A good recent example is the website created for the annual conference of Napo, the union for family court and probation staff. One of Britain's smaller unions, Napo was also among the last to get a website. But it has not lost any time in catching up. For Napo's conference, a "throw-away website" was created that allows several officers and officials to update a web page in real time. The site has the look and feel of a highly professional operation, and includes archives, search, and even the ability for individual members to add comments and ask questions. But it was created in a couple of hours, just in time for the conference, which opened on October 10.

What makes "throw-away websites" possible are the new content management systems – tools which allow people with no technical skills to maintain websites and keep them fresh. Content management systems used to be hugely complex and expensive options (and some still are). But today there are also excellent ones available free of charge. Napo is using Movable Type, an award-winning web-logging tool that also serves as a powerful content management system. It costs absolutely nothing.

"Throw-away" may not be the best way to describe these new sites, as they are not, in fact, thrown away at the end. Napo will almost certainly choose to keep its special site up on the web long after conference has ended.

Whatever we choose to call them, these new websites which are created overnight, are used intensively for a short time, and are then archived away, constitute a powerful new tool for trade union communications.

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Napo: http://www.napo.org.uk
Movable Type: http://www.movabletype.org/

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Eviews column for LabourResearch – October 2003

Eric Lee is the editor of LabourStart, http://www.labourstart.org