 Good afternoon, my name is Lorelai Kelly, and I'd like to welcome you to the New America Foundation To what we hope will be the first in a series of discussions about the United States Congress and 21st century democracy This first session is called Congress 2.0. How is Congress coping with the information revolution? For those of you watching on the web New America is a non-profit and non-partisan public policy institute in Washington DC That looks to new ideas and new thinkers to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States A mission that we embrace here through 15 programs that cover everything from counterterrorism to poverty reduction and from Education to economic growth. We're also growing. We have headquarters here and a presence in California and New York. I Am leading an exploratory project here called smart Congress. I Love it when people don't laugh when I say that It's not an oxymoron. It doesn't have to be And I'm part of a team housed within the New America Foundation's open technology Institute Which supports open networks and open source innovations on this project? We've been examining how the changing technological landscape is impacting how Congress as an institution receives sorts and filters information during the policymaking process. I Like to say thank you to the philanthropies who have supported the research for this effort over the past two years Those are the Smith Richardson Foundation the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Carnegie Corporation of New York So let's get to Congress. I don't need to elaborate But everyone in this room knows that Congress is looking pretty unappealing these days Its popularity ratings are hitting new lows People and especially candidates often speak of a disconnect between Americans and Washington DC We often witness unhelpful partisanship undemocratic participation within the institution and Incivility that can't possibly help the institution thrive or move forward Yet another important disconnect that I think people here in DC know about needs to be emphasized Congress is full of smart and dedicated people working on both sides of the aisle They are working to serve the public interest with long hours and comparatively little pay They are also working with historically low levels of staffing Especially this is true with long-term expert policy personnel. I Think another important question here is how do we help Congress as an institution? How do we optimize this implicit desire of our legislature to serve the greater good? If we take a holistic approach, can we possibly create some room for discussion based on empathy? dare I say empathy for Congress Because it is really an amazing and a durable creation It's the first branch of government and it should be the most technologically savvy the closest to the American people and the most Innovative in delivering new forms and learning of learning and democratic practice In my own opinion, I really feel like the US Congress should be the centerpiece of the global town square How do we make it that way? In many ways our obsolete legislature reflects the challenges faced by populations around the world Citizen expectations have outpaced government's abilities to provide meaningful opportunities to participate in building a common future We aim to dive right into this challenge here at the New America Foundation And our three panelists that I have here with me today are terrifically equipped to start this conversation I'm going to start on my right With Susie Gordon She's got years of experience as a staff person on Capitol Hill and she's now vice president at the Congressional Management Foundation Which has got a wonderful website and I'll let you announce that I'm going to limit this bio because all of this a lot of this Bio information is online what they do basically is provide continuing education for the institutional needs of Congress it is beloved by staff across both parties and Because of its steady dedication to helping all of those who work there Most recently it has been looking at the impacts of social media on Congress and Congress as a workplace and Susie I'll talk about that second here, we have Tom Halloran who just Arrived yesterday from New York who's a tech entrepreneur and co-founder of a company called IB 5k We recently met at personal democracy forum in New York. I don't know how to explain PDF It's kind of like an Eric condition Lollapalooza for tech geeks It's a wonderful Organization and they have a newsletter called tech president, which is must read every day if you want to learn about the intersection of policy and government and technology Tom is going to address the technical sorting and filtering challenges of Congress as well as their new platform Which is called correlate which provides an innovative communications analysis tool for member offices and then Third will be Jessica Lee who's a national security expert and she's presently on the personal staff of congressman Jim McDermott of Washington He's a Democrat and he's she was formerly a professional staff member of the house foreign affairs committee This is important these two hats that she's played on Capitol Hill because her experience in both of these roles is instructive I think she can offer us an important perspective about institutional information sharing What we call the information asymmetry problem within the institution and in this case where committees tend to get the deep Substance whereas personal staffs tend to get more sentiment And how do we start to create a more symmetrical knowledge-sharing environment for Congress? The the the examples there would be the difference between sort of opinion polls and peer-reviewed data and And at the end of the panel I'm going to ask Nancy Lubin who's sitting in the audience to offer some brief comments Nancy is head of J&A Associates today She is an expert on the former Soviet Union and it's in that capacity She was a project director at the office of technology assessment, which is now defunct But it was once the world's premier scientific advisory body for legislators before We start though. I'd also like to mention that this event is being live-streamed on the web and everything is on the record forever So just to keep that in mind For those of you on Twitter, please use the hashtag hashtag OTI SC we've got it up in the room as well to ask questions during the panel on Q&A and Also during the Q&A, please wait for the microphone Todd and my colleague here has the microphone and he'll bring it to you and As I mentioned we have an online audience for this event And so we want to make sure they can hear as well And I'll go ahead and start with Susie if you'd like to go ahead and then we'll just move down and Nancy And then we'll open it up for a discussion. Thank you for coming today Well, thank you very much for having me recorded forever. No pressure there at all. So Thanks for that excellent introduction So I am Susie Gordon. I'm the vice president of the Congressional Management Foundation as Laurel I said we've been around helping Congress particularly on the staffer side But also working directly with members as well for 35 years I was going to do a slide presentation, but instead I'm going to go back to old-fashioned So just to give you a sense of how long that is how long we've been around and talking about quite a few of the things We're talking about today. This is an early flyer from 1978. You can see we have a very groovy logo up top very 70s and swinging and it says in confusion about computers and has a little Advertisement and it's talking about how staff can come and learn about how to deal with technology So this is nothing new to the organization But to get in you know dive into a little bit of the substance We were working so we are 501s C3. We're nonprofit non-partisan Our tagline used to be better man better government through better management We have really done a lot of research Looking at how constituents communicate with Congress and how they can do so more effectively because that's the other half of the equation obviously and So we we've changed our tagline more recently to talk about Building trust and effectiveness in Congress also can be a laugh line given the depending on the audience because They're not seen as particularly trustworthy or effective right now But we really do believe as Laurel I said we kicked it off We hit it off right away when we first started talking because we're big believers in the institution And we really do think it's there to serve the people and that there are amazing people working there So my shorthand frequently is that we're wonks for wonks if you will so that's another way we see ourselves But looking at some of the research that we've done and we had some grants from the National Science Foundation and from Pew and Again, I'll pass this around but because if you can look above us that would have been the That would have been the screen projector and that wouldn't really have worked with the panel Exactly, yeah, we'll just mix it all up. We will cover the gamut You can see the increase in constituent mail that mail out that the congressional offices are having to deal with Senate House and at a high in 2009 an 865% increase in email from 2002 to 2009 on the Senate side To put that into perspective keep in mind that the congressional staff sizes the average hasn't changed since 1974 with an average of 18 in the house over on the house side or Actually, I'm not sure if that covers both because the Senate's are obvious the Senate sizes are quite a bit larger Again trying to put this into perspective. Godfather 2 was hitting the was hitting the theaters We were in the middle of a different gas crisis Where you could only get gas if you had an even-numbered not license plates on certain days and Gerald Ford was in the White House So keep in mind that we are talking about a huge explosion with very limited resources to deal with that increase It's great that I'm sitting next to our friend Tom from IB 5k because they're actually part of the solution Way back before I started with Congressional management foundation. I had a very odd job I was working for one of the vendors who gets the who works with associations trade associations nonprofits advocacy groups to send Form emails up to the up to members of Congress. I have the Unenviable job of trying to convince members of Congress that that wasn't spam At that time, that's how they saw it broadly and they were turning it off They said not only are we not interested. We actively see this as a bad thing And we are not going to respond to these emails at all and in fact, we're not even going to acknowledge that we received them So that's the that was the environment in 2005 Literally saw it as spam So I'm gonna stop there and turn it over