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America At War
Government Mail
With Jonah Seiger
Co-founder & Chief Strategist of Mindshare
Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2001; 11 a.m. EDT
How will the threat of letters tainted with anthrax bacteria change the way government and lobbyists interact? Will the recent events have any effect on congressional mail?
Jonah Seiger, Co-founder and Chief Strategist of Mindshare
Internet Campaigns, a Washington, D.C. based public affairs strategy firm, was online to discuss the impact the Capitol Hill anthrax scare will have on the treatment of mail and public affairs correspondence.
The transcript follows.
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Jonah Seiger: Hi everybody!
My name is Jonah Seiger and I am the co-founder & chief strategist of mindshare Internet Campaigns, an online public affairs consulting firm in Washington DC (www.mindshare.net). We are a leading provider of online strategy and technology development for public affairs. We help coalitions, trade associations, corporations, foundations, and non-profit organizations integrate the Internet into their overall communications strategies.
In many cases, our work involves generating large numbers of contacts to elected officials, both at the Federal and State levels of government. We have long believed, and learned from experience, that the while electronic mail is an effective way to organize a constituency, it is the least effective way of communicating the voice of that constituency to Capitol Hill.
As a result, we recommend that our clients organize ONLINE for OFFLINE action: meaning that we don't generate email to congress. Instead, our client campaigns focus on generating letters, telegrams, faxes, and phone calls. These types of contact have more weight, are much more visible (and therefore get more attention), and are thus more effective for advocacy than e-email to Congress.
In light of the recent Anthrax scares and the resulting examination of how snail mail is handled on Capitol Hilll, some have suggested that groups seeking to communicate with Congress should rely solely on e-mail. I think this would be a mistake and look forward to discussing why.
Alexandria, Va.:
How is the Anthrax scare effecting one on one communication between lobbyist and congress?
Jonah Seiger: This is a good question. Most lobbyists rely on face-to-face communication to get their messages to Congress. So while I think the business of Congress has most definiately been distracted by the Antrhax scare and the current focus on Security issues, it has not directly impacted one-on-one communications.
However, to the extent that lobbyists rely on individuals to reinforce their messages through direct contact with Congressional offices, there are some questions about the future. In particular, no one knows yet how Snail Mail sent to the Hill will be treated and how long it will take to get back to normal.
Del Ray, Va.:
If Capitol Hill staff aren't opening mail and can't access email because of the antiquated system with no remote access, how on earth should citizens be communicating with legislators?
Jonah Seiger: Great question.
One of the biggest problems with e-mail to Congress is that the systems for processing constituent mail do not, in the vast majority of cases, enable offices to know which messges are from actual constituents and which are from people outside the district. There are no standards for this, despite many years of effort.
Also, the huge volume of email received by some Congressional offices makes it difficult for these offices to process email. I've been told by many friends on the hill that e-mail messages are not viewed as having the same weight as a personal letter, a phone call, or a telegram.
This problem has been around for many years, going back as far as 1995 when the Hill first began to use the Internet. As a result, we have always recommended that our clients use more traditional methods for communicating with Congress: faxes, phone calls, letters or telegrams. All of which can be easily generated from web sites.
I believe that Snail mail will start flowing again to the Hill, and eventually (hopefully very soon) hill staff will be opening the mail again. In the meant time, the best and most effective ways to communicate with Congress are phone calls and faxes. E-mail is a very bad method.
Austin, Tex.:
How have the Anthrax cases affected you or your clients?
Jonah Seiger: Fortunately, we have not seen any impact of the Anthrax cases on our clients thus far.
Some have suggested that the Antrhax scare will result in a wholscale shift to e-mail -- both for traditional direct mail campaigns and in the public affairs communications, particularly to Congress.
The problem with that logic is that its much easier to address the legitmate concerns about Anthrax than it will be to make e-mail an effective way to communicate with Congressional offices.
People have been working for years to try to develop standards for e-mail to the hill, to no avail. There are multiple systems for managing constituent mail and no common standard for processing e-mail. As a result, it is very difficult for most Congressional offices to manage e-mail -- they don't easily know whether an e-mail is from their district, they don't know if the person has written before on the same issue, and they often don't have any way to respond in a way that is easily tracked.
From the standpoint of an advocacy organization seeking to influence Congress, e-mail poses even more problems. First, it has not "weight" or "mass". It doesn't pile up in the mail room or shake the walls like hundreds of phone calls can. Even if standards can be developed to make e-mail easier to process by congressional offies, it will still come in quietly and be filtered by a computer.
For groups trying to get the attention of Congressional offices, such a "quiet" form of communication will greatly diminish its impact. These groups want (and need) to "shake the walls" -- to get the attention of staff and members so they are primed to think about an issue in a different way. E-mail, even under the ideal circumstances, simply cannot do that.
Washington, D.C.:
I find the idea of e-mail to congress odd. The one time I went to visit my legislator, I didn't see anyone answering email, but lots of people answering phones, letters, and faxes.
