KPFA Social Media Workshop Notes 2-23-13

2-23-13
Led by Clay Leander 
Sponsored by the Unpaid Staff Organization

"Twitter is the ultimate collaborative sport."

(Workshop conversation: Jan, Adrienne, Clay, Steve, Kazmi, Jayshree & Ann)

Contents:
Overview (thinking)
KPFA-Specific
Overview (tools)
Your Website
Facebook
Twitter
Miscellaneous

-----------------OVERVIEW  (Thinking)----------------------

What is Social Media?  Why is it important?

it’s about joining your work with the work of others to create something more powerful and useful than is possible alone; it’s not about simply telling people about what you are doing.  People once talked about “interacting” with communities, now it’s about “engaging” with communities.  In other words the communication is best when it is 2-way.  When we use social media, we should be conscious of taking other producers and programs into the discussion with us.  We do this by, among other things, cross-promotion. 

Clay told a story of a radio station shut down by the FCC which moved to an internet format and strengthened its audience through social media.  When it returned to the air, it was better off than when it left.

You can tell the entire world about your program, like the example someone gave of a friend with 100,000 facebook followers.  Or you can cultivate a specific audience, like KPFA’s Radio Cuba Canta which parlayed its once-a-month broadcast into a world-wide community of Cuban music lovers.  They have just over a thousand facebook followers, over 10,000 down loads and a reputation that extends to musicians in Cuba.

When you are doing really important work on life or death issues, people are more apt come to you.  

It’s good to have a facebook presence but it’s just as important to post on other people’s pages and be part of the larger discussion.  This will generate people you want to interview and become a self-generating loop.

Social media is often about “listen now” and we try to get our information out in a way that connects immediately.  “The program starts in five minutes” etc.  But, what we do also has value over time in adding to the knowledge base and long-term discussions.  It’s important to make the archives clear and available.

Make access a routine part of your social media work.  It often takes only a minute of thought and/or a minute of effort.   For many of us, assess is not a choice, it’s how we live.  Many people who are visually impaired use a screen reader with a mechanical voice that “reads” the internet, e-mail, Word documents, etc.  Read on to find out more on how to make your work accessible to those who use screen reader technology.

Use and promote sites and tools that are accessible and don’t use the ones that aren't.

----------------KPFA-SPECIFIC----------------------

Log in for KPFA’s WiFi:  Areai941, no password

We should all be labeling, promoting and tagging our KPFA archives.  Many are labeled only with a date, which makes them useless for searching.  There is an easy interface to do all this for your program’s archives.  You can do it from home.  Contact Miguel Guerrero at Promos@kpfa.org or ex. 252 for instructions and a password to log in.

We need a way for google to “find” discrete KPFA news stories.  This may be happening for the stories posted on KPFA’s Sound Cloud.

https://soundcloud.com/kpfa-fm-94-1-berkeley/

This option is free for KPFA producers.  Contact adrienne@sonic.net or John Hamilton news@kpfa.org for directions.

KPFA has a streaming channel.  Watch for it on KPFA’s website March 9, 10-3 pm when a conference on Nuclear Whistle Blowers, Health & Safety, Workers & our Communities will stream live.  Talk with Andrew about streaming yr next event.  Andrew@kpfa.org ex 203.  The process uses ustream and a smart phone. http://www.ustream.tv/new

---------------OVERVIEW (TOOLS)-------------

IN GENERAL

Captchas are the bane of blind and sight-impaired folks!  KPFA has one where one answers a math problem (like 2+2 =: and you type 4 in the edit box.) That is the only foolproof version. The audio on others is purposefully difficult to understand and the visual is hard for even the sighted to see.  Beware of captchas on Google Docs, Yahoo Groups, and other sharing sites.  Signing up for Yahoo Groups can be done via email.

Don’t judge anyone’s character or work habits by their facebook profile, aesthetics of their website, or other kinds of detailed work.  A blind person’s profile may not look top notch but may have taken more work than one created by a sighted person.

