Politics
Entries related to things political.
NCSL New Ways to communicate with constituents
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 08/07/2007 - 14:47A 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.
Con Hogan Award Luncheon
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 08/07/2007 - 12:55This afternoon at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) annual meeting in Boston, the Connecticut Joint Appropriations Committed and the State Office of Policy and Management are receiving the first Con Hogan Award. Con Hogan is former Secretary of the Vermont Agency for Human Services.
Connecticut is being recognized for “their achievements in considering how state spending affects key outcomes for Connecticut families and the environment.” The buzzword of the day is “results based accountability”.
Speakers include Sen. Bob Duff, Sen. Toni Harp, Rep Denise Merrill, Rep. Diana Urban, Robert Genuario from the Office of Policy and Management and Susan Shimelman, from the Office of Fiscal Analysis.
Numerous other notables from Connecticut are here include Rep Steve Fontana, Rep Tom Reynolds, Rep. Peter Williams, Rep. John Geragosian, and Rep. Jason Bartlett. Members of AFT are here as well as former Norwalk Mayor Alex Knopf.
Jack Tweedle starts off by commenting about wanting to get other people to know about what is going on in Connecticut and other states doing “results based accountability”.
(Cross posted to MyLeftNutmeg)
NCSL: Monday morning random notes.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 08/06/2007 - 19:43Last night I went out to Moules and Frites at Central Kitchen. Kim had searched online and recommended it. My searches came up with similar recommendations, so I headed over and ate at the bar. I was down at the end of the bar where staff chatted and I had a good discussion with some of them. It was the birthday of one of the bartenders and his girlfriend came in and talked with the waitresses about different trips that they had been taking. It helped keep the annual meeting in context.
This morning, as I walked to the convention hall I passed John from Below Boston. He is passing out Obama stickers to anyone interested. He says that he has gotten a lot of thumbs up.
I sit next to a delegation of legislators from South Africa as I have some breakfast. During the morning networking, I run into Rep. Steve Fontana and Rep. Diane Urban. They are talking with former Norwalk Mayor Alex Knopf. Mayor Knopf’s name tag also has a green ribbon indicating that he is a member of the press. He disappears before I get a chance to find out which press outlet.
For the first session, I walk past the “Public Hearing on Internet and Electronic Commerce - Breakfast”. The program describes the event as follows:
The committee will conduct a public hearing to solicit the viewpoints of consumers and industry representatives regarding NCSL’s Internet and Electronic Commerce Policy Statement.
…
Presiding: Representative Phil Montgomery, Wisconsic
Speaker: K. Dane Snowden, CTIA – The Wireless Association, Washington, D.C.
NCSL gratefully acknowledges the sort of CTIA – The Wireless Association for breakfast.
I wonder which consumers they solicited viewpoints from. Most of the sessions you have to be a registered attendee of the annual meeting to enter. I had considered seeing if they would let me testify, even though I’m here as part of the press. In the end I decided not to engage. However, it does seem like the industry representatives are all over this and there isn’t a lot of consumer viewpoints being expressed.
Instead, I go to the session, “Capital Hill Tackles Climate Change”. There was a large turn out to the Climate change session, a couple hundred people. It was even better attended than the internet and electronic commerce session. Nikki Roy, from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change spoke about the chances of meaningful climate change legislation over the next few years. A staffer for Rep. Markey spoke about climate change, and Eric Holdsworth of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) spoke about the industry’s response. EEI represents the shareholder owned utilities, which make up around 85% of the electricity generated in the United States.
He noted that in 1994 they signed a memorandum of understanding to voluntarily cut greenhouse gases. They went on to sign agreements with the Bush administration. He claimed that the EIA is projecting energy growth of 43% BY 2030. This is based on population growth and changes in energy consumption patterns. The numbers seem high to me, but I do know the assumptions that were used. Also, my assumptions are that we will see people conserving energy and finding new ways to be more energy efficient. As a side note, in the exhibition hall, America Electric Power was giving away compact fluorescent lightblubs. On the other hand, if we ever get plug-in hybrids or other electric vehicles, that could increase the demand.
He argued for an energy policy that included all the current sources of electricity. He mentioned that New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington State all have CO2 regulations in effect. He spoke about Illinois, Texas and Wyoming having Carbon Capture and Storage systems in place.
During the questions and answers, one person asked about wind. He noted that the wind is always blowing somewhere and that by putting up windmills in places like North Dakota, Wyoming and Texas considerable renewable energy could be tapped. He talked about the need for a smarter grid to get that energy from the windmills to cities where the energy demand is greater. I hadn’t really thought about the grid issues. There are enough battles over simply the placement of windmills, such as you find with Cape Wind. The issues of transmission lines, as they’ve been fought over with new lines in Fairfield County or cables going under Long Island Sound only exacerbate the issue.
All in all, the session was long on speech making, a little short on details, but did have some bright spots.
NCSL: Preparing Today’s Students for Tomorrow’s Economy: State Leaders in Education Technology
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 08/05/2007 - 20:50As I waited for the late afternoon education session to start at NCSL, I had a fascinating discussion with a woman who works for Connections Academy an online school for grades K through 11 that kids attend from home. It is a pilot, mostly charter schools in 12 different states. On first glance, it appears to be an interesting nexus of public schooling, home schooling and internet based training. Checking around, it seems like some home school purists view it as an effort by public school systems to get involved with and to gain more control over home schooling. Others view it is a useful resource. I’m wondering if any of the home schoolers that read this blog have any experiences of or opinions about Connections Academy.