to Tom and I'm happy to elaborate on some more of our role in Moving the technology along and some of the other challenges and my perspective from working on the Hill as well. Thanks a lot Yeah, so that's actually a great introduction a great segue. Thank you the We are so IB 5k is a is a for-profit startup We started after at 2009 or 2009 after the Obama campaign my partner was was involved in the new media group of of OFA and I did not have a political background my background is an academic computing but But there were some interesting interesting problems that that he was Getting asked about when he you know was living in Washington and and taking a lot of meetings and it became This is around the same time as this report the communicating with Congress report that the The Congressional Management Foundation came out with One of the many there this this report was released over many years But one of the the the more comprehensive Components of this report was released at about the same time as we were as as we were starting to work on this problem of constituent communication with Talking to Nancy Pelosi's office and talking to you at that point the minority and And and it was clear that across the institution there the tools that they were using they're called Broadly outside of the house this category of software tools is called a CRM right? It's what you use to manage your customer relations in the house. They're called a constituent constituent mail management system CMS's and the so these tools are Don't the market is is somewhat small They don't innovate very quickly and the the slide that that you just saw that shows the the increase in email volume the the the way that offices solve this problem is just by adding staff or the way that they could solve this problem is by adding staff, but as you heard staff hasn't been added so our our Solution what we call correlate sits on top of these these CRMs and provides an analytical interface and an intuitive analytical interface that lets you filter with maps or by topic to allow for constituent services to still happen because The the other anecdote that you just heard is obviously a lot of the up tick in email Volume comes from advocacy groups. So it's very important for offices to be able to distinguish between You know email that they need for constituent services just in their capacity to carry out their Responsibility of their constituents and and advocacy email. So our layer our software layers Allows that to happen in a more transparent way It's in use on both sides of of the house in leadership and we're working on on integrating it more deeply with with CRMs Right now and hopefully that will happen soon another project though that is actually the that I see is the culmination of a successful, but sometimes it seems slow process of Institutional not-for-profit and for-profit collaboration to move the institution forward is our work on what we call the CMF specification for constituent email implementing that so or advocacy email Sorry implementing this so this is actually known by the this is another laugh line the term that the the product is called The black box inside the house but the But but this this product is an it's an open API an open XML API that allows for anyone to register this Initially what are known as advocacy vendors these groups that send massive amounts of advocacy email or allow Groups to register to send advocacy email to Congress in a more instead of reverse engineering the constituent email pathway It provides a standard email pathway for advocacy groups to send email to Congress. It doesn't overwhelm the mail servers It doesn't break when a web form changes. So yeah, we were implementing an open API Yeah, so an application programming interface. So this is a standard method for and and documented method for advocacy groups to send mail to the institution as opposed to going Through a channel that wasn't built for this which is the going at pretending as if they're a constituent effectively and sending mail That way so we're we're in the process of testing this and Hopefully it'll be rolled out for the net for the next the next Congress and that's really exciting. It's the culmination of years of work but I think it's a good it will end up being a Good demonstration of how these different organizations can work together to move the institution forward. So I think that that's it for me Well, thank you so much for letting me speak today. This is such an important topic I feel very strongly that this kind of discussion has to happen more in this town having only been here for four years, but having seen very closely and firsthand some of the The functions and inner workings of US Congress I think there's a lot we can do to get smart people like Tom and Susie to help us to do our job better So maybe I'll just step back a little and just quickly introduce myself to give you a sense of what I did both on the committee and In my current job. So after I graduated from Harvard graduate school where I studied Korean the Korean Peninsula basically and you know South Korea, of course is the most internet has the most Penetration of internet usage I think in the world or something like that and you know, Harvard has a lot of money So that again, you know, it was very easy to get information lot largest libraries Just information was literally in my fingertips moved on to DC without a job and found a job Entry level job at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs working for the Democratic chairman Howard Berman then was promoted to handle his Asia policy about a year later and And about two and a half years ago when we lost the well in November 2010 when we lost the The house to the Republican Party Many of us were let go including myself And then I transitioned over to congressman Jim McDermott's personal office where I handle his foreign policy defense women's issues veterans issues and Immigration so lots of issues for just one person to cover. I think as Susie alluded to it's pretty impossible portfolios that a lot of the staff members on the Hill have to manage and give you know recommendations Defensible recommendations to their bosses who go on record to support what you're recommending them to do so very stressful job and So naturally our desire is to have the most Qualified individuals and the best information possible In the personal office in order to serve our constituents interest on the committee Your job is to analyze legislation that is being referred to that committee Talk to stakeholders talk to the administration get a sense for what this bill seeks to do and how feasible it is Are the folks in the executive branch who will be implementing that bill on board? Do they have serious objections to it? Why things like that? So you have to do all your homework and then try to analyze that as those as those bills move Out of committee or members pressure the chairman or the ranking member to go ahead and move it out of committee So very different jobs So during Q&A if you have any specific, you know questions on those, you know, those My specific roles in the two offices. I'm happy to elaborate But I know that the focus of today's discussion is on technology. So I thought I'd just quickly You know give you a sense of how technology has Impactive policymaking in my current job that I see so, you know, obviously Facebook Twitter blogs They're out there, you know members are on it on it. They're tweeting and you know posting on Facebook I would say overwhelming majority or you know, if the stuff is Policy substantive stuff that they want to get the word out to their constituents to say, hey, this is what I did You know, this was my vote. I know you care about this issue. So, you know, this is this is a statement for the record This is my floor speech, you know, etc So you there's a lot of you know use of if I would say, you know, Facebook and Twitter and you know Even blocks to you know to present Their views and reach the people more quickly than you know putting out a press release and you know kind of hoping that a media Picks it up. So, you know, I think things are changing very rapidly on that front One of the things that I found very helpful about, you know about all this is the ability for you know, my member to To be part of the national discussion on a set issue So, for example, the Time magazine ran a cover story a couple of weeks ago on suicide in the US military and how You know, the Pentagon's report in early June, you know revealed that, you know, basically There were one suicide a day among US active service members, which is an astounding number Then during the Defense Department's appropriations bill for FY 13 my boss was able to put together an amendment and Go to the House floor and explain what this amendment would do, which is to increase suicide funding in the Defense Department by 10 million dollars And then when that amendment passed Which we were very happy about he was contacted by Time magazine and Actually was able to post on the Time magazine's blog About his bill and the amendment and you know, you know, Jim McDermott's thing and you know our office wrote it It was on the Time magazine blog so people could kind of see oh, there was a member of Congress who reacted to this issue And when I actually did something about it, that's pretty cool So, you know that I think is one way, you know in which Technology is affording us the ability to really communicate much more rapidly and respond more quickly to some of the hot issues of the day I Would say in general things that I love that really helped me do my job in the personal office Is when I have experts who can distill for me the impact of an issue to the local district The seventh district of Washington or Washington State more broadly So that my boss can explain to the people when he goes back every weekend this issue and it affects you this way so for example the best some of the best examples I can think of our You know cost of war calm, which is a website that breaks down How much us taxpayer? Dollars is being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan and it breaks down by district and by state So you can just go and it separates by Iraq and Afghanistan So I wonder how much seventh district of Washington spent in Afghanistan. You just click click boom. There's a number That's great. That's stuff. We can insert right into my member speech and things like that Another example that comes to my mind is a great report that senator Harkin staff at the senator appropriations subcommittee on labor health and Human services put together and released on June 25th that outlines the state-by-state impact of sequestration on domestic programs And so on Washington's if for Washington State it would mean for example more than 2,000 children