290 meeting

2006-12-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

I was invited to a Planned Parenthood convention of sorts last Thursday. It was a great opportunity to meet some of teh other members of the community who are involved in the organization. I also had the opportunity to discuss a grass-roots campaign against crisis pregnancy centers. These centers are considered very right-wing and often give vulnerable women misleading and untrue information regarding their reproductive health care options. Some of the members of that organization are students at MSUM and very involved in protecting reproductive health care. I look forward to working with these students in their efforts and furthering my experience in community organization.

assignment four part two

2006-12-12T12:23:00.000-08:00

Planned Parenthood will continue the blog. The blog was established before I agreed to work with them, and they plan on continueing the blog after the semester is over. Blogging is a cheap, inobtrusive, effective way of communicating with people that are perusing your site. Blogging can be used in conjunction with other action plans and can help coordinate events.

The specifics as to who will continue the blog in the long term is up in the air and this is a concern for the extended life of the blog. I plan on posting blogs in the spring semester on a vonlunteer basis, and I talked with Amy about some grass-roots organizers that would be excellent candidates for continueing the blog. Amy discussed an upcoming meeting in the Twin Cities that will also have an impact in shaping the long-term course Planned Parenthood will take in reaching out for community support and involvement. One of the topics to be discussed at this meeting is blogging. The role blogging will take in the future of Planned Parenthood while likely be partially decided at the upcoming meetings.

new blog

2006-12-05T21:44:00.000-08:00

My latest blog was posted on the blog section, and also on the main page of the planned parenthood action site. My post was on the inadequacies of abstinence-only education. It was edited a bit with a few sentences about discriminiation against the homosexual community removed, but I was excited to have my post on the main page.

Assignment 4 part I

2006-12-04T10:38:00.000-08:00

Discuss whether and how this potential disruption materialized in the course of your project?
Since the blog had already existed prior to my association with planned parenthood there were already certain mechanisms of authority and control. The blogs that had been posted before mine were few in number and required less oversight because of how rarely they came out. My project required increased oversight because of my intention to increase blog frequency.

How readily did the organization adjust to the new channels of information flow?
As mentioned earlier, the channels of information flow were already in place but they became a little more stressed since there was more information flowing through those channels.

How did this affect your efforts to develop a blog that could operate in support of the organization?
It would have been easier for me to need less approval before my blogs were posted, but it makes sense that there needs to be a significant level of oversight when I am acting as a representative of the organization.

How readily and clearly was authority defined?
Authority was pretty clearly defined in my first meeting with Amy.

How important an issue was this to the blogging project?
This issue was not that important because once I understood to whom I would be answering it was clear for the duration of the project.

What could you and the organization done differently to facilitate resolution of these issues?
If I could have sent my postings directly to the board of directors things could have moved a little more quickly I think. I don't think the board of directors wanted to be directly involved with the project though so this was not a real viable option.

partisan posts

2006-12-03T20:21:00.000-08:00

I ran into a problem with being too partisan on my last post so it was sent back for editing. It took a while for Amy to get it back to me, but I've made changes and hopefully it will be approved this time. I was informed that on the action site there was more room for opinion, but I crosses the line by referring to political parties specifically. I spent about another 45 minutes reworking it and about an hour checking out other's blogs this week. I need to spend some time finding another policy issue to research and then the research time as well. My latest post is on abstince-only sex education. I was a peer-educator in high school and sex education is an issue that I really feel strongly about. It was kind of nice to get off abortion for a little while and learn some new things at the same time.

Log

2006-11-20T22:20:00.000-08:00

I created another post today, I'm waiting for some feedback still because I turned it in after business hours. I had planned to do an election overview, but there was already an announcement posted on the main page of the action site so it would have been redundant. It was more difficult finding a good topic to post about after the elections, so it took a while to select one. I spent about 2 hours doing research and another hour and a half putting the blog together. I might be spending too much time getting facts and could be doing more opinion-based posts. I sent an e-mail to that effect to Amy and I'm awaiting her reply.

addendum to assignment 3

2006-11-14T20:05:00.000-08:00

I was correct in that by having the Planned Parenthood action site seperate they can have greater freedom in the political views presented therein. The web server does support FTP access. The Action Fund web site is running off of the Drupal content management system (CMS), which natively supports a blog feature.

very late Assignment 3

2006-10-24T19:45:00.000-07:00

I had difficulty getting a meeting with Amy to talk about this assignment. The first meeting we had scheduled was postponed because of other issues that came up within the organization . I had to postpone the postponed meeting due to family matters. I am waiting to hear back from their web director before I post some of the technical information.

The target audience is not very well focused and is comprised of web surfers that come across the blog while perusing the Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota website as well as pro-lifers looking for recent news or events. This may include men or women looking for birth control options, abortion information, disease testing et cetera. For the most part the anticipated audience is composed of people already using services offered by Planned Parenthood or prospective Planned Parenthood clients. In this sense the target audience is the reason for the various programs at Planned Parenthood exist. The purpose of the blog is to inform and motivate the audience. Whether it be attending pro-choice functions, voting on referendums, candidates stances on issues, et cetera the blog can be used to inform the audience and give them the opportunity to act.