The session started off with Marie St. Fleur, a State Rep from Massachusetts who talked about the Wireless Learning Initiative at the Lilla G. Frederick Middle School in Dorchester.
It was a very good presentation as Rep. St. Fleur talked about many things that are important to me in education. She talked about the need to think out of the box, to use an integrated curriculum and to foster a life long love of learning. She pointed out that it isn’t about bringing new technology into the classroom, but about getting teachers to think about how this new technology can be used in new ways.
She noted that in other communities, students have been allowed to take laptops home. There was concern about this in Dorchester, and the school came up with a great solution. Parents need to come in and get trained on the computers. Parents that make the effort get a refurbished computer that they can take home for their children to ue for school work. She said that if you invite the parents in and tell them what they are there for, they will come.
Many people suggest that some of the larger issues with schools and our society as a whole stem from a lack of parental involvement. Connections Academy and most of home schooling efforts are dependent on parental involvement and that may be a key to their successes. The Wireless Learning Initiative at Lilla G. Frederick Middle School appears to likewise benefit from improving parental involvement.
Yet getting a family a laptop they can use isn’t enough, if there isn’t access to broadband and Rep. St. Fleur also spoke about efforts to make WiFi available in neighborhoods in Dorchester. She spoke about how getting parental buy-in is important, but you also need to get teacher buy-in, community buy-in and business buy-in.
After her presentation, Tom Gluck from the Pennsylvania Department of Education spoke about efforts to get a laptop on the desk of every high school student in Pennsylvania. He spoke about changing the way teaching is done through the introduction of “smart” classrooms. Like Rep. St. Fleur, he spoke about the importance of professional development so that teachers could make the best use of the new technology.
Both presentations talked about students creating blogs or podcasts. I asked to what extent the student created content was being shared on the web with the other schools and the community as a whole. Both speakers said that this was going on. I was directed to lgfnet.org for the Lilla G. Frederick school, and to www.pde.state.pa.us/edhub for the Pennsylvania system.
Neither site has any student generated content up right now, but that is understandable since it is summer vacation. The Pennsylvania initiative does has a student produced video up at http://www.nasd.k12.pa.us/media/cff.wmv
It is great to see successful projects like these talked about amongst state legislators. Hopefully the ideas can be spread and expanded upon. Yet as people noted in the student produced video, the teachers at the Pennsylvania schools feel that they are just scratching the surface of how they can teach in new ways using these tools. By getting teachers, students, parents and other interested parties sharing more ideas and experiences, we can help our education system get even better at preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s economy and I hope we see a lot more collaboration between projects like these.
Interactive Technologies
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 08/05/2007 - 15:51The National Association of Legislative Information Technology, NALIT, had a great session entitled Interactive Technologies. It was attended by around 40 people, many of which appeared to be legislative staff.
Panelists included House Majority Leader Steve Harrelson from the Arkansas House of Representatives. He spoke about his site, Under the Dome. Senator John Valentine, President of the Utah State Senate spoke about his site, The Senate Site which is the “Unofficial Voice of the Utah Senate Majority”.
They spoke about these sites being unofficial sites, financed either individually, as is Rep. Harrelson’s case, or by a PAC in Sen. Valentine’s case. In Sen. Valentine’s case, they have a staffer who works part time for the State Senate and part time for the Senate Republican PAC. The staffer clocks in and out of each job according to the task he is working on. The PAC has bought its own computer and pays $25/month for electricity, internet access and desktop space in the Utah Senate office.
One advantage of having these sites be independent is that it avoids some of the issues around freedom of speech and who can moderate what on the site. There was a lot of discussion about maintaining a level of discourse that encourages intelligent discussion and not the brow bashing so common on many blogs. Sen. Valentine noted the difference between having an opinion and being well informed.
One person, talking about the importance of strong moderation asked the question, “How many of you legislators would allow town meetings where people speak with brown bags over their heads?” It was suggested that technology rarely changes human behavior and many people suggested the people you see on the blogs are the same gadflies you see all the time. The question was posed about how to reach a broader audience.
Jeffrey Griffith, former Associate Director and Chief Legislative Information Officer for the Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service spoke about his recent research into efforts to bring legislative information systems to various organizations in Europe. He noted independent research done on one British Member of Parliaments constituent emails which resulted in 25% of the respondents claiming they had had their opinions changed and had voted for the MP as a result of his email outreach. This study indicates that at least in some cases, internet outreach is changing opinions and reaching new audiences.
Sen. Valentine observed that his traditional mail hasn’t decreased as his email increased. Instead, older constituents continued to use traditional mail and younger constituents used email.
I asked if any one was doing anything to reach beyond the current online groups, using Facebook, MySpace or similar sites. Rep. Harrelson spoke about his Facebook and MySpace presence as well as mentioning the Democratic Party’s PartyBuilder.
I asked about people doing anything to widgetize or deportalize their websites. Rep. Harrelson spoke about his blog’s RSS feed being picked up by Arkansas based aggregators and Sen. Valentine spoke about having a large number of people subscribing to his site via email. Sen. Valentine also spoke of the importance of media crossover when information from the blog would be talked about in the newspapers or during drive time radio.
It was good to hear about various state legislative bodies here in the States, as well as people in Europe making strides to build communities that engage in intelligent discussion about the issues. We need more of that.