not receiving child care subsidies So those are the kinds of breakdowns that really help us Appreciate the meaning of some of these larger programs in the context of in the local context So I think those are definitely worth mentioning I Have some other examples, but and then I think you know It's important for members of Congress to also realize that technology goes both ways It shouldn't be just about outside groups trying to influence Congress members also need to be smart about using technology and Reaching out to to their constituents and other stakeholders You know, I was surprised to read the lake research partner survey which just came out that said that You know, Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group. They grew by 46 percent since 2000 But and 40 percent of Asian Americans apparently rely on Internet and social media to get Information and to disseminate information yet only 23 percent of Asian Americans said they've been contacted by the Democratic Party And only 17 percent by the Republican Party so clearly, you know technology is something that you know, I think lawmakers and politicians also need to take more advantage of and use More creatively and in new ways. So I would just like to end by by saying that You know, I think there are you know, a lot of ways in which we can get you know, kind of Focus too much on the problems, you know, but I do think also that Congress is changing and I think one of the books that you know, every member of Congress and staff ought to read to appreciate how important Congress is for American democracy is former congressman Lee Hamilton's book strengthening Congress in which he, you know explains very clearly Based on his, you know years of work serving in Congress why a strong Congress is so critical to US democracy and so You know, I think there are people having this very discussion across the country. I think It's now kind of, you know, really maximizing The experts and the resources we have and and really making some, you know, concrete You know input so that we can you know start to see to see some change So happy to elaborate more later during Q&A. Thank you I want to just add a note to what you just said, which is I think is something that we have more opportunity for Congressman McDormitt Is a natural person to be a champion of the military Suicide problem because he was deployed to Vietnam and was is a doctor and was a psychiatrist, right? So this is something that's also very interesting You have these super talented members and staff and how do we help them become system-wide support systems for the institution And Dr. McDormitt has always been a tremendous asset to that having Been in meetings with them So thank you for that. I I wanted to turn now to Nancy Lubin if you would Todd if you could give Nancy the microphone She's going to just offer her first impressions and comments on our panel today. I found Nancy several years ago actually when I was working in Congress and bringing in outside experts who had really interesting on-the-ground experience in US foreign policy national security and one of the reasons I was brought in and I work with a group of members was because Congress as an Institution as it sorts and filters the sort of big complex global issues on national security It's some it's stuck somewhere in the 40s basically where it sees the world Where You know the military is the go-to place for national security issues Meanwhile, we've moved into far broader sets of concerns much more complex and subtle and interdependent and What the members asked me to do is set up some convening mechanisms that shared issues between the foreign affairs and the armed services So we could touch on these big global implications like peacekeeping was one example. What was going on in the 90s? Things like these civil military missions that our military was engaged in Extreme weather events reconstruction after natural catastrophes all kinds of things were what our Personnel were actually experiencing didn't really match the agency's mission So we had a lot of convenings hundreds of convenings underneath the committee system in an ad hoc Way sponsored by members very well attended perfectly by partisan I might add to today lots of Republican interest on the Hill first week of August after recess It's not the greatest time to get Hill staff. So we were really lucky to get these folks But in our future conversations, I'm sure we'll have both Democrats and Republicans up here But Nancy was the reason I I feel like she's so important as she was an Soviet Union expert at the former office of technology assessment, which was a the global premier scientific advisory body It's been replicated around the world. It is no longer in existence But I think one of the most important things is that it provided expertise within the process of policy making and Nancy if you just comment on what you've heard up here today and maybe a little bit about How the office of technology assessment worked and are there Ways that that's being done today that we could look to Well first, thank you. I mean it's been you know, this isn't real the technology side Isn't what I do using this iPad for me as you know majors step over to you So I found what you all three of you were saying very interesting and thank you too because as I walked into this room I happened to sit next to Nancy Naismith Who was one of my first bosses when I was way back at the office of technology assessment For the first report that I directed which is on issues and renewing. Can you hear me? Am I talking okay? You need to hold the microphone really close. So anyway This is my first boss or close to it at the office of technology assessment Started there exactly 30 years ago in 1982. So it's great to see her here, too, but I wanted a comment. I guess Well, Lorelai first just asked if I'd say a few things we met for a drink last week And we were talking about the role that OTA played Not it obviously in utilizing technology, but in trying to understand issues in a way that Might help to move Congress forward and so I guess some of the things I was hearing today Or about how to use technology for advocacy or to be heard, you know by your member OTA is the other side of the coin or was the other side of the coin where We actually weren't allowed to advocate anything OTA was set up to analyze and assess Various issues with technology at its core, but then look at all the other associate Associated issues economics the political side the national security side whatever and try to make sense in a non-partisan way So that all members and their staffs would be able to be better informed about Whatever debates they were going to enter into or when they're reading their constituent constituent mail Or when they do click-click and there's a number but then you do click-click on another site And there's a different number, you know, and how do you start to make sense out of all of that? so there were three things that came to mind while we were talking and What to me was the essence but Nancy will correct me if I'm wrong first The Office of Technology Assessment was a creation of Congress itself It was created by Congress by public law 92 or whatever it was 1972 it was created with a bipartisan board of Six twelve members of Congress half Democrats half Republicans half House half Senate Who had to approve any full report before it could even be started and then any report that we did Including it certainly in my experience. I'm sure there were some experience You know exceptions but all of the reports I either directed or worked on had to be requested By at least two full members of Congress Usually the chairman and ranking minority member of you know, whatever relevant committee But it could have been anywhere. I believe usually more requesters But it had to be one Republican one Democrat before we could get started So the first part was by just by structure and by purpose OTA had to be bipartisan The second part of that was we were deliberately set up not to advocate But to better inform and to help structure a debate so that we could give all the Hardcore information out there and we could show what we knew and we could show what we didn't know and Try to sift through the debates narrow it down so that the discussion could be A little bit more founded in substance and a little straightforward and I will say in one of the the reports That I was working on in the mid 80s on you know My homo soviet expert by training and we were looking at what a soviet offensive Into Europe would look like and doing a big report on new technologies for NATO You know that was tied into some legislation going up to the hill and lo and behold we get jack ibbins the head of OTA gets a letter from From the commander of the u.s. Army in Europe general Otis Responding to the one part of the report that I had really been grappling with which was there were certain things We just didn't know so we added added a section. What do we know and what don't we know? About soviet military whatever and he singled that out with the big. Thank you to jack saying that was really useful you know thing Document for them to have so I guess that leads to the third point Which is while our mandate was to better inform congress in fact these reports Ended up being used in so many different parts of government and I went on to be a professor I certainly assigned them you know and Anna to better inform the public and state and local governments as well I think in the same letter. He said he wanted to use that as the primer You know for new recruits coming into the army whatever out in Germany So I guess those three three things were the three things that Lorelai just picked up on that It seemed to us the question is is first to get the information to members of congress and staff and you know and Committees and whatever but second having worked on the hill for a decade and having heard your first comment We don't have time certainly members don't but staff don't either to really understand each issue in debt and That's the additional component that comes with utilizing technology to better inform It's then how do we begin to put that information together in a way? That will not just advocate but actually inspire some kind of dialogue in a in a congress. That's pretty deadlocked Thank you Thank you any responses first if not well we can move to General Q&A. Thank you. I think that was a great overview And I might say I've conducted dozens of interviews with staff both on Capitol Hill and in In in district and the most useful insight. I hear repeatedly in different ways It's like we don't have a problem with information We have an information overload. It's very specific types of knowledge that we need And this is the sort of the spectrum that we were looking at a