Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Anonymous way of organizing peaceful protests

The June 9 OccupyIndia protests by Anonymous teaches you a lot about organizing peaceful protests. These were the instructions, reprinted verbatim, from Aonymnous:

You can wear the GuyFawkes mask during the protest (download the printable version from here).
Protesters may not use vehicles to protest as this may cause accidents, please keep vehicles out of the protest crowd.
Please bring placards, Banners etc that you can prepare so for the cause.
For whom it is possible, Bring cameras and record events, Or better use your smart phone to stream it online using ustream. This will give a proof if something bad is attempted at the protesters.
IF POLICE BLOCKS THE WAY, STAY 50Mts MIN AWAY. DO NOT CONFRONT THEM.
Play the pre-recorded anon Msg to the crowd via loudspeaker (download from here).
Stand in one horizontal line and chant in union
“UNITED AS ONE! DIVIDED BY ZERO! WE ARE ANONYMOUS! WE ARE LEGION! WE DO NOT FORGIVE! WE DO NOT FORGET! EXPECT US!”


However there were those who weren't pleased with how the protests went, in Mumbai, for example. The writer gives these tips for future protest-organizers in India:

1. When holding a protest, take the local weather into account.

2. When planning a protest, don’t pick a venue without shade.

3. Give clear, specific directions on how to reach the site.

4. Prepare activities or speeches in advance, and try to get the crowd involved.

5. Last but not least, ensure that people show up, by hook or crook–even if it means forcing your friends to attend.
Now, there you go, how to organize peaceful protests 101.

Related: Gene Sharpe's 8-point method of non-violent revolution

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posted by Pramit Singh @ 5:05 PM 0 Comments

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

100 Acronyms that teach us: Now available as a free Android app


100 Acronyms that teach us is one of the most popular posts on Bighow.com. Now there are more acronyms, helpfully organized across multiple categories on The Success Manual website, where all the skill guides (communication skills, business skills, and more) are available. My favorite acronyms are creativity and problem solving acronyms.

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posted by Pramit Singh @ 5:17 PM 0 Comments

How America led to the rise of bureaucracy in the world: The age of MBAs and middle managers

Yes, yes, we have all read, heard and seen many things about the land of meritocracy, of capitalism, of this and that... but evidence suggests otherwise. The land of the great American Dream, where every man is one's own master and all that, has been exporting a more stifling form of bureaucracy to other countries. From The Baffler:

Americans do not like to think of themselves as a nation of bureaucrats—quite the opposite—but the moment we stop imagining bureaucracy as a phenomenon limited to government offices, it becomes obvious that this is precisely what we have become. The final victory over the Soviet Union did not lead to the domination of the market, but, in fact, cemented the dominance of conservative managerial elites, corporate bureaucrats who use the pretext of short-term, competitive, bottom-line thinking to squelch anything likely to have revolutionary implications of any kind.

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posted by Pramit Singh @ 5:12 PM 0 Comments