The Communications Forum is a luncheon program held in Washington eight times per year that gives newsmakers from government and the communications industry an opportunity to address an audience of media, corporate executives and journalists on key policy issues. It has partnered with NextGenWeb to live stream the 2009 series.

Live video by Ustream

Republican staff met at the Capitol Hill Club Friday morning for presentations by:
•       Katie Harbath, NextGenWeb
•       Patrick Ruffini, Engage DC
•       Nick Schaper, Office of Rep. John Boehner (OH-8)
•       William Beutler, New Media Strategies

Democratic staff met in the Capitol building later that afternoon for presentations by:
•       Shana Glickfield, NextGenWeb
•       Alan Rosenblatt, Center for American Progress Action Fund
•       Brad Bauman, Office of Rep. Tim Ryan (OH-17)
•       William Beutler, New Media Strategies

Staffers were guided through key definitions, the anatomy of a blog, and how to discover other blogs on their issue or district.   Panelists were unanimous that Technorati, Google Blogs, and TwitterSearch are key search engines for discovering discussion and recommended that staff set up RSS feeds so that updates are easy to track.     See below for a full list of recommended tools and resources.

Alan Rosenblatt presented his new theory of Reverse Advocacy to Democratic staff.   Rosenblatt recognizes that staffers are overwhelmed with emails, many of which are form letters, but nonetheless representative of constituent sentiment.   Rosenblatt proposes that the social web presents an opportunity for even more meaningful engagement with constituents by monitoring and engaging in these online social venues, like Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Staffers from both sides of the aisle were eager to talk with William Beutler, an expert on Wikipedia.   Beutler warns that although Wikipedia says that anyone can edit the site, it’s not quite that simple.   As staffers are well aware, their Members’ Wikipedia pages are often top search results.     So it’s important for them to monitor the content of the entry.   If something is blatantly libelous or if there is a grammatical error, then it’s okay to edit, but anything that could be considered controversial should be approached more cautiously.   Beutler recommends registering transparently and beginning with the talk section of the entry.

NGW Social Media for Staffers Resources

Tracking Trends
Search: Google Insights- http://www.google.com/insights/search/

Twitter: Twit Scoop- www.twitscoop.com

Twitter: Hashtags- http://hashtags.org/

Blogs: BlogPulse- http://www.blogpulse.com

Facebook: Lexicon- http://www.facebook.com/lexicon/

Content Searches
Blogs: Google Blog search- http://blogsearch.google.com

Blogs: Technorati- http://www.technorati.com

Twitter:   TwitterSearch- http://www.search.twitter.com

Ranking Blogs/Twitterers
Blog: Technorati Authority- www.technorati.com

Twitter: Twitter Grader- http://twitter.grader.com

Twitter: Twitteraholic- http://twitterholic.com/

Twitter: Twitalizer- http://www.twitalyzer.com/twitalyzer/index.asp

Site stats: Compete- www.compete.com

Site stats: Alexa- www.alexa.com

URL Shorteners
TinyURL: www.tinyurl.com

Twurl: http://twurl.cc/

Is.gd: http://is.gd/

Wikipedia
Tutorial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_tutorial

Hyperlocal Sites: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/technology/start-ups/13hyperlocal.html

Everyblock: http://www.everyblock.com

Outside.in: http://www.outside.in

Placeblogger: http://www.placeblogger.com

Patch: http://www.patch.com

Other resources
David Karpf: Stability and Change in the Political Blogosphere in the 2008 election

SocNet for Senior Citizens: Eons- http://www.eons.com

MacAllister said that Hip Hop Republicans began as a site, but became a movement thanks to a viral migration to many social networking sites.     He shared three things that he believes technology means for politics.
1)     Increased activism.
2)     Redefinition of politics as the easily digestible online format makes for more informed citizens.
3)     Harder working politicians and more responsive elected officials

Navarro believes that social networks give everyone’s voice equality.   Obama was able to connect one-on-one with everyone because he had profiles on every major social network, including BlackPlanet and Hi5 alongside Facebook and MySpace.   Navarro believes that policymakers need to get more educated about the social networking landscape.

I repeat — Interaction, participation, and personalization!