Card Check: Employee Free Choice Act

This week, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, or "Card Check" was introduced in the U.S. Congress.

This bill would effectively eliminate our right to vote by private ballot when deciding whether to join a union, and undermine our right to freely negotiate contracts. It would also kill jobs in America when we need them most. We cannot open the door to coercion, and allow freedom to be supplanted by fear in the workplace. Based upon Congress' actions today, it's clear we have an urgent fight on our hands.

To defeat this destructive bill, we began our Freedom Not Fear campaign last week, and introduced Saul Anuzis to lead this project as National Chairman. In just a few days, close to 70,000 Americans have signed the petition.

Please stand with us today and sign the Freedom Not Fear petition by clicking here. Once you sign, please recruit your friends and family, so together we can build a strong grassroots network of citizen leaders across the country.

-The Austin Technology Council.

2009 Planning

The dog days of summer are still upon us and already the buzz around the community is starting to pick back up again. Fall has arrived, school is in session and 2009 planning has begun. Shame it’s still 100+ degrees outside and the thought of hitting yet another networking event seems about as appealing as actually starting 2009 planning.

Recently I was talking with colleague who also hosts a number of events during the year and he made a very poignant point: attendance to your event is actually a self-actualizing success metric for YOU, not the attendees. An interesting way to flip the coin, I had never considered that in truth our main measurement of a program was how many, who and what the feedback was from those in attendance; not the intangible follow-up summary, dialogue or content shared among our community receiving the information from their wireless device or colleagues.

Of course, though wise in my years (ah-hem) I cannot claim to be the first to have this ah-ha moment. The flurry of LinkedIn, twitter, blogs and other online communities are creating such strong value in our daily communication. Question I am left pondering is does ATC focus our attention to the online-network or do we continue holding events in our coming year? Surely there is a balance and opportunity to take the unpaved road…but really, it’s just yet another reason why I’m left procrastinating on that pesky 2009 planning.