This amazing buyers guide will help you determine whether the companies you support also support the people you support. Put together by the Human Rights Campaign foundation in the States, an organization working toward achieving and maintaining rights for LGBTQ people across some of the most homophobic regions in North America, the guide indicates that despite tragic choices on the part of state legislatures, a very positive response to equality has been seen throughout the business sector. But it's interesting to know that BestBuy scores 100% on the Corporate Equality Index whereas RadioShack only scores 40%. Or that Dell is another shining example of support for the LGBTQ community, but Acer slumps way back at 58% on the CEI.
Take a look at the Buyer's Guide and make your choices as positive as possible.
The Human Rights Campaign Buyers Guide for 2010
Here's the criteria used to make the assessements, HRC's Corporate Equality Index
Posted by: David Barker in technology, media on
Apr 15, 2009
This morning Gretta sent me a piece from the zine, Religion Dispatches, with a note saying: “We really need a publicist!!” The piece is titled: “The Tweets of Christ” and reports that Wall Street’s Trinity Church posted a Twitter Passion Play on Good Friday. I looked at the article and said: “Yeah, so what? We did that too.” I suppose that’s Gretta’s point. We did that too, but nobody reported it in the media.
I’m going out on a limb here and hazarding a guess that WHUC is the first United Church to Twitter a worship service. You can catch it on our twitter account without needing to sign up (though please do sign up and follow us). If you had looked to the back of the church during our Good Friday service, you would have seen me sometimes leaning over a laptop keyboard and typing short bursts – tiny encapsulations of words spoken during the service.
So what’s Twitter and why do we care?
The media have been touting Twitter as the next online social media phenomenon. You sign up and you start following people and they start following you. What everybody is following are short posts – a maximum of 140 characters. If you’ve got something complicated to say, Twitter may not be your thing. Some people call it microblogging. If a Twitter post were a poem, it would be haiku.
For me, the amazing thing about Twitter is that my teenagers haven’t heard of it and don’t care. It doesn’t provide the frenetic level of engagement that my kids enjoy as they sit in front of a big screen watching 20 separate windows at the same time. Instead, Twitter functions like a focused marketing tool. Many people and organizations use it for precisely that, though it’s also a great way to let friends and family know what you’re up to. 140 characters also lends itself well to mobile updates, so you can keep your posts current even when you’re away from your computer.
I don’t think anybody would ever suggest that a Twittered church service makes an adequate substitute for the live event – except maybe for people with incredibly short attention spans. But I do believe it’s important that church avail itself of every communications tool at its disposal. This sends a message, and that message is quite simple: we are engaged.
Church is not some abstract entity with its ecclesial head in the sand. It is a collection of people just like you and me. Some of us embrace new modes of communication with enthusiasm, some are skeptical, and some are bewildered. We get that. I think the idea here is simply to approach it in a spirit of experimentation - or even of adventure. There's no such thing as having too many ways to connect with people.
Follow West Hill's tweets and twitters.
www.twitter.com/WestHillUC
Posted by: Marion Morrish in technology on
Mar 10, 2009
There has been a lot of technological (techNOlogical) struggling/learning over these past few weeks. Up popped this Quote in my computer this morning:
"Don't know where I'm going, not sure where I've been, but if I'm running around in circles, I'll be back here again." - Tom Hays
That says it all! It starts the morning with a smile!