sort of between sentiment and substance And what they lack are things like foresight analysis comparative analysis contextual analysis institutional memory real-time expertise so fact-checking Pure reviewed knowledge that kind of information and also sort of a lack of connection between Local entities I guess in in an engineer's mind. This is distributed knowledge collective intelligence How do we reap harvest optimized that while we have a chance unlike any in the past? How can we do that moving forward? So I'll go ahead and And take the first question. I'm going to be a kind of Strict moderator I'm going to actually move back over here so I can check on the hashtag But would you like to go ahead Todd right up here in the front row? Hi, I'm Suzy Kim from the Washington Post So I was wondering if given the degree of information overload and this sort of environment in which I Think as Nancy mentioned it. There isn't the time to understand each issue in depth Does this leave a space or a role? for lobbyists to sort of come in and and from their perspective they're offering Sort of expert knowledge and and perspective from you know from an industry's perspective or whatever group they're advocating for And you know, is there a potential upside and sort of downside to the role of of lobbying? You know in sort of the conventional way that we understand it So I mean I think that that is a legitimate concern I can say Both from my perspective at CMF and from my time on the Hill that the role of lobbyists is It's an easy boot. It's an easy boogeyman to be perfectly, you know, Frank about it having said that I mean, I know from when I was working on the Hill that there were lobbyists Who I mean I always checked against other sources first of all just because someone was easy You know was the first person that picked up the phone that wasn't going to be the last word, you know I'd always weigh it against someone else and That I always Took into account it whenever possible would reach back out to my counterparts in the district to fact check what I was hearing You know get and the people who were the most effective were those campaigns that brought those together So they would have a good like you were talking about. What's the impact in the district? How is this actually going to play out? Is the lobbyist someone who's just in DC and doesn't have a good understanding of the impact in the district? Or are they someone who represents a larger association and there is actually something that resonates with the constituents? So I and I know that Laura lies gotten the plaza lines before if we're standing up to Jack Abram off So I think she's actually In the same room, so I think she's probably better equipped to answer this question I am but absolutely, you know that that's a part of it I was actually laughing when Nancy was talking about, you know You find the numbers on one site and then you go find them on another site and how Disruptive it can be and how hard it is to filter the information when you realize that the person with the best I don't know how many tech geeks are here. I know I've got one to my left, but am I I'm married to one But whoever has the best Search engine optimization SEO becomes as important as having the right facts and that's not good if your results show up first That that shouldn't be who carries the day The the only thing I would say in that Abram off conversation was In a book event and I agreed a lot of with what he said But it was making the case over and over again that this institution is just sort of corrupt and venal and and I think that We need to make the case that it is less corrupt and venal than it is obsolete and incapacitated I mean in this case if you look at Congress like as your grandparents who Are of another era it cannot hear What we wanted to hear we we need to adjust and evolve and sit back and take a bigger look at that And actually the audience in that room actually really appreciated that There I say it was a bunch of Congress lovers You can only say that in in Washington DC, but I think that's important to point out is that it's you can't just blame This all on corruption. I mean lobbyists play very useful role. They are experts They are present when you need them. You know exactly who's paying their salary. They often point out the whole spectrum of Issues at play and so I think the question is how do we broaden that information playing field? And I can also say just one last point on that one thing I would always ask every lobbyist is I'd say okay. I'm listening to you What's your what's the opposition going to say and if they couldn't accurately portray that to me they'd say you know And in an honest way, then I wouldn't I would discount a lot of what I just heard If I didn't feel like they were you know, it's not their job to represent the other side, but it's certainly their job to understand the other side Okay, go right there and then we'll move back up here. Thank you. Thank you very much My name is Pete shutley and I'm from Brookings and I think it would be helpful if we had a clearer statement of the issue or the problem Because we've heard several different ones from the panel is the issue that advocacy groups Can't send Thousands of messages to hill members and that are then received accurately Is it that staffers are swamped with information and can't process it? Is it that they don't have the right kind of information? Is it all of the above or or what's the definition of the problem? Point one point two. I would turn it around and say one mega definition of the problem of a mega problem Is the American public's lack of understanding of the Congress? If you asked, you know the average American who's your member of Congress you'd probably get a 10% response rate Some of these public opinion polls that just came out recently Pew said that 43% of the American public after the Supreme Court decision on health care reform had no clue 8% had the wrong definition 35 didn't even know that there was a definition so the public's understanding of the Congress is I would say a much more serious problem aggravated by the decline of Journalists that are the correspondence in Washington who are shrinking paper newspaper journalists that have closed their Washington office So the American public ignorance, I would say is probably at the top of the problem Well, I mean I agree with you that there are a couple of issues where I think raising in this form None of which can be covered in the limit of time we have But I mean and I agree with you also that constituents have a very low peep American public In general has a low understanding of the role of Congress and how they can influence Congress I can assure you we've I've had calls from constituents who have called to ask some really You know, they're obviously passionate and you know asking really pointed questions But it's about bills that my boss introduced 10 years ago or five years ago, which you know is not Relevant anymore unless he's you know reintroduced it in this Congress. So, you know, the Yes, I think the public has to know more about how the Congress works What what what it means to introduce a bill than having it reintroduced it in the new cycle? How a bill becomes law? It's a hugely, you know, as you know a very much a long and involved process House can do one thing, but if the Senate doesn't move an identical bill it goes nowhere. It's not, you know, it's not It doesn't become the law of the land. So, you know, I think that's a good point that that we need to address that that issue of really low understanding of Congress and I think really it goes also back to the question of lobbyists, you know You do have a lot of people and some of the lot many of the lobbyists that I work with just because of my issue areas tend to be human rights activists and advocates who have a really deep level of understanding on, you know, an issue in Country X or Y and they are lobbying on the human rights issues related to that and you know I would say that's very different from, you know, having a lobbyist from a major, you know Law firm who comes in and you know has this beautiful bill ready, you know Ready to be dropped virtually because they've written it with, you know, a lot of a bunch of lawyers who get paid a lot of money And you know, there it is it's all ready to go, you know And so, you know, of course, you have to be careful and know where the lobbyists is coming from But the point I think is the American public does not know that that's sort of what they're competing against Yet at the same time in our office, we take constituent calls very seriously and I know other offices do as well So American people have a lot more power and influence than maybe they realize when it comes to affecting their legislatures, legislators priorities, so I think the other thing is just the evolution of citizen journalism and how more subject matter expertise can Be availed to members of Congress back home in their districts and states. I think that's an evolving field There's a media policy initiative here. That's working on that. That's another piece of this. Thank you for bringing that up Hi, my name is Kader Sandoval I was an IT consultant on the Hill for the last five years and I was not working for one member I was working actually for 35 and plus members on a non part non parts of manner One of the things I went through two congressional transitions and I experienced, you know, the exiting retiring members I experienced a special election members Leaving the Hill and I also experienced the incoming freshman members and and all those situations When it comes to knowledge as to what you're referring to I kind of look at it from a little different perspective I look at it more from a data perspective as to how it's being handled in the technology now a lot of times what I've noticed was Outgoing members Had huge databases that they were not necessarily leaving behind for incoming members and the incoming freshman members Would start off from scratch trying to get a lot of the knowledge, you know That cost money that cost time that cost effort my question always was who actually owns this data I mean regardless of the content of this of the knowledge that an office acquires during its time who actually owns it That's a fantastic question. It's interesting. I was just last week. I was Do I was doing a webinar? We started doing some cmf has started doing some webinars through a contract with the chief administrative officer and we are Giving them to district staff and you know, we've talked quite a bit about DC base staff and committee staff versus the personal staff We haven't touched on the district staff and how that relationship works And so they were talking about and the session was on assessing case work And they brought up a great