A group of around 100 people gather to learn about new ways to communicate with constituents at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Paul Taylor from the Center for Digital Government at Government presides. He starts off by showing a YouTube video from the digital ethnologists in Kansas.

The first speaker is Delegate Kristen Amundson from Virginia. She blogs at 7 West. She starts off with some standard old stereotypes of bloggers, tattooed and pierced. As a forty-eight year old blogger, I challenge that stereotype. However, looking around the room of around a hundred people interested in new ways to communicate with constituents, only one other person has a laptop open.

Getting past the stereo types, she has some great comments. First, she talks about how it is inexpensive and a technological neophyte like herself could easily get going. Beyond that she talks about the importance of it being a community. She only had to remove one comment, despite the tendency for blogs to sound a bit like drunks in a bar. As to whether you can have staff do it, she comments, “It’s your voice, if you can’t do it yourself, don’t have your staff do it.”

She has a comment about blogging not being just a joy ride, it is a responsibility.

To get around the drunk in a bar feeling of some blogs, she uses WebDialogues. She describes the discussions there as a League of Women’s Voters panel on Steroids.

She describes them as two very different experiences, and that you should do both. She notes that people who take parts in a web dialogs have an increased view belief that their votes matter, and the have a more favorable impression of legislators that use web dialogs.

Next up is Steve Urquhart from Utah. Theme one: Improve your legislative website. Theme two: (In line with Tom Friedman’s comment) Do it with them, or they will do it to you. Finally: it has to be a bottom up approach.

He starts off by illustrating Deval Patrick’s site where people talk about issues, such as Shared Parenting. It is a good site, but lacks the ability for people to talk back and forth. Again, he notes that constituents will do it no matter what. He also talks about the lack of ability for people to organize the issues.

He talks about the importance of having your quotes online so that reporters can get the quote right.

The next site he mentions is the 10 Downing Street ePetitions effort. He moves on to what Barack Obama has on his campaign site. He notes this is campaign oriented and raises the issue of how campaign sites compare with issues sites for people who are actually elected. He goes to the Obama Senate site, which is very 1.0 without linking to constituents. He notes that this isn’t different from any of the other candidates who are currently in office.

He goes on to talk about people working together in Burlington , VT, thanks to a site, Front Porch Forum. It is great community building and they will talk about the candidates with or without the candidates participating.

The next site he illustrates is Knowledge as Power to facilitate interactivity between citizens and their elected officials.

He talks about his own blog where you can interact with less filters, showing your sense of humor, your normal pursuits and see that you are just a normal person. He talks about the importance of having a more human face online and that politics is happening online, and that is where you need to be.

The third speaker is Sue Gullufsen, from the Legislative Affairs Agency in Alaska. She talks about meetings that they have held through their Legislative Information Offices, which are often the only Government agency in an area. She brings in Marie Murray from the Sitka LIO and Allison from another LIO. Then Emily Frisbee from Glenallen speaks about their Legislative Information Office.

During the Q&A, Steve mentions Politicopia which he describes as the first legislative Wiki. Steve also talks about the lack of good dialog online, and the desire to create better dialog online.