Sep 10, 2010

How Do We Communicate? Let Us Count The Ways!

Just 10 years ago, the primary means of communication was the U.S. Postal Service! With so many ways to communicate in today's world, we've expanded our method of communication to incorporate as many avenues as possible. We must harness the power of the Internet in our current contract negotiations to secure our future!

[01.01.10] -- New Year's Day -- How many of us can say that we owned a cell phone ten years ago? Better yet, how many of us owned a computer ten years ago? Did you ever think you’d own a mobile smart phone or a laptop? Remember how often we purchased postage stamps? Technology and the ability to communicate quicker and with the click of a mouse (or the touch of an iPhone, BlackBerry, or other smart phone) have drastically changed the face of how we receive information and news. Did you ever consider accessing your online Contract using a mobile phone? Who would have thought "texting" would be so commonplace? Many of us today do these things on a daily basis now.

Consider this: How many of us paid by check at the grocery store 10 years ago? More than likely, many of us did. Using an ATM debit card instead of a bank check today? Probably. Evolution and transition in today’s world is the "norm," and electronic communications and the Internet are here to stay. Computers are accessible everywhere today (libraries, Internet cafes, and our own homes); how we use them to our advantage is up to us!

How has communication evolved and transformed? What's this "Social Media" buzz?

In May 2009, the conservative New York Times hired a Social Media Editor ("Social Media" is not limited to, but includes online communications such as Facebook and Twitter). Today, major TV networks and media outlets like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all use both Twitter and Facebook to extend their reach into society. Consider the years it took for the following communications means to find a market audience of 50 million people: Radio (38 years), Television (13 years), the Internet (4 years), the iPod (3 years), and Facebook (2 years). In 1982, the number of Internet devices was one thousand; in 1992, it was one million; in 2008 it was one billion! At the close of the decade in 2009, Facebook became the second-most trafficked website in the world (below #1 Google; above #3 YouTube, #4 Yahoo, and #5 Microsoft).

We’ve got you covered … in more ways than one…

At AFA Los Angeles Council 12, we now communicate information in multiple ways to extend our outreach and connection to our membership. It’s interesting to note that just 10 years ago (in 1999), the primary means of communication was through the U.S. Postal Service! In addition to in-person or "face-to-face" conversations and AFA MEC postal mailings, we also communicate with Flight Attendants at LAX through the following means:

• AFA bulletin board at LAXSW mailfile room (that often provokes management to censor it)
• AFA mailbox at the LAXSW mailfile room (written reports and written letters)
• AFA mailing address (postal mail, letters, or "snail mail")
• Phone (land lines and mobile phones)
• Voicemail messaging
• Mobile text messaging
• Internet email (AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or other email means)
• Facebook (email within Facebook, our AFA Facebook Group & Facebook profile "wall posts")
• YouTube (we have used this online video medium to further our external, or "public" messages)

January 2000 brings AFALAXNEWS e-newsletter; December 2005 brings AFALAX.org

In January 2000, our AFALAXNEWS e-newsletter was born, and today approximately 1,500 Flight Attendants (active and retired) are on the mailing list. Five years later, on December 28, 2005, our AFALAX.org website was established. At the time, many felt we didn’t need a website that was specific to LAX, but we tried it anyway. From the start, the response was astounding, and it visibly showed that there was a niche we had filled; hundreds of Flight Attendants now get their LAX-specific news directly from AFALAX.org. If we looked back just five years earlier to the winter of 2000, no one could have imagined that AFALAX.org would become a staple of the way we communicate. And, no one could have predicted where the site would eventually go.

