K Street Cafe

Originally published on PMPU.org.

Clay Johnson, formerly of the Sunlight Foundation, wrote in his blog recently that “online petitions are a sham.”  He even used some of our data about congressional mail volumes to help make his point.  While I think that he makes some really keen observations and puts his finger on some of the key challenges, not all online advocacy is the same.

The Congressional Management Foundation has done research with both the senders (citizens) and the receivers (congressional offices) and majorities of both believe that advocacy campaigns are good for our country.  In fact, 73% of internet users who had contacted Congress in the last five years confirmed that they thought advocacy campaigns were good for Democracy.  On the Hill, 53% of the congressional staff that responded to our survey confirmed that even they (the ones on the front lines of helping Members manage communications) thought that advocacy campaigns directed at Congress were a good thing.

What’s more, our survey of internet users found that interest groups played an integral role in how citizens learn about and communicate with Congress.  Citizens join interest groups, visit their websites, and participate in their online petitions to learn about the issues they care about and to take collective action.  However, interest groups need to realize that they occupy a key role in the connection between their activists and the Members of Congress who represent them.  With that role comes responsibility.  On the Hill, congressional staff do not have the tools that they need to quickly distill meaning from the overwhelming volume of communications that they receive on any given day.

Clay is right that there are bad actors that don’t have the facilitation of genuine dialogue as their primary motivation.  However, we can’t let a minority of interest groups negate the critical and valuable—both to citizens and Congress—role that interest groups and grassroots advocates play.  He’s also right that there are currently some significant obstacles to meaningful communication.

It is specifically because there are these challenges, that we recently launched The Partnership For a More Perfect Union to help improve the relationship and communication between citizens and Members of Congress.  Through the Communicating with Congress Project we are seeking ways to improve the channel of communication between citizens and their elected officials because it’s good for citizens, Members, and democracy.

The state of Maryland, the attorney general of Pennsylvania and a group of researchers are taking on political campaigns using social media platforms.

Maryland’s State Board of Elections is submitting a proposal on June 3 requiring candidates to include standard language on their Facebook pages and their associations with these campaigns. In addition, the proposal would require candidates to create a system of authenticated official Twitter accounts. If this proposal passes, regulation could begin as early as this year.
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Last week The Economist’s Lexington column profiled a community organizer in Seattle who faced a $10,000 fine for not reporting her grassroots efforts to oppose government takeover of private property.

She ran into a second little-known state law. If she prints some fliers, calls some meetings and urges her neighbours to write to their state representative demanding change, she has to register as a “grassroots lobbyist”. This rule applies to any group that spends more than $500 in any given month trying to influence the legislature. That sum includes not only cash but also anything else of value, including voluntary labour, the use of office space and so forth. In other words, it could cover nearly any grassroots group.

In response, she filed a lawsuit to have the law repealed arguing that it would have a chilling effect on free speech.

What do you think? Should every act of grassroots organizing warrant disclosure? At what point does grassroots activity cross a threshold that should trigger registration and transparency regulations?

International Correspondents: The Internet election? (CNN)
Some believe this is Britain’s first social media election, while others disagree.

Washington Post Launches New PostPolitics.com Site
(Advocacy 2.0)
Last Wednesday The Washington Post announced the launch of a new political homepage, PostPolitics.com, which features articles, columns and blogs produced by Post staffers.

A few Thursday evenings ago, NBC aired a rerun of last year’s highly anticipated The Office episode that featured Pam and Jim getting married. When I watched the episode again two weeks ago, I could not help thinking about a crucial lesson to be learned for any organization planning their next advocacy campaign.

If you watched Pam and Jim’s wedding, you will recall that the writers heavily borrowed the memorable wedding routine from the extraordinarily popular YouTube video JK Wedding Dance. It’s the one where the wedding party dances down the aisle to Chris Brown’s song, Forever.  The video became so popular (now over 44 million views on YouTube) that the entire group was invited to recreate the routine on The Today Show.

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In case you missed the Politics Online Conference last week, Microsoft announced the launch of Townhall, a new online community platform. The Townhall platform allows political campaigns to quickly launch a sophisticated ongoing community discussion with supporters and volunteers. The platform not only allows a campaign to manage the community, but also gather instant and ongoing feedback from voters through polls, surveys and other kinds of data feedback mechanisms.

Of course, Microsoft is not new to the world of political campaigns. Its Windows operating system and Office products have been the staple technologies of political campaigns for decades. Campaigns of all stripes would also be well advised to explore how Microsoft Tag and Windows Live Messenger can be used to communicate and collaborate with voters.

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Now that the first two months of the new year are behind us, I thought K Street Café readers would be interested in some articles on the outlook for the Public Relations, Advertising and Public Affairs industry in 2010. Some of the articles survey the PR or advertising industry nationwide, while others are focused on the DC market specifically. All the articles are helpful for understanding the state of affairs for the specific corner of the world we operate in. (more…)

I recently gave a lecture at American University’s Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute on how to use social media and other online strategies for advocacy. You can watch it here.

It took a recession, but resumes finally are receiving renewed scrutiny. The ability to embellish and obscure shrinks when one out of every six workers is under or unemployed. More than ever, recruiters want to see accomplishments, not responsibilities; numbers, not adverbs. (more…)

GOP Leads Media Charge (The Hill)
Republican’s social media agendas are becoming prominent in state elections and daily constituent outreach efforts.

Members Grapple With Media Trends
(Roll Call – subscription required)
House members are still trying to figure out how to effectively use new media to streamline internal communication as well as amplify their message to the public.