skill sets as digital strategists, online organizers, social media gurus, and branding experts? Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Joining the movement can be a challenge. Existing systems are designed with full time occupiers in mind, not volunteers with an hour, a day, or a specific task in mind.

So here’s a guide, by a digital strategist, for digital strategists. If I’ve missed some useful tips, add them below.

The Organization of the Occupation
This description is based on the Wall St. crowd, but my understanding is that others are following similar models. While all major decisions are made by General Assemblies, most of the activists, including full- and part-timers, are part of Working Groups. Working Groups might be meeting more than once a week. Those meetings might not be efficient or accessible to newcomers. Still you’ll want to join one or more that make sense for your interests, and start digging in to any documents they’ve posted online and listening to the conversation on their listserv. Finding WG’s is easy for the Wall Street folks, might be harder for other cities. There is an effort to standardize names of WG’s across occupation.

The Internet and Open Source Working Groups
Here in New York, we have an Internet Working Group (IWG) and a Free/Libre/Open Source Working Group (FLO). The former has mostly worked on developing the main website for internal coordination, www.nycga.net. This site will continue to evolve in ways that serve specific working groups, and developer help is much appreciated. The FLO folks are promoting ‘open sourcism’ as an embodiment of the true principles of the #occupy movement. They also work on the tech infrastructure: hosting, servers, LDAP, a future CRM, wiki and more. The vision is not just to assist #OWS with tech solutions, but to create replicable, robust and secure systems available for all occupations, in the U.S. and around the world. They also welcome your help. A number of core team members are part of both WG’s.

On-Boarding for Newbies
Unfortunately, it’s been hard for the IWG and the FLO peeps to incorporate new people and new ideas. New ideas, even good ones, represent a challenge because of the pressure of uncompleted, previously agreed upon tasks. Some of the best work done by techies in support of the movement is being carried out by free agents (www.occupytogether.org) and outside/inside coalitions (www.occupytheboardroom.org) that don’t even try to interface with formal working groups. That said, a corner has been turned, and there are now systems in place to make it easier to onboard new volunteers – and even new ideas.

Start Here
If you want to help, fill out the volunteer form for the Internet WG. If you want to propose something you’ve come up with, read this post first or you might come across as an egotistic time-waster. Finally, learn more about developments already underway at the wiki. (It’s not as complete as it should be.) Be aware, that the project management tool Redmine is being used to track projects. Github is being used to manage development. There are listservs for all the WG’s, and for even smaller things like the Digital Strategy Team within the Internet WG that I joined.  (Follow the links above, and you’ll reach the proper signup pages.)

That said, as an online organizer I’ve noticed that the IWG and FLO teams are full of web developers, sysadmins and coders. Not small dollar fundraisers, CRM experts, digital marketers and solutions consultants. That crowd is likely to wonder where the official public facing website is, or why no one seems to be taking advantage of SalsaLabs generous offer of free services.  (Or the offer of a certain text messaging vendor….) As of this writing, no one seems to have the ability to send mass emails outside of a Googlegroup or Riseup listserv.

There are tech savvy organizers around (I’m refraining from mentioning names, but you’ve heard of them or their firms/organizations!) They seem to be attracted to the top level strategy questions involving press, media, and tactics for nonviolent direct action planning. I’ve also heard an argument firmly against the use of email list based organizing by #OccupyWallStreet. Who would write those emails? What messages could ‘the movement’ agree on, given the anti-hierarchical bias and refusal to issue specific demands?

While not all the organizers are young, or inexperienced, the vast majority associate CRM enabled organizing with groups like MoveOn or the Obama campaign. Liberals tainted by their focus on electoral or mainstream politics. Many associate the tools with top-down organizing, the antithesis of the General Assembly process.Personally, I think that position is incorrect. The ‘movement’ is using CRM all the time, as then they raised money on Kickstarter or chose Googlegroups as the primary listserv tool. They just aren’t using their own CRM, or taking advantage of all the possibilities.

An emerging area where expertise is needed is in technical strategy more generally. For example: the accounting team was overwhelmed by the needs for trasparency and basic bookkeeping. An expert in nonprofit administration have been able to help with software suggestions. The Outreach Working Group is engaged in marketing, to be sure, but they aren’t far along in developing their marketing strategy. Given limited resources, which communications should be directed at which groups for the most immediate benefit? Great questions.

