Congress is an evolving event, and year on year we’ve been increasing the levels of digital technologies that we use to run and communicate Congress. This year we’ve made a number of improvements, from our registration system, and email updates to help delegates prepare, to the captioning of delegates names when they appear on the big screen.
Another innovation we’re trying this year is our Digital Hub. It’s a space in our exhibition, on the first floor, that we’re going to be using to help support everyone who’s trying to do Congress digitally in 2017, and to promote ideas that unions could take up to improve their own digital work.
Digital surgeries
We’ll have a number of union digital experts available over the course of Congress, and can book in free 30 mins surgery sessions if you want to discuss particular themes in more detail. Topics are:
- Using Congress digital documentation (Sunday PM)
- Better blogging (Monday AM)
- Website strategy (Monday PM)
- Online learning (Tuesday AM)
- Digital healthcheck for your union (Tuesday PM)
- Social media (Wednesday AM)
These sessions are allocated on a first come, first served basis, though digital team staff will try to fit in other requests if it’s possible over the course of Congress.
Digital skillshare sessions
As part of the Congress Fringe, we’re running a series of short presentations on different digital topics. Come along to the Digital Hub to hear and discuss more on any of these themes. No need to book:
Monday
- 12:55 – Getting your blogs published.
- 13:20 – How well is your union really doing online?
- 13:45 – Making our unions more digital-ready
- 17:35 – An introduction to social media campaigns
- 18:00 – Writing for the web
Tuesday
- 12:55 – The future of union learning
- 13:20 – The future of social videos
- 13:45 – Secrets of persuasive online petitions
- 17:35 – Email: The most effective campaign tool for unions?
- 18:00 – TUC tools for your campaigns
Digital documentation
We’ll also be a place to come for advice on how to use the new Congress 2017 digital documentation, on your phone, tablet or laptop.
We have pdf documentation for those who want to print sections, or who want to follow on the same page numbers as the printed versions.
We have epub files, which are better formatted to read on small screens – using your devices ebooks reader app.
And for the first time we’ll have a special interactive website version of the Congress business, helping users to see what’s happening at the time as Congress progresses, and whether particular motions have been carried. It also combines the running order with motions and composites, removing the need to flick between three documents. This will be launched just before Congress, once late motions and composites have been incorporated.
Congress website
And for all other information about Congress, visit the Congress 2017 webpage at tuc.org.uk/congress2017