Link Loving 08.02.12

• How Walter Neagle, the late Bayard Rustin’s partner, is re-introducing his story to the world. Robert Samuels.
• There is now a reality TV show about wind turbine workers. Hello green economy! Christopher Mims.
• The London borough of Southwark has 77 betting shops – with more to come. Rowenna Davis has had enough.
• Conference calling across the Occupy rhizome – and how learning spreads. Joan Donovan.
• The Chinese Marshall Plan. Eliot Gao.
• Look To The Stars – all the news you want about celebrities and charity fundraising. h/t Shiftlabs.

10 Tips On Writing From David Ogilvy

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.

2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.

3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.

6. Check your quotations.

7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it.

8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.

10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

h/t Maria Popova.

Link Loving 07.02.12

• The awesome team at 350.org are hiring.
• What good is Wall Street? John Cassidy with a fantastic piece in the New Yorker.
• So you think all those online campaigns are useless? Julie Bort.
• Aid doesn’t work: breaking the cycle. Simon Moss.
• Abolish the food industry. Raj Patel.
• A beautiful short video that’s gone viral about mothers and daughters in relation to cancer.

Why You Should Watch TV

“We live our lives through media – people spend around 5-7 hours a day watching TV. It’s a place where we learn who we are, and who we are with. We figure out what’s important to us. On the one hand, it’s easy to trivialise TV, because it’s part of this corporate structure and we know that the programmes are just there to sell us the advertisements, but on the other hand, for better or worse, it is the place where many of our basic core symbols are enacted, and where we really think about what it means to be human in the twenty-first century.”

Diane Winston is the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California. In this fascinating conversation on my new favourite podcast ‘On Being‘ (h/t Vanessa Reid), she discusses monsters, myths and religion in TV. Unexpectedly interesting listening!

Climate Campaigner Jobs With 10:10 And 350.org

Some great climate campaigning jobs coming up –

• 10:10 are hiring a campaigns-director – absolutely fantastic opportunity with someone with experience + big ideas
• 350.org is hiring an online campaigner to help move the world past fossil fuels.

Link Loving 06.02.12

• Romania gets it’s protest on. Alexandru Predoiu.
• The public are fully behind taking on the finance industry. Sunny Hundal.
• Meredith Alexander explains why she resigned from the London Olympic committee.
• Leading Conservative blogger Tim Montgomery backs marriage equality. Stephen Grey.
• Tom Baker analyses The Times’ cycling campaign.
• Every windfarm mapped – and the MPs who hate them. Simon Rogers.

Emerald City

Great introduction to the work of Emerald City, one of the key players in the US Green Jobs revolution. If you’d like to find out what’s happening in the UK – keep an eye on the East London Green Jobs Alliance.

Link Loving 05.02.12

• Nezir Sinani is fighting to stop a coal-fired power plant in Kosovo.
• Natalya Sverjensky spots a piece of gold from Mario Molina summing up why deniers of climate science are so misled in their assumptions.
• Claire Melamed wants some big ideas for development. Anybody? No?
• Roseanne Barr wants to be the Green Party nominee for president. Jess Zimmerman.
• The Times launches a campaign to make cycling safer. Why they doing it? One of their journalists is in a coma after being hit by a truck.
• Is there such a thing as ethical capitalism? Kerry-anne Mendoza.

Kill The Megaphone

The megaphone has become the go-to image for campaigns. At UKYCC, I’m afraid that we used it too.

But doesn’t the megaphone represent everything that’s wrong with campaigns?

• one-way communication
• preachy – ‘I know better than you’
• brash and annoying
• hierarchical

It took me about ten minutes to find the example images from NGOs across the spectrum (see below). To stress, I respect all of these organisations immensely – I am cruelly picking on them to make a broader point about how we present ourselves as campaigners.

• If we’re asking people to join us in campaigning – how many will be turned off by the idea that they have to go and shout at people when they don’t yet feel confident in their understanding of the issue?
• If we’re saying we have to meet people where they’re at – how can we listen when we’re the only ones talking?
• If we need permission from our audience to speak to them, is this a polite way of asking for it?

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And to prove my love for the megaphone in practice..

Link Loving 04.02.12

• If people in the Middle East could democratically choose what country they lived in, would they choose the one they are in now? Seth Kaplan.
• I am a little bit in love with Tilda Swinton.
• Free video training for UK-based activists.
• Gene Sharp interviewed on BBC Hardtalk. Saw him speak twice this week – definitely worth it.
• How to tip consumer behaviour towards sustainability. Tom Crompton and Greg Maio.
• Great idea – UniHomeSwap. Angela Harrison.