Jonah Seiger: Thats been my experience too. Most people I talk to on the Hill, with a few exceptions, say that e-mail is not a good way to communicate with their offices.
Having worked on the Hill myself, I can tell you that when the phone starts ringing off the hook with people calling about a vote that's about to happen, it gets your attention.
Mt. Vernon, Va.:
Do you think the current crisis will prompt Congress to change the way they handle email from constituents? Do you think email will ever be as effective as "snail mail?"
Jonah Seiger: I think its much more likely in the short term that Congress will chage the way it handles "Snail Mail" to add protections against contamination. This is an immediate need. Snail mail is to central to our lives for it to simply stop in favor of some other method of communication.
This will happen much quicker and is, I think, easier to do than changing the way the Hill handles e-mail. People have been trying to make e-mail easier for Congressional offices to manage for more than 5 years now to no avail. My suspicion that the current crisis will put pressure to address concerns about "snail mail" first and put the e-mail problems even farther on the back burner.
College Park, Md.:
for groups that advocate internet issues, isn't it hypocritical to use US mail, when they use online tools?
Jonah Seiger: Not if they want to be effective!
If Congressional offices aren't equipped to handle e-mail, then using it to project a message to the Hill is like screaming in an empty room.
As I said before, we have found e-mail to be a uniquely effective way of organizing and engaging a constituency. Its very powerful for keeping people informed and moving information quickly to large numbers of people. But when it comes to projecting the voice of that constituency into the political process, email is uniquely ineffective.
Washington, D.C.:
I have been a lobbyist for 8 years and don't think that this will affect what I do, it may however lessen the impact that individual constituents have in making their voice heard.
In what ways do you see this changing grassroots lobbying?
Jonah Seiger: Like you, I don't really see this having a major impact on how lobbying, or grassroots lobbying, is practiced.
There may be some short-term impact on direct mail. If people are on the lookout for mail from strangers they may be less likely to open direct mail (the Washington Post had a great piece on this topic today).
As far as communicating with Congress is concerned, I cutally think in the long run that this will increase the power of telegrams, postcards, phone calls and faxes. These are easy to generate through the web.
As an example, check out www.lettercampaign.org. This is a service that can be integrated into any web site or online campaign, and can generate telegrams, post cards and faxes from constituents directly through the web. Contacts are inexpensive and very effective.
Sacramento, Calif.
The anthrax scare has thrown a wrench into my organization which recently launched a mail campaign to lobby congress on the economic stimulus package. The fax machines have been busy. This is an important issue for us. What would you recommend?
Jonah Seiger: Great question!
When the fax machines are busy (and they can ideed get busy on the Hill), I'd suggest either telegrams or phone calls. Phone calls are particuarly effective because they usually always get through, and they definitely get noticed. It is a simple matter to create systems that enable visitors to a web site to get the telephone number of a congressional office via a web interface, and to track the number of calls generated.
Telegrams have also proven to be a very effective (and cheap) way to deliver a message to the hill. I'd encourage you to check out our LetterCampaign service (www.lettercampaign.org)
Chesterfield, Md.:
How long before e-mail becomes a good way to communicate? Couldn't this push Congress towards using email more and becoming more acceptable.
Jonah Seiger: Eventually, many of the challenges that make e-mail an ineffective way of communicating with Congress will be resolved. Standards will be developed to make it easier to identify constients, and Constituent Mail Management software will be refined to better integrate e-mail and make it easier for Congressional offices to manage.
But these fixes will take time (much more time than it will take to make sure Snail Mail can be de-contaminated), and even if these fixes are made, one prolbem will remain: e-mail has no weight and no mass and will come in quietly and be filtered by a computer. Under some of the systems envisioned for handling e-mail in Congressional offices, it won't even be read by an actual person! Computers would filter, sort, and generate replies. This may be effecient, but its not a very good way to lobby Congress (unless your goal is to lobby Congresional computer systems :)
So, my view is that even if the practical problems (and there are lots of them) with handling e-mail are solved, it will never be a very good way for groups trying to influence congress to make their voices heard.
Jonah Seiger: Thank you all for a very interesting discussion!
This Anthrax scare has definitely impacted the functioning of Congressional offices (not to mention the entire US Postal Service). But I believe these interruptions are temporary and that systems will soon be put in place to ensure that Snail Mail sent to Capitol Hill is safe. This will happen much more quickly and with more urgency and dispatch than will solving the very significant problems that exist with e-mail to the Hill.
Groups that are seeking to impact debates on the Hill need to keep in mind that while e-mail has many useful functions -- it is indeed the "killer app" of the Internet revolution -- it also has many limitations. Use e-email to mobilize a group of people and to keep them informed and engaged in the issues. But when it comes time to project the voice of that constituency into the political process, use a vehicle that has real weight, mass, and impact.
Thanks for your questions and your thoughts. If you want to follow up with anything I said, please feel free to email me at jseiger@mindshare.net
washingtonpost.com:
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