FACEBOOK & TWITTER

Before you delve into the details of these two services, you might want to read this popular article:

How to sustain a social media presence in 3 hours a week by Alexandra Samuel

http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/career-work/how-to-sustain-a-social-media-presence-in-3-hours-a-week

One major purpose of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc is to get people to come to your own or your program’s website.  (not to drive people to their advertisers)

Facebook and Twitter are a lot of people's connection to the Internet in Africa and other poor communities around the world.  They may not have a laptop, but if they can possibly afford it, they'll have a smart phone that connects to FB and Twitter.

MANAGEMENT TOOLS (Hootsuite)

Hootswuite is a free management tool for your social media.  It provides a dashboard where you can see details of all your social media, twitter, facebook, wordpress, tumblr and many others.  It provides analytics so you can see what effect you are having.  And, it allows you to schedule your basic postings.   The scheduling saves time.  Using HootSuite (or something like it) simplifies the confusion of social media.  The "pro" version, for an extra $10 a month, gives good value.

You can use Google doc spreadsheet to schedule yr tweets through HootSuite.

-------------YOUR WEBSITE--------------

BEST WIDGET TO ADD TWEETS TO YR WORDPRESS WEBPAGE (Incoming)

Wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cbnet-twitter-widget/

Some word press themes include an automatic twitter feed.

BEST WIDGET TO SEND YOUR ARTICLES OUT (outgoing)

Automatically reposts your website article to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Blogger, Tumblr, Delicious, Plurk, etc:

Nextscripts

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-networks-auto-poster-facebook-twitter-g/

ADD SHARE BUTTONS TO YOUR WORDPRESS WEBSITE ARTICLES

This gives your readers the ability to share your article on their favorite social media site with a few clicks. 

These are equally good:

Sociable:  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable/

Share bar:  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharebar/

Share this:  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this/

ADD A LINK TO KPFA’S ARCHIVE OF YR PROGRAM

Clay has written a particular script for this.   See what it does by scrolling to the bottom of this article on his blog for Radio Cuba Canta:

http://radiocubacanta.blogspot.com/2013/01/26-jan-2013-radio-cuba-canta.html

If this would be useful to you, contact adrienne@sonic.net or Clay ctoneradio@gmail.com for the script and directions in how to use it.

Audio and video should be captioned for the deaf.   Let’s get a system and start transcribing our radio programs.

HELP THE WORLD FIND YR ARTICLE

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  means making your article or message something that google and other search engines will find and move to a higher ranking.   Google changes its criteria regularly so we don’t know everything they look at but they do pay attention to how many people are reading your article and the ads. 

Google also looks most directly at the first sentences of the article.  If you use a celebrity name, that will get you bumped in the rankings.  For instance: “Helen Hunt is all about people with disabilities in the movie, The Sessions” will get more attention than “Mark O’Brien’s life comes alive in this popular new movie.”   Your first sentence should mirror the main content of the article. Don’t use a sentence like “The iron lung wheezes and, as you enter the room, a man smiles from his place at the end of this large yellow machine.”    (This focus on first sentences leads to some awkward sentences but at the moment it can’t be helped.)

ACCESSIBLE WEBSITES AND YOU TUBE: 

MS Word docs, flash, shockwaves and .pdf's ONLY work if created accessibly.  Don’t use text boxes in Word.  Don’t slap a picture of a flier into a .pdf and expect it to be read.  It's still only a picture of the page, not the words themselves, and optical character recognition must be used to make the translation worth the trouble.  Many people don’t have that capability.  Formatting matters, too. Text is your best friend and most likely to be understood by various people living with disabilities.  Adobe has an accessibility link from which one may learn how to make an accessible .pdf and an accessible website with Flash. http://adobe.ly/aQOzld

Audio description of videos is important.  A video with various voices can be mystifying if there is nothing non-visual to explain which character is speaking.  Unless captions, lyrics or other text is given, Youtube videos cannot be seen with a screen reader. 

A website picture is a big blank for folks who use screen readers.  Caption your photos and describe them.   Wordpress has a fill in-the-blank area to do this in “Add Media” section.  

