As we near the end of 2022, nobody really wants to talk about 2015. But one 2015 topic has piqued my interest as of late: the decision of the Old Guard of the DSA to ride the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign to membership growth. As the Old Guard reflects back on it – if it reflects back on it – I suspect it has mixed feelings about how it all went down.
Month: September 2022 (Page 2 of 2)
Leftists often bicker over how to use Twitter. Is it an essential communication tool allowing us to break out of the mainstream media monopoly on thought and opinion? Or is it a travesty and driver of conflict in our movements?
In truth, it’s both of those things. Or at least it can be. But I’d like to point out a better way of thinking about Twitter.
In short, Twitter is like a chat in a big, boozy bar. It can be a source of news or information. And it can lead to valuable insights. But it’s also often messy and destructive. And it’s full of clowns who start fights for no good reason. You can participate in it, but maintain a healthy, robust skepticism.
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If you’ve spent more than 5 minutes working for a large company, you’ll hear talk of something called ‘best practices.’ Companies love doing things according to best practices. In theory, this means they look at what other companies do, figure out which practices work the most effectively, and then they do those things.
Is this how it actually happens? Well, no. In the actual world of work, when companies perform ‘best practices’ they just do what everyone else does. They look at what most other companies do, and then they do it, too. They do it when it works effectively, and they do it when it doesn’t work effectively.
But why does it go like this? Lots of companies don’t want to take risks. Plus, they put many of these decisions into the hands of HR, which is traditionally a bastion of unoriginal thinking within large companies.