The bottom line is, you don’t need to be physically present to contribute important online organizing skills to the movement. And you don’t have to start something on your own. If you’d like to understand more of what’s going on, feel free to reach out to me – I’m easy to find.

Costas Panayotakis

This guest post comes from Costas Panayotakis, a New York City labor activist with the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the faculty union at the City University of New York.

Costas has sparked an innovative public education effort, detailed below. I’m sharing it with you as a great example of creativity at work in unions today, and as something that others might adapt and repeat as part of their own political efforts.

In unusual times one has to do unusual things.  That’s how my stolid existence as a sociology professor at the City University of New York came to be enriched, by my second life as Austerity Nut.

Austerity Nut rides the New York City subways preaching the virtues of budget cuts, and the need for working-class sacrifice for the sake of our suffering brothers and sisters on Wall Street. He reminds riders, “Ask not what the billionaires in your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country’s billionaires.”

This week Austerity Nut took a break from his subway sermons, and brought his message to Tuesday’s March on the Billionaires of Park Avenue. With more than 1,000 people gathered across from the Plaza Hotel, Austerity Nut stood up and spoke out:

We are in a terrible crisis, my friends, because people who work for a living in this country have just gotten too greedy. The rich, on the other hand, are falling further and further behind – and they need our help!

The crowd loved it. Austerity Nut is a way to engage people’s attention with a little humor – and it seems to work.  After speaking at the Billionaires’ March, I got laughter, congratulations, and was interviewed by WNYC radio and a Chinese news agency.

Austerity Nut gets a positive response in the subways, too– thumbs-up signs, smiles and laughs, and sometimes a subway car full of applause. Cutting education, health care and social services is inevitable, Austerity Nut reminds strap-hangers and anyone else who will listen. ”We surely wouldn’t want to tax our brothers and sisters on Wall Street,” he explains. “After all, our rich people are the reason our economy is in such great shape!”

These impromptu performances have sparked appreciative notes to Austerity Nut’s email address (austeritynut@gmail.com), and invitations to perform at union events and demonstrations.  It’s turned out to be an effective way to expose the absurdity of the “shared sacrifice” propaganda favored by the economic and political powers-that-be, by pretending to embrace it.

And now Austerity Nut: The Movie has been unleashed on the world, along with a companion website (austeritynut.com).  The video features not just me, but several other members of the growing Austerity Nut movement, which daily preaches the virtues of budget cuts.  The website includes the basic script for Austerity Nut, and encourages people to adapt it for their own style and needs, and upload video of their own performance.

You too can join the Austerity Nut army – because it will take two, three, many Austerity Nuts, to shine a light on the terrible crisis we find ourselves in.

Costas Panayotakis is associate professor of sociology at NYC College of Technology, one of the 18 colleges that make up the City University of New York. His double life as “Austerity Nut,” and the thinking behind it, are detailed in his new book Remaking Scarcity, available in November from Pluto Press.

My goal is to offer training and consulting help to whoever can use it to advance the Occupy Wall Street movement. I’ll update my list of reference books when I get a chance – there’s people asking my questions here.

But don’t think I ‘m just arrogantly giving out my version of ‘what is to be done.’ Folks are sharing things with me as well. Terry Holmes for example, suggested that someone create a list of Fox News advertisers for boycott purposes. Hrm. Why not? Someone else just came by and asked for a manual for starting an occupation in a new city. Does one exist already?

What else, people?

The Meaters & The Onliners
For years now, the ‘meaters’ (as I like to call them) have been whining about the digital divide, defending their organizational and cultural turf within decaying/aging organizations, and grumbling about kids being on their lawn. You hear them less nowadays, as they are too embarrassed and fearful to attach their names to such opinions, but occasionally thinkers like Malcolm Gladwell or fanciful terms like ‘slacktivism’ gain brief currency. (Then Egypt has a revolution or something proving them wrong – again.)

Folks like myself, whether freelance or staff, function at times almost like secret agent consultants. We know we have something valuable to offer, but with a few exceptions much of our work is devoted to proving already established facts to slow moving organizations and overly confident staff.  How interesting then to observe that our skill sets as digital strategists or communication specialists are so undervalued by the Wall St. occupationistas as to make it impossible for many of us to connect within a movement ecosystem. We want to work them; they aren’t sure they want to work with us. Given the super loose/ultra democratic structure, it’s really hard to work with them.