question, which we hadn't considered that much And it's it's similar but not exactly touching on what you're saying And that is what happens when a when a members district is dramatically changed by redistricting So what happens so you're in the middle of You have a member of Congress their staff is helping you on your issue that's before the local VA They are that all of a sudden that military installment is installation is no longer in that members district You are not going to have the case resolved by the time you start having a whole new set of constituents What do you do? So, you know and what it turns out a lot of it, you know the so that we have a chat box going while they're talking And they're firing off all these questions. That's a great, you know, what's gonna happen. How do you handle it? And you know the ethics offices is kind of silent on it It says you should only serve people who are your constituents. That's really helpful Then it also so what they a lot of offices were saying what they did is they sent out notices to everyone Who is no longer going to be in their district if they were worried that there would not be a process, you know a responsible dispensation of the case Prior to a new member taking over and they reached out to the new member and then they reached out to other people and Asked them if they could get a waiver to transfer their information To to the new member of Congress who would be taking over that information or already sitting member of Congress But taking on new constituents and so that to me was a very responsible Situate way of handling it, but you know you have awful situations, you know where and they're understandable You know people are Upset when they lose the seat. They are not happy about the redistricting process Or they're just so busy dealing with the ongoing problems that they just don't ever think about a responsible way to transfer it I wish I had a better answer for you, but it's something that we're thinking we need to look in to a lot more thoroughly, you know We don't make recommendations We go out and find out kind of what the problems are and then talk with congressional offices about how they have Collectively tried to solve it. We see that more as our role, but it's a great issue to raise And that's a very concrete example of how this ends up impacting things But it still doesn't answer your big question about what is the problem? I think it's that we have antiquated systems trying to deal with remarkable challenges I that's kind of a broad definition of it Tom. Did you want to comment on that? Sure? Problem question I I mean I can address the IT question a little bit My my understanding is that typically an office will leave the data for instance a CRM database the database of Casework to the the next the the member that you know wins the election if they're outgoing and this is I This is this is a fact in that or my experience with this is that This is it's part of the reason why some CRM vendors some software vendors So they all use these software systems to manage correspondence are more entrenched because there's a there's a big incentive for a member to continue to use the database and System they already have in place because it's such a giant hassle such a large IT Problem to migrate now technically they have to be able to it's one of the requirements of a CRM to be able to Migrate that data set but in practice if you're a new member of Congress you haven't You're new to all of these problems. The last thing you want to do is add that on the complexity of changing your constituent management system or your your CRM platform as one of the first things that you do in office, so That is a little bit different there are also accounts, there's Leadership roles that and and so email lists that correspond to Offices or websites that correspond to the majority leader, etc. That stuff is there. I think it it depends That stuff doesn't get passed on right. Yeah, so but as far as the the larger The the question about the larger problem. I think Lorelei did a great job summarizing that in her description of the panel You know we have an institution that is has technically has antiquated technical infrastructure Obviously, that's just a small part of the problem But it's a legitimate part of the problem and that's exacerbated by the fact that budgets are have been cut in the last two years significantly and and the and but I think that that's Looking at it, you know, that's on the institutional kind of infrastructure side And that's where my expertise is but the only reason that we've been able to do anything And I think we have made progress and I've seen other other initiatives that that I would describe as very Progressive in the apolitical sense of that term For example open data there's an initiative to open up legislative data in the house This is happening. This is happening in spite of the fact that they have that that that IT budgets are slashed and and the all the reason this happens is you have people you have members who entrust staffers to to in leadership positions to to make decisions that and that are for the good of the institution and are not you know For political expediency and that for example the reason that we actually got our This this not the black box project, but our correlate product the the system that Improves CRM functionality into the house at all is because of this Even though we initially were talking to Nancy Pelosi's office. It was Eric Cantor's Chief or new media director Matt Lira who really pushed for that and we've also done some Subsequent work with him to increase I completely agree that the lack of of understanding of the public of the institution is is that's a really I It obviously journalism is part of that problem But there are things the institution can do and one project that that is out of that I think is really interesting that has come out of Cantor's office is a project called citizen co-sponsor which is a it's a it's a Legislative information system inside of Facebook that lets people explore legislation and and that's a nonpartisan effort and I think that the That on the on the on the other side or There are there other project or products that we can talk about that are similar in terms of the way that they get done Is you have people that are in Congress who believe in the institution who are? Who are pushing for for technical change and I think this a product called pop box that you may have heard of There's something similar going on there so And I think the committee on house administration the fact that I had barely started back at the Congressional Management Foundation And they held an entire set of they held an entire conference on accountability and transparency in house information systems You know that's that would not have happened a few years ago And it was widely attended and there were folks from the Sunlight Foundation who are great You know and we you know we had a presence there and you know a lot of the different vendors, but you know advocacy groups were there as well and it's And the fact I mean how much websites have changed since we first started giving grades for them You know back in the early 2000s to where they are now with the gold mouse awards the number of Sites that are eligible for a gold mouse award And a big part of that is the fact that they had that the sites have to be transparent and they help to hold members accountable That's that's a revolution if they're still way behind the rest of you know the the populate the populace and the population Yeah, the other thing I was going to say just back to your larger question When I worked on the hill what I noticed is that a lot of people who likely have the sort of public interest in mind And should be I always thought more involved or just not present in a useful way and specifically I mean academics local academics Land-grant universities their mission is knowledge in the public interest and I think people still think of a rural electrification and the Tennessee Valley Authority When they think of land-grant universities, I mean where where are these high reputation high? Validator high highly credible filters of information bonus that they're in the district I think that's going to be a really interesting path forward Institutional memory problem to that's another role for citizens That's another role for people outside the institution is to maintain the institutional memory Non-profits are a great place to do that I think that is a way to make themselves much more modern and useful for a legislature and In terms of citizen journalism something that people requested a lot is like just moving past this old Stodgy press model that that staff not only need typical press releases and lists now of Sort of broadcast journalists and the newspaper journalists, but they want top tweeters in your district Top bloggers in your district and press clippings of that micro media hyper local news a lot of it's going in in that direction And to the extent that becomes sort of credible filtering mechanisms Anyway, I talked to staff for a year and a half about this they come up with amazingly innovative solutions But a lot of it again. It needs to be constituent driven Hi, my name Hi, my name is Sheila Lawland with the National Bureau of Asian Research and I had a two quick questions The first is for Tom. It's about like your Organizations work at you do it at the federal level, but are you looking at moving it to the state level? I worked at in the Missouri House of Representatives, and I know that our CRM is really awful So I didn't know if there was if you all were looking at what was it? I don't really remember. It was just really bad because this is for all time so Yeah, we are we have a pilot in New York State and a couple of state senator offices it's a we're we would like to but the There we're trying to determine how to scale it and you know the nice the house and the Senate where we're not in the Senate right now Both have you know pretty homogenous architecture even though there are many different CRM's and but states have widely differing CRM systems and also protocols for handling Questions like the question that was asked about data ownership It's just it's it really varies state to state so but but The answer is we would like to yes, and I had another question for Susie and Jessica You talk a lot about how like social media is used for offices and how they like to get in touch with their constituents But I haven't heard anything about Skype or any like video services And do you guys have any insights into how offices or representatives can use that? And we looked at I'm just trying to remember because I don't have my you know You become overly dependent on technology you realize when you can't just turn to a slide and say