----------------FACEBOOK---------------

There are three ways to have a facebook presence.  As an individual, a page, a group or an event.   Individuals are limited to 1,000 friends.  Pages & groups are allowed unlimited followers/fans.    Pages have metrics to track how many people are looking at your posts and how many are sending them out to others.  You can also find information about what countries people are living in if you look closely at the analytics section.

People will spam Facebook personal pages so be prepared to spend some time moderating.

Facebook ads.   Facebook gives you more attention when you are paying for an ad.  They use some kind of formula for which posts go to the top of the page and how long they stay there.  One of the criteria is how many people are commenting on the post, another is whether the poster has bought an ad.  The cost of an ad is based on the number of “likes” the ad brings you.  Last year, one of our participants agreed to pay facebook 75 cents per “like” for a month and got 5000 new likes.   This year, she paid 10 cents per “like” for a month and got 1000.  The minute the ad ended, her posts disappeared from the top of people’s feeds.

Tagging on Facebook.  This is a fairly new practice.  You “tag” names of friends who you hope will be interested in your post.  This can be annoying to your friends but it can also create a group conversation.  Anyone who comments on any of the facebook pages which holds your post (all the pages of you and your tagged friends) is added to the comments on all the pages.  It’s not clear how screen readers can be used to tag.

The main facebook site is nigh impossible to navigate with a screen reader, so the blind and sight impaired use http://m.facebook.com/ instead. It used to be that one could replace www.facebook.com/ with http://m.facebook.com/ and simply copy what came after the trailing slash, but that is not axiomatic.  Check our m.facebook, to “see” what facebook looks like for folks whose eyes don’t see like yours.

----------------TWITTER--------------------

Twitter is the ultimate collaborative sport.   You are joining a constant ongoing conversation. Participate.  People follow you for 1) original content, 2) the quality of what you pass on (curate).   Everything is short and quick.

Your success depends on how you chose and respect your followers.

To begin:  Don’t use the “Egg” for yr profile.  It identifies you as a novice.

Invite people to follow you.   Look up people you respect and invite their followers.  Check out the followers of their followers & invite those you find interesting.   Take an afternoon and find 30 people you respect.  Follow them.  Their tweets will arrive on your twitter feed.   

Watch these tweets and retweet 3-4 of each group.

It used to be that everyone followed everyone who followed them.  But that became overwhelming.  Now, you can 1) follow a small group you chose, 2) make your followers into “lists” so you can post and review selectively or 3) follow everyone who follows you.  Use a list for spammers so you never have to see them again.

Use Hootsuite to schedule when your tweets go out so you can tweet regularly without thinking about it too often.  Schedule some to go out in the night to reach international folks.

Keep the message shorter than the absolute maximum.   It will be read and retweeted more often.

When you are tweeting a long link, shrink it at https://bitly.com/ to make more room for words. (There are other free services for this: Ow.ly is one.)

Use hashtags.  Hashtags are a word or phrase that begins with #.  It helps people find your tweet when they are looking for topics or events.  If I tweet about Pushing Limits, I would likely use #disability since that is the main topic of the program.  I would also include @kpfa so that my tweet will show up on KPFA’s twitter account.   Try to include your hashtags in the tweet itself to save on words.

Here’s two recent examples:

1. From Davey D:  “RT @jasiri_x: RT @DJDSCOTT Django better not win with Mrs. Obama introducing the nominees lol #FLOTUS #OScars2013 
2. from Democracy Now: Today Marks 1st Anniversary of #Trayvon Martin Killing http://owl.li/i4yIy  See all of our reports: http://owl.li/i4yPt

Use photos. People like photos.  Take a photo of something beautiful in your life and tweet it now and then.  However, a picture produces no words for a screen reader to read. If a picture doesn't have a caption, it might as well not be there for a person with a visual impairment.  If you take a picture of a piece of paper,  it makes the words invisible to someone using a screen reader.  

VINE:  Allows you to tweet 6 sec of video.  It’s a twitter smart phone app that looks promising.

To jumpstart a twitter discussion, one of our participants created two identities and had a discussion with himself.

