getup – Page 2 – Stilgherrian

27 May 200824 June 2008

Oh dear, I’m going to Canberra…

… for Australia’s inaugural Politics & Technology Forum on 25 June. It’s being sponsored by Microsoft, and I’m going as their guest. Apparently I continue to fool them.

The keynote is by Matt Bai, political writer for the New York Times magazine, followed by two panel discussions.

Panel 1 is on “Blogging, social networks, political movements and the media”, with Brett Solomon from GetUp!; Annabel Crabb from the Sydney Morning Herald; Peter Black from QUT; spin doctor Mark Textor of Crosby Textor, who ran the Howard government’s failed re-election campaign; and the editor of Crikey Jonathan Green. It’ll be nice to finally meet my editor!

Panel 2 is “Politics 2.0: information technology and the future of political campaigning”, with Joe Hockey, the Liberal member for North Sydney; Senator Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats; Labor Senator Kate Lundy (ACT); and election analyst extraordinaire Antony Green. Very scary indeed.

At this stage it looks like I’ll be heading to Canberra on 24 June and staying overnight. If this is of interest, please register as a stalker in the usual way.

29 September 200729 September 2007

AFL Flash Chant: “Howard, time to go!” Pass it on!

Here’s an idea. If inthemix.com.au could organize a Flash Rave at Sydney Town Hall yesterday with hundreds of people, it should be possible to organize a Flash Chant of “Howard, time to go!” during the AFL Grand Final this afternoon.

Here’s how:

Spread the word fast. We’ve 4 hours.
Focus on telling people in Melbourne, or who have friends in Melbourne, and AFL fans.
Spread the word using every social network you have — SMS, MySpace, Facebook, whatever. (But don’t spam people you know won’t be interested. Choose wisely.)
It’d be way cool if the chant was running once TV returned to the game after GetUp! screen their Climate Clever-er ad, or when John Howard was on screen. That means someone should organize someone who’s watching the game on TV to tell people at the ground when it happens. Have a brief trigger-word SMS ready to send instantly.
Everyone needs to be chanting the same thing: “Howard, time to go!”
If it’s loud enough, during a quiet part of the game, you get national TV coverage!

The crowd for Geelong versus Port Power will presumably have a working-class bias. Everyone will be hyped up for The Big Day anyway. It shouldn’t be too hard to make this happen.

I’ve just created flashchant.com so it’s easier to spread the word, too.

Update: The website has been online less than 2 hours and already it’s received 600 unique visitors. Scary.

28 September 2007

Climate Clever-er

GetUp! has raised over $200,000 to show this spoof TV advert during the AFL Grand Final tomorrow. It’s a send-up of the government’s glossy promo which tries to give the impression they’re doing something about climate change.

While it may not be screened many times during the game, I reckon the fact that “ordinary Australians” have chipped in to make it possible is newsworthy — which will in turn get the advert shown for free all over the place. Sweet.