here's where they are on Video you know adaptation of video in general. They've been much faster at adapting social media than they have You know it took it took them a long time to get up and running on blogs and I mean sorry on websites and seeing them as anything More than a you know visit my website You know the kind of quaint ones with the where you still have it on the license plates, you know With the forward slash gov But they've been much more quick and they've been much more quick to adopt social media YouTube to some extent and then one that I find fascinating and I'm not sure how it's gonna play out I had a I had a group come in to present to me from V. U It's it's v. Y. O you and I was showing my age because I was asking them I was like, oh you guys like velvet underground and they were like who so Anyway, V you is a pretty cool technology where you kind of have a more controlled way of using YouTube you can pose questions and then you know anybody can pose questions and then a member can decide if they're gonna answer those questions in whatever format they want and Senator Grassley and who's also a big Twitter who uses Twitter the Twitter a lot as he sometimes calls it But anyway, he's been very innovative in adopting this and he's been interested in V. U So that's some video technology as far as Skype. I've really been recommending it when I do some of the trainings with district staff In particular so that they can break down some of the walls between two two factors You sometimes have districts where they're very widespread So, you know, if you're the at-large member for North Dakota I mean, it's hard to stay in contact with those tiny offices And they get they start feeling very isolated in the work that they're doing and that's to say nothing of trying to connect back With DC because I make the point a lot with them, you know to understand why their work They're doing is so important They're on the front lines if a piece of legislation hasn't been well crafted then they're the first people who see, you know Get the calls from constituents that it's problematic and that's the sort of those aren't experts But they are experts because it's the laws impacting them the regulations impacting them So, you know, I've been trying I've been trying to really encourage them to adopt some of this But I do know that there are some restrictions on whether they can use Skype at all And I haven't gotten very clear confirmation on what the laws say I think they can use them in their district offices pretty broadly I don't think they can use them in the D in the district office. I mean in the DC office, but don't quote me on that you I'm so glad I just saw Dan Schumann come back in the room speaking of dragon slayers on the issues of Information Congress and the Sunlight Foundation and could you go ahead and ask your question here in a paper? I guess about a nine months ago now about staffing levels in Congress in and comparative analysis in the history And what I remember from it most is Congress is working approximately at 60 to 80 percent of 1979 Levels of staffing and the problem is worse where deep expertise is needed Do you want to go ahead in? Wait just one second, please. Oh, and I mean I'm supposed to every once in a while Advise the audience Watching on the web that we can take your questions with the hashtag OTSC. Okay, go ahead. Thanks. Yeah, of course So this falls off the sort of the the question that the the person from Brookings had had mentioned Which is you know, what is the point of you know, what was the the number of what we're trying to discuss? And it's really Congress's capacity to analyze and prioritize Analyze information prioritize what it's going to be doing and we've seen over the last 20 or 30 years Diminution and its ability to do so OTA was abolished the administrative conference of the United States disappeared for for a decade CRS lost its economist We've seen the deluge of information that's coming in through constituent communications resulting in a staffing up of legislative correspondence in the in the resulting Weakening of the policy folks and of course there's a shift of people from the DC office To the district office, which means that more and more people are engaging constituent service Which is absolutely fine, but at the same time that's weakening the ability to deal with things to deal with important questions on the congressional policy side and so the question that I had for for these these Eminent panelists really comes down to so we've discussed, you know Getting information from CRS and we've spoken a bit about constituent communications I'm sort of curious about Congress's role in making information Putting information back into the ecosystem sort of the of course. I work at sunlight. So the transparency side of this equation More you know from from our perspective more information that's made available back to the public You get things for example when I come and I lobby you or anybody else I'm one I'm working from sort of a level playing field But you can also look at the sources of my information to see whether you trust what I have to say But this is but this comes down to how is Congress making its legislative information available? How is it making its analyses available? Can you see the committee reports and the transcripts and things along those lines? And there are many sort of other things that factor into this equation and I was just hoping that That that you guys could talk a little bit about What do you think would be helpful in terms of what sort of the next step for Congress and sort of pushing information back out Into the information ecosystem so that you can get better information coming back to Congress So it's a little bit of a complicated question, but I know that you guys are up to it Sure, I mean it's a very you know difficult question as you said I agree with you But that that really I think is it's also very important In terms of our office getting information out about my bosses what he does in Washington, DC, you know You know as you know There are hundreds and thousands of votes that are cast throughout the two years the Congress is in session and That alone, you know how to explain to constituents like why he voted a certain way He we've all we've had a couple of instances where he would vote He would put an amendment into a moving bill like an appropriations bill And you know obviously vote for it because it's his and then vote down on the overall bill because the overall bill is is is not You know in our set in our view, you know favorable So how do you explain those things to people? I think it you know It's just a good example of the complexity of the what we're dealing with and then I think constituents would also want to know Well aside from voting and introducing legislation, which as I said, you know, it's a very long process Sometimes it takes many years of trying to for it to finally become law where we you know sneak it in as an Amendment to a moving bill so you know people say well you had a long bill But now you put this dollar figure into a bill. So, you know, what's going on? So anyway, that those are just some you know I think Ways in which the public can easily be very confused and mystified about you know any member or senators activities and then not to mention sort of the The quiet, you know diplomacy that takes place that nobody really knows about because it's you know private Whether it's meetings with constituents or experts or you know others who want to tell my boss their their views on important issues so And some of the things that my boss will do and others will do regularly are things that will not you know Be known by by public, but maybe they should know because he was an instrumental, you know He played an instrumental role in resolving or moving, you know the set issues, so I Think that's a very good question. I mean what what we try to do is We try to identify people who we think will care about an issue a Good example of this is So my boss was involved in an issue related to Indonesia, which you know is the Largest Muslim democracy third largest democracy has been Washington State in Indonesia has a very strong trade relationship And there was some issues earlier this year regarding potential port closures in Indonesia and the impact that would have on Washington, you know Agricultural products that we export there and And congressman McDermott also happens to be the co-chair of the Indonesia caucus in Congress So he already had developed a lot of ties with the Indonesian government officials the diplomats based in DC and was able to Also work with his counterpart in the Indonesian legislature to really address it in that level and Actually find a very positive resolution to the issue Now to try to explain that to folks in a cute soundbite. It would be really hard, you know people be like well Okay, well even then like what are we talking about with the scale of US trade to Indonesia, you know, it's a it's a very complicated issue But you know, I think that is the the kinds of stories we want to get out to the relevant players, you know In Washington state in the Seattle, you know, Chamber of Commerce and you know folks who deal with trade So that is the job of staff really to make those calls and to explain the issues But you know, it's obviously never going to be enough because you know as you heard there's Maybe ten or in our office about eight full-time staff, you know So it's a lot of information that we should be getting out that maybe we just simply don't have the capacity to do But the next thing is if constituents call or email or write to us asking specific questions about a bill or an issue We write back to them and we give them an explanation So that's that's a sure guarantee of getting information But I think what you're getting at is a little bit more systematic I was wondering if there were Institutional pieces that are missing that that either need to be built or need to be strengthened like you know OTA was an example one of those cornerstone pieces that is Sorry You know OTA was one of those cornerstone pieces that has disappeared You know there are other F, you know, and there was an attempt to bring OTA back in the last approach bill There's legislation now to make Sierra's reports available to the public or to require all reports from the executive branch To be available online so anybody can look at them. You know, these are sort of Institution building kinds of pieces You know how all the reports that CMF, you know did for all those years, you know They are fantastic in terms of giving you insight and to Turn over within congressional staff and how that affects you that is an important institutional piece that is You know sometimes falls by the wayside. So, you know, it's really what