When you ask people to tweet about an article you’ve written, give them the actual phrase and words.  They aren’t likely to do that part themselves.  Make it easy for them.

-------------MISCELLANEOUS--------------------

CELL PHONES

To tether a cell phone and a computer, use a data cable and software downloaded from your cell phone carrier.  In Windows XP, the trick is to use Active Sync, a free program from Microsoft.  In Win Vista and higher, the hub is the Sync Center (part of the OS).  The necessary cables generally come with the phones, but can be purchased separately from phone stores or favorite electronics stores.  Talk to your carriers' tech depts if confused. This process could be used to upload video, pics and/or audio to computer for addition to feeds, sites, etc

RSS FEED

We didn’t get into this (yet) except to mention it as a way KPFA could have ongoing scrolling “headlines” on the front page of the website.  It would be nice to do it with Pacifica programs and news stories from around the network.

WEB BROWSING

Web browsing in “incognito” or in “private” mode may give you data unaffected by your previous browsing history – as well as allowing you to browse the Internet without saving any information about which sites and pages you’ve visited.

Directions for Firefox: 

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/private-browsing-browse-web-without-saving-info#w_how-do-i-turn-on-private-browsing

BASIC ACCESS
The most important thing is that NOTHING may be taken for granted. Not the keyboard, not the mouse, not the monitor, not a particular operating platform or piece of software.  Nothing!  Because of this, we want as many doors to this cyber-building as can be contrived without driving everyone nuts. Studying the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines would be helpful as well as the Telecommunications Act of '96 Sect. 508 federal guidelines. That's where the meat is.

TUMBLR

A microblogging platform and social networking website used by younger folks, half the users are under 25.  Likes photos- A Lot.

PINTEREST

This article echoes some of the themes of the workshop.

"How My Site Gets Tons of Traffic From Pinterest"

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/gets-tons-traffic-pinterest-193000565.html

This link was sent to me by Jan Gurley (http://www.docgurley.com/  Check out her articles on tobacco and the Alameda health department's work in Oakland.):

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

As we were sitting in the New World Center talking about social media, UPSO Council members David Gans and Tim Lynch were rocking the KPFA Fund drive with social media support for their Grateful Dead day-long program.

Notes by Adrienne

----------------------------------------

Unpaid Staff Organization Council Members

Shahram Aghamir: shahrama2004@yahoo.com

David Gans: david@trufun.com

Ann Garrison: anniegarrison@gmail.com

Adrienne Lauby: adrienne@sonic.net

Tim Lynch: tlynch@socrates.berkeley.edu

Bylaws and grievance procedure:

http://www.kpfa.org/staff/unpaid

Notes and other stuff:

http://kpfaupso.blogspot.com/

Notes: UPSO Council Meeting 2-12-13

Notes: UPSO Council Meeting   2-12-13

(by Conference Call)   Attending:  Ruthanne Shpiner, Adrienne Lauby, Tim Lynch, Ann Garrison, Shahram Aghamir, Steve Zeltzer

1) Next Meeting
2) Reports
3) Elections. This year’s schedule, possible program council representatives
4) Resolution on new staff hire
5) Staff Meetings
6) Union Discussion

1) NEXT MEETING: March 12, 7-9 pm, by Conference Call.  (626) 677-3000   Access Code:     963870

2)  REPORTS
Fundraising, Computer upgrades, IT audit (Joy Moore’s project) Joy has begun this process in the LSB.  It was tabled this month.

Unpaid survey.  Nothing new to report

Bylaws Comm..  No meeting yet.  We hope David will convene the first meeting.

Skype:  Mixed bag.  Lots of ups and downs in the process.  Where it stands:  Still serious resistance from Roger and Michael in putting a computer into a production studio.  However, it is now possible for people to use Skype with KPFA’s 800 number, which is connected to a Skype account—working a bit like a conference call.  This uses the hybrid.  (This allows KPFA producers to use Skype to call out, but we’re not sure if guests can use it to call in.)  Tim will be working with Michael and Roger to get the instructions written and posted.