And It Begins
Part of my experience with this movement began six weeks or so beforehand, when I came to what was announced as a planning meeting by the bull statue in lower Broadway. The first two hours was dominated by the Workers World Party, an obnoxious tribe of newspaper sellers. The second two hours were a dry run for the general assembly process of sitting in a large circle and slowly building consensus. I joined a working group, wrote out my name/email address on some lists, gave out some business cards to folks I know were early movers and shakers, and basically said: I like this and I’m interested in helping.

No one ever sent me an email. While folks in my line of work are very interested in things like list building, CRM databases that handle email lists. I kept wanting to ask ‘who is in charge?’ or even ‘who is in charge of communications strategy’ or perhaps ‘is there a designated accountable person for anything at all?’ Later, when a friend who is involved asked for my help, my response was hard to say out loud. While I wanted to help ‘Occupy Wall Street’ it felt extremely alienating to see such a lack of organization. Organizing skills are like a secret bat signal to wider circles of committed activists; if they seem to exist, folks show up; when they don’t, folks stay home.

Moneyball Organizing
And that’s the Moneyball connection. The occupationistas are protest traditionalists. For them, and this is in keeping with the principles of the Temporary Autonomous Zone and other pro-Situ ideas, the moment at which someone transitions from everyday life to Wall Street Occupation life is pregnant with possibility. Focus on creating that moment for yourself and as many of those around you as possible and magic ensues. This process can’t be counted, tallied up or ‘organized.’ It must be experienced. Just like baseball for the traditionalists.

Did that sound like criticism? It’s not meant that way. The creation of moments that demand a high personal investment but grant participants a meaningful conversion experience is the specialty of this tradition. They did it in Seattle in 1999 – remember Teamsters and Turtles? The direct action enviros do it all the time. This is the strength and contribution of the Zuccatti Park occupation. They’ve created a moment of truth in the heart of the capitalist spectacle. As Matt Stoler wrote, a church not a protest.

By organizing folks in my circles mean a process of recruitment, leadership development, and exercise of power that is accountable to a defined community. This is the working definition used by unions, community organizing groups like the former ACORN, and even a certain 2008 presidential election campaign. A close cousin might be called ‘coalition organizing’ that begins and often ends with groups standing together on a certain issue to maximize their impact on the political class. A great example is the New Bottom Line campaign.

Organizing places a great deal of stress of planning and accountability. How many doors knocked? How many petition signatures? Which organizations have signed on? Who are the community leaders involved? Much of it involves organizing people in structures that already exist and enjoy community support, such as churches and civic groups. This kind of organizing assumes that large numbers of people linked by authentic networks of deep relationship can overcome the advantages of money in political struggles. Winning isn’t the result of magical experiences leading to a crescendo, it’s the result of master organizers using enhanced voter files, membership databases, conversion rate metrics and the scanning of walk lists.

Organizers will often ask ‘who is on board?’ while planning the start of a campaign. This question covers issues of racial and gender diversity among the leaders and supporters, but also seeks to maximize the chances for victory. If some group out there could be helpful, and they haven’t been properly courted, their absence down the road could result in a preventable loss. So you have to do your homework.

The Wall St. Alternative to Organizing
The Occupy Wall St. crowd does it differently. Their answer to ‘who is on board’ is ‘we are!’ referring to whoever shows up that day. So if the early stages were overwhelmingly white, young and disaffected, representing a constituency so truly powerless that no community organizing group would think to recruit them, well so what? In the United States, young disaffected whites have often shown a great willingness to combine passion and self-sacrifice where others might have counseled deep organizing and networking first, and militant action second. (or never!)*

This rejection of what we might call ‘organizer’s bias’ meant that many potential allies were turned off during the planning stages and the first two weeks of the occupation. Make no mistake: folks who are connected to old school and new school organizing groups have been paying close attention, attending meetings, coming for drop-ins at Zuccotti Park, and trying to figure out who is in charge and what they want. And since no one is in charge and they want so many different things, those folks reported up the chain that it’s great, but very unclear how to connect. The complaint: ‘what are you demands’ was actually a plea: ‘we want to join but you’re making it hard!’