The blog had been up for some time before I began blogging for Planned Parenthood. One of the problems encountered was inconsistency in blogging. It is very difficult to measure the success of this kind of communication, especially when a main goal is to inform.

Given the goal of informing and motivating the audience, I think that things I can and should blog about are upcoming events, threatening legislation, and candidate stances. I foresee difficulty with the volitility of the issue I am working with. Because the issue is so charged it is very important to handle it with care.

I report to Amy Jacobson, but my posts are reviewed by a board of directors before they are posted.

The planned parenthood of MN, ND, SD website is www.ppmns.org . My blog can be found at http://www.ppmnsaction.org/learn. or http://www.ppmnsaction.org/learn/blogs . I don't believe there is a link directly from the ppmns site to the action site, but the ppmnsaction site is fairly well known and is the second link when searching google for planned parenthood and any of Minnesota, North Dakota, or South Dakota. I believe the reason for keeping the two sites seperate is so that the main organization can maintain their 501.3c status while the action site is seperate and can legally have more political action.

Rock for Choice

2006-10-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

There is an upcoming concert/fundraiser event this Thursday at the Aquarium above Dempsey's on Broadway. There is a $5 cover and it begins at 10 p.m. Proceeds go towards defeating the abortion referendum in South Dakota. There is a silent art auction that begins at 7 pm too with a $1 cover. It should be a lot of fun so I encourage everyone to come.

time log

2006-10-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

This is my time log for the week of the 13th. I had scheduled a meeting for Friday with Amy but she had some business come up and had to cancel. We have rescheduled for tomorrow. I made revisions to my Planned Parenthood posts and got them approved and posted on their Action Site. This is where my blogs will be posted from now on. I spent a few hours revising my blog, writing an introduction, and deciding my next blogging topic. I plan on working on the vote on the abortion ban in South Dakota.

Log

2006-10-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

I spent a few hours (probably around 5 total researching/writing/checking background information) on my first blog post last night. It has not been approved yet, but I think that will happen shortly. I know that I am already better at researching because of this first assignment. I wasted a lot of time searching the wrong locations for information.
I need to find more things out about planned parenthood's blog before I complete assignment 3. The blog had already been established when I began this project and I have not yet been given the ability to post blogs and I'm not sure what software they use.

Assignment 2

2006-09-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

I will be working with Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. According to their website Planned Parenthood believes in the...right of each individual...to manage his/her own fertility regardless of...income, marital status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or residence.

To achieve and ensure the protection of these rights planned parenthood offers services in the following: family planning, counseling, and birth control, emergency contraception, pregnancy testing and counseling, screening and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, gynecological care, including screening for breast and cervical cancer, HIV testing and counseling, medically accurate sexuality education, voluntary sterilization for women and men, reproductive medical exams for men, safer sex counseling, abortions or abortion referrals, adoption referrals, referrals for specialized care. They offer age appropriate and medically accurate education programs as well including peer education for teens, and parent child sessions.

The services offered by Planned Parenthood while very helpful to young women especially can be utilized by any member of the community. Gynecological care can be used by all wormen in the community. Screening for sexually transmitted infections can be used by any member of the community. Sexual education is generally geared towards teens but can be helpful for adults in getting the facts out to their children.

Planned Parenthood employs doctors, nurses, spokespersons and uses lots of volunteers to help perform its mission with reproductive health care and in its effort to ensure everyone's right to reproductive health care is protected. Some volunteers research or help in blogging, organizing rallys/events and other political activities.

Planned Parenthood of MN, ND, and SD works with in the midwest to offer reproductive health care in the region.

time log.

2006-08-30T09:03:00.000-07:00

I spent about 45 minutes looking at the questions for assignment one and writing my answers before I came to the lab. As I get deeper into the course I am sure my time commitment will be greater.

assignment number one.

2006-08-30T08:54:00.000-07:00

I first signed up for this course because it seems like an opportunity to develop some real-world skills and experience while still attaining credits toward graduation. It also looks like a class that would be something different than what I am used to.

I have limited experience blogging on myspace.com, but I think that once you have done it, it is something that is relatively easy to do.

My experience with community organizations is equally limited, but I was involved in a peer educated group at my high school. This, however, was not something that would be helped much by web activism.

I am interested in gaining experience working with an organization in a professional setting. This experience can help give me a taste of what can be accomplished through this kind of activism as well as orient me to this medium.

My interests are more oriented toward working with the community organization than with blogging. I am however excited to work with them in this specific way.

blog addresses

2006-08-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

Brent
Laura
Andrew
Sam
Zac

2006-08-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

here's a blog too.

post number two.

2006-08-28T09:32:00.000-07:00

This is my second post on this blog. enjoy.

posting

2006-08-28T09:21:00.000-07:00

posty mcposterson