The larger project, including use of a new phone system, remains up in the air.   Ann would like to draw up a chart of the sound quality given different Skype possibilities.  This is an aspect of networking issues.  Including ISBN line use, Google Hang Out, etc  We consider setting up a committee to continue working on these issues.  Much appreciation for Tim for good work on this.

UPSO Workshop Series:  First six months tentatively scheduled:
FEB 23, 11-2 pm: Social Media  Clay Leander
MARCH: Production, use of the downstairs production studio.  Carla West
APRIL: Alternatives to Violence Project:  New ways of handling differences.  Fast-paced work shop, weaving together interactive exercises, facilitated discussions, role plays, humor and games.
MAY 11 Noon: Collective work, high production values, 1 hr a week.  How do they do it?  What do they do?  Robyn Takayama, APEX Express:
JUNE: Writing for radio.  Adrienne Lauby
JULY:  Avotcja?
AUGUST: Sound Editing with free open source Audacity.  Clay Leander
Appreciation to Adrienne for setting up these workshops.

3) ELECTIONS

General UPSO Election
Our Unpaid Staff Organization (UPSO) election overlapped with the Local Station Board (LSB) election this year.  This is a problem and we don’t want to do it again next year.  Generally, we think UPSO terms should be 2 years long but that can’t happen without an election to change the by-laws.  The LSB election often runs late and is unpredictable.  We don’t want to have this Council sitting for much beyond a year, but maybe three additional months is not too long. February would be a good month for the next UPSO election.  We’ll discuss this again and will likely make a proposal at the next membership meeting.

Program Council Election
The Pacifica National Board has mandated Program Councils at all stations, which are composed of 1/3 staff, 1/3 listeners and 1/3 local board members.  This means we may have a Program Council again soon.  We did not elect representatives in the last election since the Program Council wasn’t meeting.
If the Program Council is formed, we will likely appoint interim representatives and hold an immediate election.  The election committee would spring into action.  That committee is David Landau, Anthony Fest & Adrienne Lauby.  With help from Ruthanne Shpiner.

4)  RESOLUTION ON REPLACEMENT HIRE FOR UP FRONT
Discussion:  This hire is part of the union contract that requires union labor replacements for union staff vacations and sick leaves.  This is a way for this hire to be more open.  Some of us believe that no new money is being used.  Others are concerned that this is a new salaried job from the KPFA budget coming in under a flag of being a small thing.   Is it possible to hire someone new or do they have to offer it to someone who has been cut?  This is a union question.  With many programs (including the Apprenticeship Program) cut beyond what is possible to sustain, new hires should be discussed with the entire station staff.

General policy for hiring at the station should be done through hiring committee with UPSO participation.  This is a good practice that needs to be reestablished. Aileen Alfandary and Andrew told Tim that they wanted to post some routine replacement hours to make the process more transparent.  The discussion was lengthy and, at times, heated with the majority wanting a formal resolution.

RESOLUTION FOR EQUITABLE HIRING

The announcement of a hiring process for the relief co-host/producer for Up Front has caused a slew of rumors and concern.  Given the often rocky history of hiring at KPFA, we raise the following issues:

1)  We applaud the move toward an open hire for the relief work which most union-staffed programs require.

2)  We call for a similar open process in deciding all new hires at KPFA and hiring committees that include representation from the unpaid staff.

3)  We oppose any prioritizing of additional staff for the Up Front program.  The long-term financial stress at KPFA has led to cuts in hours and jobs since 2010 with many programs (including the Apprenticeship Program) cut beyond what is possible to sustain.  For this reason, no program should be allotted additional salaried support without a station-wide discussion.  We note that the original agreement with Up Front was that they would provide the program within the existing News Department budget.   We realize that the Up Front producers are doing good work under stressful conditions and we encourage them to call out for help from the unpaid staff.

Vote:
Adrienne: Yes
David: No
Tim: No
Ann: Yes
Shahram: Yes

5) STAFF MEETINGS
There is a suggestion that we make a resolution asking for monthly staff meetings.