is sort of that between the member level and You know Congress as a whole is there's something that you know that that you think should be done or could be done as sort of a next step To sort of strengthen these kinds of connections this kind of information sharing one of the things I'll just mention is I've seen members using their personal websites as sort of hubs for system-wide knowledge dissemination There's one actually up a really interesting one on the how the majority a website of the House Armed Services Committee That's called a sequestration resource package, of course It's it's very one-sided in that sense, but it's an interesting way to use a highly sort of an institutional Online venue to share knowledge I think the other things I've seen are members posting constituent written expert Documents on their websites like there was a wonderful one on zoelofgren's website during the SOPA debate that was written I believe by Some lawyers in Silicon Valley Which explicated the acronyms of the conversation and was so helpful apparently it went viral on the internet and That's the kind of thing again that experts who usually don't see themselves as important validators filters and contributors to the policy process That I think need to maybe Sort of look at this new division of labor of citizenship And I just might add to one of the things that's happening in the institution as a whole is the deliberative process of Congress This is super geeky. So let's put our Congress geek hats on is the difference between the authorization process and the appropriations process the authorization process in Congress is Severely lacking right now as a deliberative Fora it's where the big ideas the risk-taking the sharing and the contributions of experts Thrive and prosper over the last 20 years Congress as an institution has migrated a lot of that expert Substance into the appropriate into the appropriations process. So it's kind of going straight to where the money is It's not doing its institutional job of deep contemplation and an inclusive Deliberation or collaboration that's something that can be Incentivized from the outside too by people coming from the district and saying how can we create venues for you to talk about this? Not town hall models not shaking hands and parking lots, but informed convening in districts And I'd love to see that and you know it like what I mean what I the Website that's in my brain is basically, you know, you would have the straightforward content But there would be a way to navigate through it depending on what you're interested in and that you would get down to the level of Process and so that you would actually so if you're only interested in going this far process isn't sexy So not everyone's going to want to do that dive that deep dive But you would there would be avenues through which you would so I'd love to have a further conversation because we're looking at we'd love to redo the gold mouse awards and Include a lot more social media discussion in there and we're calling it and in my head It's called Congress online reboot. And so, you know what those criteria should be is I think that that's a big part of that conversation where we I'm calling it like a virtuous Feedback loop, you know, that's what would be ideal and the the ecosystem would be healthier because you'd be getting new information through and Everyone would be you know sunlight is a great antiseptic. And so, you know, it would actually be a cleaner system. I don't know Anybody else to it should we go ahead and did you have a Thank you if you could identify yourself also that would be great sure My name is Olga Musaev So I find this very interesting sort of you know, this big problem, but it seems like it's certainly not limited to Congress You know information overload is sort of everywhere And I guess the most you know most prominent example of that is the Internet itself How do you identify websites that are credible? How do you identify? Websites that have good information or the information that you're looking for So I'm curious is there been any effort, you know, okay So the way that search engines do it is by crowdsourcing by you know instead of But by letting voters like users vote on what's the most relevant most you know unbiased information So is there has there been any effort to have you know Congress instead of going out there and identifying the people who are Stakeholders in this just put the information out there for anyone to correct So you know a lobby submits a letter and that's just supposed to somewhere and then you know the The other the opposition or anyone who's interested can edit it and if it goes through the process unchecked You know, then the congressman knows that it is credible There has been out there in the public and that it is you know, you can rely on it So I'm curious has there been any efforts to go in that direction. Thank you I think the Madison platform that mr. Issa put out there is something similar. It's called the Madison Platform it's a chairman Issa if you go if you just google it You can you can find that as any any other examples that you can think of there was It was you cut that was one of the thing that mr. Cantor did Having citizens sort of vote on what they'd like to see out of the budget, but it was kind of a blunt object It's not a very refined Effort yet, but these I think are what's out there to be innovated around Right now Any any comments? I also got a comment in just saying it's interesting how search engine optimization can be as important as lobbying When influencing Congress, does that right if you want to comment on that? Well, it's I think that the I That that both of the examples that you just gave Are you know interesting examples of crowdsourcing but the idea of crowdsourcing of having a Effectively you're talking about the idea of a wiki-pedia for for like policy briefs and and and Lobbyist information that that's a that's an interesting idea. I might generally that that Also, just to kind of address what what Daniel was saying or that there's a I think that there's this emphasis on open data on open raw data It's what I think about as someone that's involved in Congressional IT infrastructure, but also Thinking about data and peripherally involved in open data projects And I think that there will be and has been great progress in that area sunlight has been you know really has been putting pressure on the institution and I and I think that it will continue to that enterprise that will continue to improve and We'll have I'm optimistic about it But but what is it's interesting, you know sitting on this panel listening to the questions It's clear that there is a lot that then the next level is is I'm thinking about the information generation capacities of the institution And you know if if it's going to be able to handle this, you know increased amount of What happens with open data open data gets gets used by advocacy organizations. It gets used by by by lobbyists it gets used by academics and then is turned around into you know turn and and and presented back to the institution so the improving the analysis capabilities the institution is very very interesting and and I look forward to the day when you know open data is a given and these More high-level discussions, you know, hopefully there'll be the budgets and the capacity of the institution to have them Thank you. Is anybody else want to comment on that? Let's go back there, and then we'll come back up here. Thanks. Yeah. Hi. My name is Stuart Miller. Um, I We noticed how software has now got the ability to do some really amazing things with content as depicted by market trading software The Economist recently had an article on several projects that are being developed right now to predict civil unrest By opposite by looking at content not just Twitter conversations, but a variety of content Seems to me as a big opportunity here And I just wondered if there was any similar Software development or research going on that's addressing this this issue of how to assimilate and synthesize multiple sources of comment and opinion Yeah It's gonna use this are there is there anybody out there that's there there are there are platforms There's something called Palantir which sounds similar to what you're describing or you know, it's a very very rich and powerful data Analysis system and it's used in the defense. You know it across defense organizations and But you know, I don't it's it would be it's an interesting question to Are Danny can congressional offices have Palantir? I? Would probably say it's very expensive. So there's there's other ones I was at the Tech at State and The transparency camp actually that sunlight foundation puts on every year if you want to look through those are all online The people who participated there was a couple of people doing something similar to what you just suggested at the last one I went to the un-conference It's called Palantir. I think is a California group out of Berkeley That's looking at ways to sort and filter and show the trends and the patterns and what you're talking about social media sites Right here And I don't I don't have data to back this up But generally speaking we're a lot more of the innovations have been have been around people's opinions as opposed to substantive policy Ideas in exchange and I think when you were talking about what the big question is like to my mind That's part of it. I'm not framing it. Well, but that's a big part of it is that there's a lot of information out there and A lot of it is based on opinion and not facts and that was part of the role of OTA And I don't think that there's anything Good it is that there's the social media is busy being used a lot for pressure and postmortems of But not process I didn't mean that for it to be a literation, but so I think that like seeing how this impacts the you know, the Optimizes the process of policymaking is like is there ways are there ways to do Real-time fact-checking and hearings now that there are webcasts There is a group of distributed climate scientists working on this right now I know But is there a way to for that who those of us who have sort of worried about this big picture long-term Outcomes can create a continuing education system for members of Congress back home in their district Simply by creating a better ability to surge and plunge and turn and respond with substantive expertise and this you know, I think you know, we have taught a recently graduated PhD if you want to say what is peer-reviewed knowledge? I mean, this is important and it seems to get lost a lot. It's rigorously determined knowledge It's really important for long-term outcomes, and it's something that Isn't available in a useful way in Congress right now just to be put it simply Is that is that a