Open Government by Daniel Lathrop and Laurel Ruma

Author:Daniel Lathrop and Laurel Ruma
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Published: 2010-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

Starting the Movement: We Are All Lobbyists Now

Early on, we were embarrassed that our state, Texas, a state with 34 members of Congress, had only three elected officials on Twitter. So, we started locally and began the task of calling each congressional office and lobbying them on behalf of Twitter and Tweet Congress. To our frustration (but not surprise), we found it impossible to get past the gatekeepers and speak directly to members of Congress or senators. We did, however, find most of the press secretaries we spoke with receptive to using Twitter to engage voters. We immediately saw a jump in the adoption of Twitter by elected officials in Texas. Many saw it as an opportunity to get their message out to constituents, unfiltered by old media. Some reps, however, did not immediately see the value.

When we phoned Rep. Luis Ghomert’s office in Texas’s First District, we explained the benefits of Twitter to his press secretary and how we provided the ability for constituents to easily find elected officials on Tweet Congress. “We just aren’t going to be interested in ‘the Twitter,’” she said. We tried to explain that this was a great new tool for the congressman to use to communicate with his constituents, and again we were cut off. “We just aren’t interested,” she repeated. We thanked her for her time and we ended the call.

At this point, we decided to enlist our own Twitter followers to help our cause. After all, one of the realities of social media and open government is that we are all lobbyists now. At that time, we had about 3,000 followers. When we sent out a tweet that declared Rep. Ghomert was not interested in “the Twitter,” it caught fire and was quickly tweeted again and again, reaching upward of 8,000 people within minutes! We wish we could report that Rep. Ghomert is now a social media user, but it’s clear that some elected officials ignore the medium with that kind of reach at their own peril.

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