Discussion:  Some think this is the way to stop rumors and have a public time when managers can report and answer questions.  There are regular Communications Workers of American (CWA) meetings with Managers at least monthly, why not unpaid staff?  The CWA meetings should be limited to union matters.  Other topics should be brought into all staff meetings.   Is a monthly meeting the best use of our time?   How many unpaid staff people would attend?

RESOLVED: We call on KPFA managers to hold regular all-staff meetings on at least a bi-monthly schedule.

Ann: Yes
David: No
Adrienne: Yes
Tim: No
Shahram: Yes

6)  UNION DISCUSSION
Laurence Shoup, a new Local Station Board (LSB) listener-representative has some ideas about unpaid staff union participation, and a conception of a union that would represent all staff at KPFA.  We would like to invite him, and possibly others, to do a 30-40 min. presentation at our next membership meeting in April.

Notes by Adrienne

----------------------------------------
Unpaid Staff Organization Council Members
Shahram Aghamir: shahrama2004@yahoo.com
David Gans: david@trufun.com
Ann Garrison: anniegarrison@gmail.com
Adrienne Lauby: adrienne@sonic.net
Tim Lynch: tlynch@socrates.berkeley.edu

Bylaws and grievance procedure:
http://www.kpfa.org/staff/unpaid


Notes and other stuff:
kpfaupso.blogspot.com

Notes: UPSO General Membership Meeting 1-6-13

Unpaid Staff Organization (UPSO) Meeting Notes

Jan 8, 2013

TOPICS

1)  Unpaid Staff Survey

2)  Election of 2013 Election Committee

3)  By-Law Changes

4)  Report on Fund Raising Campaign for Computer Upgrades

5)  Skype

6)  Computers at KPFA

7)  KPFA Resources (shared?)

8)  Substitution Work

Attending: (22 unpaid staff members)  Eddie Pay (Friday am Music, Herbal Hwy), David Gans* (Dead to the World), Bonnie Simmons (The Bonnie Simmons Show - Music), David Landau (Weekend News), Anthony Fest (Morning Mix, Weekend News), Adrienne Lauby* (Pushing Limits), Matt Groveman (First Voices Grp 38), Prema (First Voice Grp 38), Carla West (Board Op, News Tech), Kate Rafael, (Women's Mag), Lisa Dettmer (Women's Mag), Ann Garrison* (Weekend News, Afro Beat Radio), Layla (First Voice Grp 38), Autumn (First Voice Grp 38), Beatrize (First Voice Grp 38), Shaham Aghimar* (Vioices of the Middle East and North Aftica, Tim Lynch* (Dead to the World), Joy Moore (Apprentice program, Funddrive), Nina Serrano (La Raza Chronicles) Kirsten Jusewicz-Haidle (First Voice Grp 38),  Shora Zamami  (First Voice Grp 38)

*Unpaid Staff Council Member

1) UNPAID STAFF SURVEY

A discussion about draft questions for an unpaid staff survey.   This is, in part, the continuation of earlier conversations about the possibility of a contract between unpaid staff and KPFA management.

The UPSO Council will continue discussion on e-mail and Adrienne will put the survey on-line within 2-3 weeks.

Suggestions:

--Generally:  Add: “Answer the questions you wish. Feel free to ignore particular questions”  If comments at the end of each question are possible, allow for them.

--Question 6.  Reimbursement of unpaid staff expenses.  Reframe to show the question means “a pool” rather than an amount for each individual. Would this be better as a percentage rather than an amount?  No, the budget is line item amounts rather than percentages.  Check the number for the KPFA budget and correct if necessary.  Add a yes or no question on this topic.

--Question 8. Is health insurance possible for unpaid staff? Some suggest that we talk with manager, or make the question more broad - not hook it onto KPFA's insurance, or use phrase “with support by KPFA.”

--Question 13. Grant sponsorship. Clarify whether this means provide resources for administering grants, allowing use of KPFA’s 501c3, or something else.  David and Adrienne will revise this question.

2)  ELECTION COMMITTEE

According to our bylaws, we must elect a 3-member standing Election Committee with alternates during the January meeting.

Some discussion of what the election is, how much work, etc.