A colleague from a major NYC union called me to discuss how best to support them. But his initial take was quite mixed– the absence of a coherent strategy made it hard to negotiate specific forms of aid, which is often how unions conceive of their ability to help. Later, this union decided to jump in with both feet; but they still don’t have a handle on ‘the plan.’ There is no plan. That’s why we can’t call it organizing. The folks with plans have now jumped into the fray with both feet, as will be seen on October 5th.

You Might Not Like What Will Happen Next
But whatever it is, the impact is beyond question. With some meager hundreds of occupationistas, helped along by NYPD stupidity, the occupation of Wall Street is now a front page national issue. To a certain extent, the issues they raise are trailing behind. Issues like the culpability of Wall Street in our current mess, a millionaire’s tax, taxing financial transactions, reregulating Wall St., creating jobs, and addressing the foreclosure crisis.

Right now, some very different actors are coming together with public expressions of love and support. The street theater anarchists look at labor and think, ‘yes, we’ve prodded the behemoth to stir!’ The grizzled organizer types look at live video of the general assemblies and think ‘we can use this to generate concrete political victories like extending a millionaire’s tax in New York State!’ Truly, a May-December romance if there ever was one. Now we observe the groups from column A build their lists off the energy produced by the doe eyed campers from column B. Thanks Wall Street occupiers!

At some point – next week, next month or next year – this romance will come under strain. Street theater won’t spark a revolution. Instead, transactional politics will rear its compromising head, following the lead of groups that are accountable to members who would rather have real victories sooner (2012) rather than socialism later. See you at the ballot box folks – don’t forget to pick up your trash.

When the pivot happens, it won’t look like a struggle full of lighting and thunder. It will be more like an elephant shrugging off a monkey. In the end, whether you are feel more comfortable with old school or new school organizing will be irrelevant. It’s whether or  not you do organizing that matters, and all the websites, livestreams and video in the world won’t make up for not doing it. It’s Moneyball baby, not baseball. Pity the self-sacrificing occupationistas who don’t know this yet. I love you and wish you actually wanted to organize.

*Please don’t interpret anything above as a knee jerk rejection of white left activism. God forbid. And yes, there is some diversity. Funny how so many whites are actually fearful of simply recognizing their leadership and impact, as if the absence of people of color in multiple + visible leadership roles render their efforts pointless. That just ain’t so. It’s more complicated than that.

Communication directors who were trained in strategic communication and press relations are often biased in favor of message control, print and commercial electronic media, and the news cycle. It happens that many deal poorly with real time media, interactivity, and the elevation of amateur voices to the fore.

Webmasters/IT Staff are often technically minded web developers who took on the role of ‘online content manager’. They are often biased to see the website itself as the core function of digital media. It happens that they are often weak at offering digital strategy leadership, and sometimes a little too eager to suggest coding fixes to strategic problems.

Organizers are generally oriented to ‘real world’ activities like meetings, signup sheets, phone calls and events. The role of online engagement is often misunderstood, as expressed by flawed/incorrect mentions of the ‘digital divide’ or pejorative phrases like ‘slacktivism’.

[Note: Obviously, dear reader, YOU don’t fall in any of these categories.]

What this means to the budding growth of ‘digital strategy’ as a professional niche, is the importance of recognizing these kinds of entrenched bias. Leaders and grassroots activists alike can be alert for signs of the bias at work, to surface it openly where it can be treated with the best disinfectant: exposure. After all, there is plenty of evidence and resources to overcome the blind spots mentioned above.

Unfortunately, most of us encounter bias under circumstances where we can’t address it squarely. What if the bias is coming from someone with status power, and the culture doesn’t allow you to challenge their assertions? Or if the bias holder insists that her assumptions are valid and beyond question and is impervious to change? Or if you are able to recognize the bias, but not skilled enough to address it in the moment?

One of the unpleasant professional memories I hold comes from a time when one of my managers insisted, publicly, that one of our consultants had said A when in fact he said B. It didn’t help that I went back and got written clarification from said consultant…. Much like climate denial, professional biases aren’t necessarily rooted in fact. Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

What’s happening under the surface is that someone’s communications frame is very securely attached to their brain, making it hard to process information from outside the box. But right now, we’ll try and change that. With some advance preparation, those very same ‘frame hostages’ will not only adapt but convince themselves that they never even thought that way in the first place. Excellent.

