CongressCamp: Where the Hill Meets Web 2.0

Reprinted by the author from Forum One's Influence Blog.

Last weekend, Forum One participated in CongressCamp at George Washington University. CongressCamp was an unconference focused on the Congress side of Gov 2.0. Participants explored the use of web-based social and collaboration technologies and their use in transforming congressional engagement with the public.

The event attracted a breadth of experience, including congressional staffers, public policy specialists, advocacy practitioners, software vendors, and professional service providers. The open format encouraged the constructive sharing of varying (and sometimes opposing) perspectives. A variety of topics were discussed, including social media metrics, case studies and best practices, tools and applications, and strategy and planning. A number of vendor applications and technologies also were presented, including act.ly, Legistalker, DataMasher, Drupal, WordPress, Democracy in Action, Joomla, Ning, GovLuv, You2Gov, GovLoop, Qik, TwitVid, Bit.ly, and GovPulse.

Forum One was very interested in the opinions expressed by others at the event. Out of the sessions Forum One staff attended, we took away seven key lessons from the event:

1. Congressional staffers view social media and related Web 2.0 technologies as an effective means of driving citizen engagement and increasing government transparency. They are committed to advancing OpenGov initiatives and are looking for best practices and case studies to assist them in improving their use of Web 2.0 technologies.
2. Congressional use of social media and related Web 2.0 technologies frequently is not guided by an underlying digital communications strategy. The failure to invest in an up-front strategy results in Congressional staff often establishing social media presences (ex. Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook) without integrating them into their existing web presence, aside from home page cross-link placement. This suboptimal use of social media and Web 2.0 technologies is lowering the return on investment for these properties.
3. Congress is in the initial stages of social media maturity - typically leveraging Web 2.0 technologies to broadcast their message and respond to negative PR. That said, there is a deep interest by many staff to leverage Web 2.0 technologies to enable conversations and encourage two-way feedback with constituents. Already, there are a number of examples of representatives and senators who are breaking the mold and redefining congressional web communications. Congressional staff recognize that these representatives and staff are strengthening their powerbase by employing such tactics and seek to replicate their success in their own offices.
4. Congressional implementation of social media and related Web 2.0 technologies is occurring without overarching governance and technology guidance from institutional bodies. Congressional staff on a number of occasions mentioned that they look to outside parties for guidance as social media is an emerging issue for their communications teams. Institutional entities, like the House Information Resources, appear aware of the need for guidance and are slowly making progress to meeting this need with new rules/policies.
5. Congressional staffers are looking for better metrics to track social media performance. Social media metrics are not as mature as those used by commercial companies and brand management consultants. Congressional staff are not widely leveraging business intelligence software or listening technology to gain insight into public discourse on policies and their representative/senator. Web analytics likewise are not being leveraged to the extent possible to provide feedback on the effectiveness of social engagement and the amplification of the office message.
6. Ownership of data and security and privacy issues is not widely understood by congressional staff. When staff begin using sites such as Twitter or Facebook, they don't always pause to consider the implications for the data captured on users. Web-savvy staffers perceive this will be an increasing issue for congressional offices in the future and therefore will seek guidance from their peers and outside parties on these issues.
7. Political campaigns and nonprofits are fueling the push to transform digital communications on the Hill. Congressional staffers are gleaning insight from the recent Obama campaign to ongoing congressional campaigns. Staff are looking for examples of where innovative use of social media and related Web 2.0 technologies has been a game-changer to candidates and seeking to replicate the most effective solutions, where possible. (Note: The different communications requirements and rules for a campaign and a congressional Office make some of the campaign examples irrelevant on the Hill.) They also are well aware of initiatives by nonprofits, such as the Sunlight Foundation, which are in many ways more influential on the congressional staff than the campaigns themselves.

Example of Amazing Graphic Recording Services Provided by Diane Cline. (Photograph © by Christiana Aretta - Used with Permission)

It is important to note that the aforementioned takeaways are broad generalizations of the conversations that arose from the event. Clearly, there are some exceptional examples of Congressional staff proper (and improper) use of social media and related Web 2.0 technologies that counter many of the points above. In one session, participants addressed these exceptions by discussing the Gold Mouse Awards and exploring a select group of these case studies from federal, state, and local government, including:

• Congressman Bob Latta: Innovative use of mobile technology;
• Senator Claire McCaskill: Twitter presence;
• Congressman John Culberson: Former employment of Qik (mobile streaming);
• Newark Mayor Cory Booker: Application of Google Translate.

Looking back, CongressCamp was a great experience for everyone at Forum One. We always are excited to be part of such deep engagement on the topic of Congressional use of social media and related Web 2.0 technologies. We enjoyed the people we met, the insights we gained, and look forward to the next opportunity to engage on this topic.

[Forum One was a Gold Sponsor of CongressCamp. Andrew Cohen (@andrewjcohen), Courtney Clark ( @circlish), and Michael Walsh (@walshtechnet) represented Forum One at the event.]