good a good definition of peer-reviewed knowledge? Robust knowledge things we're putting your PhD to use Go ahead Hi, I'm Ed with link tank. We've spoken a lot about information technology used for for constituent relations and Managing that but what about just the nature of partisanship and misinformation? It doesn't seem like technology is helping anyway and rather exacerbating a platform to to advocate further partisanship Where does that play into just Congress in of itself as a deliberative body? Thank you. That's really important I'm gonna go ahead and anybody's had experience on Capitol Hill being on the receiving end of this. I think it's really important the noise problem Yeah, that's That's a big issue. I think there it's easy to Use websites and you know blogs and other types of you know communication on the web to attack mischaracterize or You know put false information forward You know, I can't say that in my work. I have you know necessarily been the victim of that sort of thing in part because I'm a staff were pretty much invisible this is Pretty unprecedented to even speak on the record I never do this and staff are strongly discouraged from speaking on the record because you know We work for our bosses, but you know, I think your questions I mean might be helpful to have had more staff members on this panel who maybe have different Experiences to weigh in and kind of share insights with you, but You know, I think members try their best to inform their constituents and their Who they perceive to be stakeholders To best position themselves and best explain their views and to be very relevant to sort of the national Discussion and national debate on the issues of the day. So Sometimes partisanship, you know, I think it can be used to kind of further prove your Sort of you know position solidify your views and and totally discount the other side as being, you know Too naive or misinformed and whatnot So, you know, I think in that sense perhaps both parties at fault But I think to a large degree members of Congress really try to focus on You know being as accurate as possible. At least that's what I would like to believe But you know, I do know from being on the Hill for the last four years that partisan attacks have increased a lot So you don't have to look very far to see you know some comments about members That you know, especially during the campaign cycle that we're in now, you know a lot of information I'm sure is going out there that Perhaps is not the best characterization of that members positions, but you know I think that's more of a feature of the current polarized environment that that is Congress and You know, I think members are in a difficult position of trying to retain some civility in the dialogue But at the same time not seeming like they're completely weak, you know and not able to defend themselves You know, so they have to go out and say my that that's wrong, you know The Republican Party or the Democratic Party is mischaracterizing that position So, you know, I could think of a couple of issues off the top of my head For example during like the women's reproductive rights, you know abortion that kind of debate that have been sued Over the last couple of months, you know, a lot of partisan rhetoric, you know You saw that play out, you know and on other issues as well where you know, I think members are using all venues including social media to really Get their point of view across but I don't think that's ultimately helpful. So Sure Sorry from groups nonprofits like sunlight and using data for Pushing a point and we don't see that in Congress. We're not seeing infographics We're not seeing the use of and technology as much as from outside to to promote a point And it's still like a lot of rhetoric. That's that's just the issue I think that you know, they're not exactly early adapters on Capitol Hill And I think that that one of the things to keep in mind is that I think if a member of Congress had some help with visual data from Constituents, this is another thing where sort of keep in mind the gay keepers of information in Congress are 25 and the end users are 65 about the how do we how do we act as custodians of that generation gap on the Hill on behalf of the institution? These are the kind of really important questions that like by omission I Think people lump it into I Think disinformation campaigns can be so successful a part of that is because There's so much there's so much cash in the system right now I mean members having to spend so much time raising money instead of becoming experts and as we've heard the deep pools of policy knowledge Have also declined over the years like I guess my question for Deep pools of knowledge that exist to help the public's interest back in states and districts They have a special responsibility right now Where are some sort of student teams who can help with visual data for the institution? Congressional research service is beloved by staff, but it's still a pretty academic old-fashioned model How about creating Visual data for the top 10 requested CRS reports if they would put them online make them available So there's a lot of I guess what I would love for people to do is is again just the assumptions Lots of times get blown up and in the press But from what I've seen and I hope this isn't naive as well as that there's this triage system and that Money and noise might help something get past the triage system But it doesn't inform the policy very well And in fact they might have reached their point of diminished returns, which is the saturation point where it's not helping The the institution move forward With the post mortems on the SOPA debate we might we might see some of that information coming out Nancy Did you want to comment on that? I just saw you Okay, I think we only have a couple more minutes if how about if I give you all a chance to Say last words or what we hope comes out of this or what might come next I'm hoping this will be a series of Conversations and so we're open for new ideas You can also check out our blog and the OTI website here at New America Foundation to see what we're up to The OTI tech team is growing rapidly and does a lot of international work a lot of civic technology a lot of technical Expertises available here as well, and we're sort of trying to look at these hard next steps the The difference between campaigning and governing the use of social tech, you know That's something that we've all been asking in this town for the last couple of years There's a book by Clay Scherke called here comes everybody that is a lovely easy read And he talks about something called the difference between stop energy and start energy and Stop energy in the realm of technology and social media is sort of getting rid of a dictator or Killing legislation start energy is much more difficult. It's the standing process of substance Okay, so synthesize the last hour and a half conversation that That I've been having for 15 years usually over cocktails though. That's the downside here I don't think I can do that But I do see this very much as a conversation. I see it as a conversation starter I will be happy to share my business card with anybody which is also remarkably old-fashioned of me, but You know if anybody that would love to come up and have a further conversation. We're always looking for new research ideas and any there's any funding attached to it so much the better but We you know, I would welcome that and I'm glad that there's so many people here interested in this and I think that Loyalized challenge. It's like said it's a lot easier to stop something than it is to start something if people have creative ideas Or they see something that a member of Congress is doing that's innovative that should be replicated We are happy to blast that out to the extent that we can happy to share it with other district offices when we meet with them and I Wish everybody good luck in trying to conquer this and if somebody can actually come up with a concrete definition of the problem That would be great too Yeah, well, I think the last question is interesting and and and worth just addressing very briefly and then in light of the whole conversation there is this tension between technology between governing and campaigning and and also this lack of funding and and societal investment in the institution and and so but I think that that Obviously technology can be used in the process of you know campaigning for partisan purposes and this happens while the members are are are in their position as as as of governing and But and so technology is very powerful as a campaign tool, but it's also critical For governing in the presence of this, you know, what we've been talking about today information overload and lack of capacity to deal with and Process that information. So I look forward to the you know further development of technological innovation in these discussions and hopefully it'll be This will be a fruitful series. Yeah I mean, I also was taking a lot of notes throughout the event today because I was It was a very thought-provoking conversation and left me with a lot of things to think about on my way back to the office today I guess one thing I just want to say in response to what you were saying earlier about You know information production You know Things like pony 2012 that video as you all know and have watched, you know that I think those kinds of things Are so helpful when members of Congress and you know, I think senators also see that in in terms of relating a complicated issue To ordinary Americans, it's like here's why you should care about something that's going on halfway across the world You know and and if we have academics in local institutions and universities and you know scholars who have you know innovative ways of Helping us explain to the American public. Why something matters, you know I think visual aid is always a great way And I think that's why members of Congress when they go speak on the floor They try to always bring something, you know, and usually it's like a pie chart or something that you can't read It takes like font is so tiny and you know, it's it's it's just Madness but so clearly we need help In kind of communicating in more visual more powerful visceral ways that for the public to connect with us And so I think there's a lot of great ideas that you know that people are thinking about collectively here today And I'm really glad to have been a part of the discussion. So thank you Thank you So I think the message is out there your help is as gladly received and appreciated and people up here are all open for ideas And hoping to move forward on this. Thank you all for coming again There'll be some papers coming out in this smart congress project and check our website for updates Have a good afternoon