Mailing List Issues:

Andrew Phillips, our manager, was tasked to make a list of unpaid staff and keep it up by the Local Station Board.  Maria, our bookkeeper, got some records with an effort to get us all signed up.  No one knows whether Andrew has made a list.  Anthony put the most recent list together with info from the old list, Maria’s & his own effort.  It shouldn’t need a lot of updating next year. 

Volunteers: Shahram Aghamir, Ruthanne Shpiner, Adrienne Lauby, David Landau (Alternate)

All volunteers accepted and thanked.

Ruthanne has withdrawn since the meeting due to health and disability issues.

3)  BY-LAW CHANGES

According to our bylaws, we must initiate any by-law changes during the January meeting.  Adrienne passed around a list of four possible changes. 

There was discussion of the first one, wording to limit UPSO membership to people working on production.  Those in favor said that UPSO should keep it’s focus on people who have similar needs and interests, ie production.  Those opposed gave an example of some who might be left out, the subscription room coordinators, and argued that UPSO should be inclusive.  The point was made that there are staff who cannot join the union and they should have a place for group representation.

Other suggestions were a process to augment the election committee, 2 year staggered terms for Council Members and allowing e-mail or internet voting.  Bonnie suggested a by-law amendment that brings us into parity with the rest of Pacifica. The current requirement of 30 hrs in a year would become 30 hrs in the three months leading to the election.  It was pointed out that we have volunteers who have produced annual specials for decades who would be left out if this change were made.

None of these ideas were discussed thoroughly. 

Instead, a By-law Committee was formed to look at the by-laws as a whole and bring suggestions forward.  The By-Law Committee may consider a complete rewrite of the by-laws.  Their work does not preclude someone proposing other specific changes for the ballot between now and the election.

By-Law Committee: David Gans, Bonnie Simmons, Kate Rafael, Ann Garrison, Shahram Aghimar

4)  REPORT ON FUND RAISING CAMPAIGN FOR COMPUTER UPGRADES

Goal: $1800  Raised so far:  $750. plus one complete computer system

Some discussion about this effort.  See:

http://cloudsurfing.gdhour.com/archives/6217

for details on the computers this would upgrade and what equipment it would buy.

Please repost on your facebook pages and e-mail lists.

If someone has a computer system or parts of a system to donate, contact antonio@kpfa.org.

If we could raise the entire amount of $1800. it would make a big difference for many unpaid staff members.

Ann says that the discussion of computer problems on the on-line unpaid staff list helped make changes that benefited her.

5)  SKYPE

Several people want us to try to convince the engineering department to reinstall Skype on the KPFA computers.  It's not there currently because Michael Yoshida, Chief Engineer, believes that if a producer leaves it open after using it, it would be a security risk for KPFA.

Arguments in favor of doing it:  Skype is being used by some programmers and by other community radio stations already.  It would cut down the international phone call bill greatly. The sound quality is often better than long distance telephone for international calls.

Could the Skype software be password protected?  

It’s possible that “Google Hang Out” will surpass Skype soon.  A suggestion that we not limit our request to Skype.

There was general approval of this idea if it could be done without major security problems.  Kate and Ann will write up a proposal.

6)  COMPUTERS AT KPFA

There are many problems in the computers used by unpaid staff.  They are generally unreliable. The software is often different on different computers.  It’s not clear when printers are not working.  Trouble shooting often adds hours to production work.

Some Suggestions:

--Thumb drives - try to use those which are formatted to be IBM compatible.

--Use the USB port in the back of the computer- they are more reliable than the ones at the front.

--There are 5-port USB connections in the production studio and in the Operation Studio.

--Mail your script to yourself, so you have a copy.

We really feel the need to have more technical support for unpaid staff.     Maybe we need a designated computer that is well maintained with a priority for programmers with a program beginning in the next hour.

How can we get technical support outside 9-5 pm working hours? Large and small problems happen in the evenings and weekend.   Could there be a phone number posted at least?

Joy Moore is a newly elected Local Station Board (LSB) Staff Representative.  She says she’s going to the LSB and start a capital campaign to get the computers to work.