Here’s how. Look for a training opportunity or strategic planning session to introduce our ‘communications taxonomy.’ It situates as many of the sub disciplines of organizing communications’ as we could come up with in relation to each other. Let us know if we’re missing something:

Even the most veteran professionals with the biggest egos won’t claim to be experts in ALL these areas. Most people have a few areas, clustered around one of these quadrants, where they have the most experience/expertise. Most communications operations focus on those areas where staff has the most expertise. It can be helpful to do an inventory of skill sets and experience to collectively recognize those areas where you/your department/your organization are lacking, and commit to being open to fellow professionals who DO have more expertise in that area. Just like in the song…

Well, I got a brand new pair of roller skates/You got a brand new key
I think that we should get together/And try them out to see

The frame changes from ‘I understand the important part of communications so let’s do it my way’ to ‘my expertise is mostly in one quadrant and I’ve got a lot to learn from experts with different specialties’. At least, one hopes it does. And if not, at least you’ll be able to articulate precisely what’s wrong with your communications operation.

Final note

There is a kind of communications firm in existence today that simply didn’t exist in the past:

• Purpose: “Purpose creates 21st century movements.” Founded 2010.
• Fission Strategy: “Fission Strategy helps social causes harness social media for social good.” Founded 2008.
• Echo Ditto: “We guide leading social change organizations and social enterprises through their use of connected media and emerging technologies.” Founded 2003.

I’m writing these words while attending the International Labor Communications Association conference. The slogan on the podium banner reads ‘The Power of Labor Journalists United.’ The roots of this organization are in the labor press going back more than 100 years. I suspect that the future of labor communications will sound a lot more like the copy from these young communications firms.

The first thing to understand about ILCA is that once upon a time it was ILPA – the International Labor Press Association. The labor press has a grand and storied history in the United States. There was a time when newspapers produced by and for union members competed successfully with the establishment press. Labor journalism wasn’t simply about labor struggles, it was the entirety of journalism, covering all fields of human activity – but from a class conscious perspective.

For many of us on the front lines of progressive organizing, the importance of the labor press might not be readily apparent. The fact is, there has been a decline of the labor press for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that the labor movement is in crisis. But for union staff, grassroots leaders and the engaged rank and file, newsletters and magazines published by the union are sources of great pride. That said, print publications were mostly founded long before unions members had access to the internet. We know what the internet did to regular newspapers; perhaps the same process is taking place in the labor press.

I first learned about ILCA in 2009, while working for the Working Families Party in New York. As an online organizer, I wanted to know: what exactly is a ‘labor communicator’ in the 21st century? Does it include bloggers on labor issues like Laura Clawson and other Kossacks? Does it include webmasters who manage content without producing it? What about those who draft emails, or use online communication tools for organizing?

My answers to these questions come from private conversations I’ve had with ILCA members and leaders. Let’s remember that ILCA was built around labor print publications, and membership was often related to the specific publication and how many copies were circulating. That said, the folks in charge weren’t ignorant of the rise of the internet, the shift of content to the web, the rise of self-produced video and audio content, and the reduction in budgets for print publications. An example of how they are adapting can be seen in the annual awards programs they run, which include categories for websites and use of social media.

The last few ILCA conferences featured a website devoted to the host city, with content created by the conference delegates. This is the Pittsburgh Media Center, from 2009. This is the New Orleans Labor Project, from 2007. After next week, you’ll see the Seattle effort, with a mix of stories chosen by the conference organizers and assigned to attendees. This activity is a great way to highlight the role of labor journalism and gives members a chance to showcase the great work they can do.

Digital Challenges
While celebrating the role of labor journalism, it might make sense this year to have a broader conversation about the future of labor communications. I asked the folks at UnionJobs.com to send me data about job descriptions in which the word ‘communications’ was mentioned. Looking them over for the past few years, it’s clear that a number of job categories are changing.

First of all, there is greater need for more technically skilled staff to work directly within union departments instead of as consultants or with vendors. Producing video on a regular basis using flipcams is different than hiring someone to make a well-produced video for a specific purpose. Is the union member using flipcam video as part of an organizing campaign a communicator? What about the staff member who distributed 20 cameras in the first place?

