K Street Cafe

In January, 13 new Senators and 93 new U.S. Representatives will arrive in Washington, D.C. for the 112^th Congress.  The House’s freshman class is the largest in over 60 years.

The sheer volume of Congressional newcomers creates an opportunity for organizations to rethink their advocacy strategies.  Connecting with new Members will require the right message and the right tactics.

Over the next few weeks, K Street Café will feature a discussion on how advocacy organizations can create an effective grassroots plan for 2011.

A few things to look forward to:

- Insights from the Congressional Management Foundation, the organization that guides freshman Members during their first 90 days in office.  CMF will explain the resources it provides to Members on setting up offices, obtaining committee assignments, selecting technology vendors, and hiring core staff members.

- Analysis from Ken Ward, CEO of Fireside21, a company that produces Web-based tools for constituent communications.   As someone who regularly works with Capitol Hill offices, Ken will explain how new Members set up their processes for handling incoming communications.

- Advice from savvy grassroots professionals on how their organizations plan for Congress’s biannual overhaul.  Jennifer Karr from the American Medical Association will share how the AMA is gearing up for 2011.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on how you are planning for the new Congress.

It Ain’t Easy Tracking Earmarks (Sunlight Foundation Blog)
Earmark information is spread over more than 500 congressional websites in difficult-to-use formats, making it hard to track.

Bill Clinton Bans Twitter, Facebook and Live-Blog Coverage For Upcoming Speech (Los Angeles Times)
The former president has called for a ban on the use of Twitter, Facebook updates and any live blogging during an upcoming keynote.

Twitter Makes First D.C. Hire (ClikZ)
New hire will help lawmakers, politicians and government staff take better advantage of the micro-blogging site.

Pepsi Fans Pledge to Recycle on Facebook (Mashable)
A new Facebook application encourages Pepsi drinkers to commit to recycling their used bottles and cans.

The hard-working transparency advocates at the Sunlight Foundation have released a new suite of tools called Politiwidgets. Each tool in the 10-widget set is as easily customizable and embeddable by bloggers as searching for, resizing, and generating code for embedding a YouTube video.

The suite includes some interesting tools that haven’t really surfaced on the web in such customizable fashion, even if the data behind the tools have become available over the past couple of years through other projects like, for example, OpenSecrets.org. The list includes (with examples given for my representative in the U.S. House, Rep. Jim Cooper, D-TN 5th):

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Election Coverage in the Age of Social Media (DNA Info)
How the web is changing the way elections are covered.

5 Take-Aways on Social Media and Politics
(Social Media Today)
Thoughts on themes that have emerged recently related to social media and politics.

Facebook is getting into the spirit of Election Day with a poll locator widget along with an “I Voted” button that you can post on your page which includes a tally of those that clicked the button.

On the U.S. Politics on Facebook page, they have a post which tallied the number of Republicans, Democrats and Independents that have voted. I presume this information is coming from their members who have self-identified themselves politically and have clicked on their “I Voted” button.

This got me thinking… could a social media widget like Facebook’s help create a larger wave of voter intensity, given that most people friend those they know and share common interests and values with? And what is the impact of one politically savvy friend on Facebook?

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Me and Jon Stewart, On Making Democracy Work
(Tech President)
A look into what internet-powered mass participation is doing to politics and government in America.

The Future of Social Media and Politics (Mashable)
What the rise of mainstream social media has in store for the next generation of political campaigns.

FCC.gov Wireframes for Your Review (Tech President)
The Federal Communications website is being overhauled and the FCC is calling for user opinions on the site’s direction.

Twitter Used to Gather Questions for White House Briefing (ReadWriteWeb)
The White House press secretary recently engaged the public by taking questions on Twitter and then responding on YouTube.

Speaker: Obama Greatly Helped By Social Media
(San Angelo Standard Times)
Professor speaks on the role of social media in the Obama campaign and administration at a social media symposium.

Is Social Media Driving the Economy? (The Atlantic)
Social business survey reveals the 50 leading social media cities in the United States and gives more insight on social media adoption.

All Online Politics is Personalized, Or May Soon Be (Tech President)
With companies like RapLeaf, campaigns can target real names and addresses from what can be gleaned about users from the web.

Facebook Lacks Friends in D.C. (Politico)
Facebook has one of the smallest policy and lobbying shops in the Capitol.