Evolving means of electronic communication and interaction leads to Facebook in 2008

Some have mistaken AFA communications posted on Facebook as "the primary means" of electronic communications; we’d like to clarify that the official, primary information outlet at LAX remains our AFALAX.org website and our AFALAXNEWS e-newsletter. Information posted on Facebook is an added means of distributing information to our members, and the first point of publication has always been AFALAX.org and AFALAXNEWS. As the saying goes, "in order for information to be digested, it must be repeated," so we have always sought new and supplemental methods in reaching more Flight Attendants. Confusion comes from the fact that we "republish" information from AFALAX.org and AFALAXNEWS on Facebook. Many skip over or glance past information from our union website and union e-newsletter, and instead come upon the information on Facebook. In the end, the facts remain that multiple means of communicating the information are out there, and it will continue to come at us quicker than the speed of light.

We began to utilize Facebook over 18 months ago (in March 2008), and as Facebook’s user base has grown, so has ours. Over 400 Flight Attendants now belong to our AFA Los Angeles Facebook Group, which was established on November 4, 2008. It has been a natural progression, and there’s no denying that more and more people have turned to Facebook to stay connected to their family, friends and coworkers. Incorporating the ability for Flight Attendants to stay in touch and interact with Union Activists and Officers (and each other) on Facebook is just another way we’ve made strides in communicating with our union membership. If you're on Facebook, and have yet to join our AFA Los Angeles Facebook Group, just click the image to the right and login to your Facebook account. You'll be able to send an "add request" to our private Facebook Group there.

The first group event we published on our AFA Facebook Group was the LAX Roadshow slated for November 18, 2008. In addition to mailings sent to Flight Attendant’s homes, bulletin board postings on the AFA boards at LAX, and communications sent using AFALAXNEWS (our LAX e-newsletter), our event postings on Facebook became an effective way of “reminding” each other about the important date. The addition of Facebook in our online communications helped push attendance at the LAX Roadshow to nearly 100 Flight Attendants! (Approximately 80% of attendees present were Facebook users, varying in age and seniority demographics.)

In August 2008, executive producers of the Dr. Phil Show contacted AFA in Los Angeles asking for a "subject matter expert." The episode dealt with passengers rights, TSA Security check point incidents, aviation delays, and airline-induced problems. Local AFA President Darren Shiroma appeared on the show, and talked about how Flight Attendants are often caught in the middle of poor airline management decisions and passenger frustrations. Dr. Phil noted, "it's important that people understand that (Flight Attendants) didn't set the flight schedule, you didn't create the delay, and you're not the one that decided to charge for their bag..." The episode aired on 9/26/08, and re-aired on 12/24/08, and communicated our message to tens of millions of TV viewers.

Remember a day without email? Or, when did you last write a letter and put a stamp on it?

Just as face-to-face or in-person conversations differ from handwritten letters, so does the varying degree of electronic email or website communications differ from communicating on Facebook. Face-to-face communications include facial expressions and intonations; handwritten letters do not include physical or inflective elements. Communicating over the phone does not allow facial expressions, and at its point of origin, was an "unusual" and "different" style of communication. Face-to-face communications "may" include others, while handwritten letters typically encompass only one recipient. Email and websites can be "one way," meaning that they are used as methods to "take in" information, and again, usually involve only one participant at a time (unless you’re sitting at a computer with multiple people looking over your shoulder). Facebook has an "interactive" or "blog-style" standard, which makes it more fluid, changing, and "real time" … the ability to build on information we broadcast is all-the-more unique to this ever-evolving platform of interaction and communication.

Where do we go from here?

Your guess is as good as ours! We would never have predicted that AFALAX.org would grow to become as strong as it has, and the fact that our AFALAXNEWS e-newsletter was honored with the "Best CWA E-Newsletter" award two consecutive years in a row is meaningful. We would also never have been able to predict just two years ago that so many Flight Attendants would be connecting with each other on the Internet via Facebook. There’s no reason to "not" have information in today’s world. It’s brought to you in so many different ways, and it's up to us as individuals to harness that POWER!

All it takes is time and investment to obtain the information; make the choice on how YOU want to receive it, and the rest will be part of history…


Copyright © January 2010 - AFA-CWA Council 12 Los Angeles. All Rights Reserved.

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