Second, email, web and social media communication channels are being used across departments and for different purposes than newspapers. While there are fewer jobs devoted to writing stories about labor, more and more have to engage in story-telling and mass communication as part of their job.

Third, we have the rise of a new function, not yet well integrated into the structure of the labor movement. Call it ‘digital strategy.’ In the good old days, important campaigns might have had access to ‘strategic campaign consultants’ who focused on messaging, and to a lesser extent press relations and advertising buys. But today, as important as those functions are, their practitioners are often absent when decisions have to be made about responding in real time to social media, adopting new technologies, implementing tools across staff roles, and keeping in close contact with those outside the labor movement working in the same professional space. There’s a reason why SEIU created a new department for New Media that was separate from the pre-existing Communications department.

It is probably true already that the number of webmasters, videographers, email campaigners, web content producers, bloggers, and digital strategists working in the labor movement rivals the number of those involved in print publications. Do they see themselves as ‘communicators’? Does ILCA see them as future members? ILCA’s website doesn’t actually define what it means to be a labor communicator, but just about everyone I’ve spoken to agrees that it has meant ‘content producer’ in some form or another. Print, video, graphic and audio content. It has not, traditionally, meant the kind of union employee who graduates from an online organizing training, or who is managing their local’s Facebook page and Twitter stream. Most of the staff performing those functions have never heard of ILCA.

The upcoming conference’s keynote speaker is Nation correspondent Jon Nichols, who reports often on labor issues. But they will also have Scott Goodstein of Revolution Messaging, a mobile phone campaign vendor, and Jason Mann, the producer of a recent series of training videos for labor folks using social media. It seems that a shift is underway, but the parameters of it are closely held. We know that a conversation about it exists, but we can’t read about it in advance, and there isn’t any space for discussing it online in advance.

I can’t help but wonder what an ILCA conference would look like in two years, and who will be attending. What fraction will work with or for print publications? How many will be primarily organizers? Will the emphasis remain on content production, or move in the direction of digital strategy? As an associate member who doesn’t work for a union, I’m not sure I have any ‘shoulds’ to offer. ILCA should be whatever it wants to be. But I’m very curious about what the current executive members and delegates think. Do you want to be different than what you are? Who do you think you need that isn’t already in the mix? Is that a conversation you’d like to have using new media where it would be transparent, interactive, and outside of your control?

What do you think? I’d love to hear from labor communicators of any stripe.

On the other side the aisle, there are many consultants of the digital strategy arts eager to help the labor movement, unions, and grassroots campaigns for economic justice. Some work for well known firms based in Washington DC, while others are freelancers from around the country. This September, they are coming together to offer pro-bono consulting services.

• Click here to learn more about receiving pro-bono consulting help
• Click here to join our team of pro-bono consultants and offer one hour of free consulting for economic justice

During the month of September, following Labor Day weekend, in honor of the role of organized labor and its allies, Organizing 2.0 and dozens of amazing consultants will be offering expert-level pro-bono consulting services. Please read the details of the project below and participate if you are able!

The Basics:
Forty consultants (including staff at unions and nonprofits recognized for their expertise) are setting aside an hour of time on Labor Day week. Organizing 2.0 will match them with staff and leaders at labor organizations (mostly unions) looking for specific help. After the week is over, we will describe the questions, the consulting assistance offered, and the clients in a report. (This report will omit details as relevant, to protect sensitive information, reputations, etc.)

The Consultants:
This project is starting with a number of consultants already on board. If you would like to participate as a consultant, please apply here. Our initial list of participating consultants is here.

The Clients:
The labor organizations requesting one hour of expert assistance can apply here. We encourage unions, community organizing groups working on economic justice issues, labor studies departments, labor constituency groups, councils and federations to submit requests for help. Our preference is for those who might not have regular contact with the ‘new media and online organizing community.’

