Tuesday's Twitter Brainstorming.

Tuesday night's #99erAid Twitterchat was a 1 hour+ brainstorming session for thoughts on helping and supporting the 99ers. Due to the nature of Twitter the ideas came through randomly and quickly with multiple conversation threads during the hour.  Some takeaways:

• 99ers must continue support for H.R.589 by any means possible. Even though another legislative roadblock for H.R.589 has emerged 99ers must continue to phone, fax, email and educate elected officials from both parties to create groundswell support.
• Advocacy must reach beyond Congress.  There was a debate on the merits of local vs. national demonstrations. Some proposed reaching out to business and celebrity sponsorship for subsidized transportation to D.C. for a mammoth rally. Others favored multiple local rallies while acknowledging the challenges of locating and connecting with local 99ers and unemployment advocates.
• All pretty much concurred that press coverage was at best sparse and inconsistent.

I had the privilege of connecting with reporter Kat Aaron (@kataaron) during the Twitterchat. She organized the Twitterchat this way, no small task since the brainstorming session totaled 89 pages and 15,000 words.

There appears to be a demand to continue the conversation.  99erAid II is scheduled for Tuesday, February 22, 2011 8 PM EST. The hashtag will again be #99erAid and there is also a Facebook event page, #99erAid. Please mark this on your calendar and join the conversation.