UPSO formally supports this effort and asks the LSB to begin a capital campaign.

7)  KPFA RESOURCES

Someone raises a question about shared resources at KPFA.  Her example is that there is a group data base that has fallen out of use because no one knows about it.  We often spending hours reinventing the wheel.  Some people were astonished and would like to use such a thing.  Others thought it would go out of date too quickly and a producer could do the same things by using social resources.  What would help you do your work?  What kind of information would help everyone?

8) SUBSTITUTION WORK

Is there a policy when you replace a paid position, do you get paid?

Several people say, “yes.”

Notes: UPSO Council Meeting 12-11-12

UPSO Council Meeting (by Conference Call)

12-11-12

Attending:  Ruthanne Shpiner, Adrienne Lauby, David Gans, Ann Garrison

Next Meeting:  December 8, 7 pm.  Performance Studio  (See below for important details about this meeting)

Topics:

KPFA/UPSO Website

Fundraising for Equipment

Copyright Confessor and the KPFA Stream

UPSO Workshops

Communication & Cooperation

Next Meeting

1)  KPFA/UPSO WEBSITE 

Can KPFA have a protected area for UPSO where we could discuss, post notes and do various other things?   David hasn’t talked to Miguel about this yet, but he will do it soon.  We discussed and clarified the idea.

2)  FUNDRAISING FOR EQUIPMENT   

As of a couple of days ago, we have $645.  Plus, a complete PC system that came through one of David’s friends and has been checked out by Antonio.  That computer may come to KPFA as soon as next week.

3)  COPYRIGHT CONFESSOR AND THE KPFA STREAM

Copyright confessor computers in On Air studio—really needs upgrading in keyboards and changes in the basic set up. 

The programmers need to put in the info about their music into this system because otherwise their programs can’t be streamed.   Encouraging the programmers to do this should be a management process.   We don’t like having the steam go down.  We’d like to know more about how much this is happening and what are the individual circumstances.  Are there particular problems unpaid music programmers are having in completing this task?  We’d like to encourage people to do their part and also help improve the hardware lay out.  We may, at some point in this process, write letters about how important we think this is to Andrew and the LSB.    David will look into this problem.

4)  UPSO WORKSHOPS

Leaders (thus far): Ann Garrison, Clay Leander, Kate Raphael, Adrienne Lauby

Adrienne will attempt to get the first 6 month’s schedule together by the January meeting.  Would you like to lead a workshop?  Or have a topic that you can’t seem to bust through on your own?  Let us know.

5)   COMMUNICATION & COOPERATION

This was a complex conversation about how we might fulfill our mission in working with the various groups of people at the station.  [By-laws: Section One: 1.3.  To foster communication and cooperation between management, paid staff, and unpaid staff and between the station and the communities it serves.]  We don’t want to label issues as belonging to a particular set of people, but we do want to name the tensions clearly when necessary and attempt some forward movement.   We might try a well-planned meeting of the News department and reporting staff or something similar with all public

affairs staff.  (The music staff has meetings occasionally, which are called by Luis Medina.) There is also the UPSO grievance procedure that lays out a system that could lead to some resolution in some situations.  Hopefully the Workshops will bring some people together, at least to get to know folks they don’t normally work with.

6) NEXT MEETING

Our next meeting is a once a year Special Meeting of the Unpaid Staff Organization.  All who attend can vote.   Shahram will chair. 

This meeting will include a discussion of by-laws and election of a new Election Committee as our by-laws require.  http://www.kpfa.org/staff/unpaid

--UPSO by-law changes can be submitted at this time (the only time in the 12 month cycle).

Notes by Adrienne

Unpaid Staff Organization Council Members

Shahram Aghamir: shahrama2004@yahoo.com
David Gans: david@trufun.com
Ann Garrison: anniegarrison@gmail.com
Adrienne Lauby: adrienne@sonic.net
Tim Lynch: tlynch@socrates.berkeley.edu

Bylaws and grievance procedure:

http://www.kpfa.org/staff/unpaid