The Questions:
What kinds of requests for help are suitable for a single hour of consulting? We’re not sure – one of the goals of this project is to learn about the needs that exist in the field. That said, here are some examples of requests for help that are high value and can be delivered inside of one hour -

• Assist in the preparation of an RFP for a website or other online consulting services.
• Review an existing client/consultant relationship. Are you being charged to much? Are there things your current consultants should be taking into account?
• Review a campaign or communications plan and look for online activities that might be integrated.
• Engage in a creative brainstorm. What else could be done? What kinds of online efforts make sense given your budget/timeline?
• Training: video production, Salsa/BSD, social media, Drupal/Wordpress/LaborWeb, or graphics programs. Or accessing resources to plan your own training.
• Communications review: look at existing websites, social media, email and advocacy campaigns, and hear a professional take on what could be done better.
• Search for case studies: maybe you are trying to do something that’s been done before. Use our network to find case studies you can use and make contact with others who have done it before.

Submit your questions here.

The Consulting:
If your question is selected, our first step is to set up a time between the client and the consultant. We’ll be making the most appropriate matches; not everyone will be selected. We expect the consulting to take place on the phone, via email, instant messaging (skype/gchat) and webinar software. In some cases, the consultant will spend part of the time learning about the issue, and then circle back at a later date to provide the appropriate service.

Additional Information:
Consultant rates are generally from $75-$250/hour. Most of the consultants on our list charge $100/hour (for freelancers) or $200/hour (for the larger firms). Based on that, we expect to provide at least $6,000 of consultant services.

Sponsors and Sponsorships:
We are grateful to Mobile Commons and Rogue Repairman for their ongoing assistance to Organizing 2.0. For the Labor Consulting Project we are seeking additional sponsors to help us with publicity. If you would like to help, please contact us.

Our Consultants:

• Daniel Atwood
• Beth Becker Progressive PST
• Sarah Jenny Bleviss
• Colin Delaney, ePolitics.com
• Joe Dinkin, Working Families Party
• Steve Dondley Prometheus Labor Communications
• Nathan Henderson-James, Leadership Center for the Common Good
• Michael Hoffman See3 Communications
• Asher Huey New Partners
• Elizabeth Jenkins 32BJ SEIU
• Justin Krebs Living Liberally
• Rachel LaBruyere Mobile Commons
• Jason Lefkowitz Rogue Repairman Productions
• Elana Levin, Writers Guild of America – East
• Xavier Lopez-Ayala The New Media Firm
• Adam Mordecai, The Idea Plant
• Anna Mumford Letitia Productions
• Richard Negri, SEIU
• Ryan Ozimek PICnet
• Greg Palmer
• Jason Rosenbaum Progressive Change Campaign Committee
• Shabbir Safdar The Safdar Group
• Brett Schenker, SalsaLabs
• John Shane Web Connectivity
• Heather Stefan New Labor Media
• Sean Watson TechEffect
• Jon Wheeler PowerThru Consulting

If you want to skip over the thank yous and backslapping, click here. Otherwise, THANK YOU speakers/presenters, including Farra Trompeter of Big Duck, Beka Economopoulos of Fission Strategy, Donna Norton of MomsRising, Eliza Bates of 1199/SEIU, Greg Basta and Olivia Leirer of New York Communities for Change, Elizabeth Jenkins of 32BJ/SEIU and everyone who participated in the discussions.

Thank you Murphy Institute who once again made it possible for us to offer training at such low prices. Thank you to our sponsors, and especially Jocelyn Mazurkiewicz who brought them all together and initiated this training. Thank you to our loyal volunteers, many of whom actually paid for the privilege: Bob Daraio, Marisol Thomer, Edrie Irvine, Justin Krebs, Brad Gans & John Greaves (3Knights Media) and all the rest who just chipped in.

And of course, thank you Elana Levin, Chairman of Organizing 2.0, who led our last session and without whom very little of what we do would be possible.

Intro to Social Media for Organizations

Farra Trompeter’s presentation is available below. I was very pleased that she was able to come, and for our first session no less. It combines a lot of facts that some of us might already know with some great analysis and insight. It made a lot of us happy that she felt trusted enough to critique a certain union’s Twitter feed. We need more of that!

• What is your peer community for staying on top of social media? (Like NTEN, ProgEx, or something internal to your organization.)
• At what stage do ideas about social media tools and tactics get introduced into campaign and strategic planning? Are the right people in the room to propose and evaluate new media strategies?
• Are folks clear about the investment and return on your social media activities?
• Is there a role for outside experts/consultants? How might you cultivate your ‘bench’ of advisers?

Is there anything else you’d like to share or learn about? Let us know!