August 17, 2006

Live-Blogging From the NCSL

NASHVILLE - I'm writing this from the National Conference of State Legislatures' session on E-Legislatures: Technology and the Policymaking Process, exploring the role blogs and other Internet technologies have in the policymaking process, and I'm sad to report that it isn't packed with attendees. While approximately 1,000 legislators and 2,000 lobbyists are attending the NCSL's annual meeting, at Nashville's cavernous Opryland Hotel and convention center, there are only about 100 people attending this session.

Utah state Rep. Steve Urquhart, a pioneer of legislator bloggers, just concluded his talk, in which he demonstrated the basics of posting to a blog. Urquhart, blogging since November 2004, mixes serious policy postings with more relaxed items such as one recently showing photographs from a trip lawmakers took to learn more about the oil and gas industry.

Some call such trips "junkets," but posting photos was a way to show the people that lawmakers really were doing work on the trip, Urquhart said. "My blog is just a way to tell people what I'm doing."

Says Urguhart, "This isn't about the technology. This is about doing the job you've always done but just doing it a little bit better."

Urquhart says a serious post about a controversial issue might draw 500 to 1,000 readers. "For a state legislator, that's almost rock-star status," he says.

Urquhart also showed off the group blog published by Utah Senate Republicans, which looks like a very interesting project that Tennessee's GOP Senate majority would do well to emulate. (For that matter, Tennessee's Senate Democrats ought to publish a similar site, I'm just not offering to help them do it.)

Following Urquart to the podium: Laurie Maak, Web Dialogue Developer and Manager with WestEd in San Francisco, California, who is discussing the application of "web dialogues" to help policymakers inform and involve members of the public, including young people, throughout the policymaking process.

Web Dialogues are orchestrated discussions that can involve policy-makers, subject experts, students and members of the public in the exchange of information and ideas. "When individuals have the opportunity to participate in the process online, they will do so more in the future," predicts Maak.

Well, yeah.

Session moderator and Wisconsin state Sen. Robert Jauch just asked the session speakers about the need to keep blogs updated regularly - and noted that his own website's most recently added content is a press release from two months ago.

Maak responded that web dialogues "are not ongoing," but are structured online conversations that take place at a scheduled time and are "opened" and then "closed"

"I have always objected to ongoing online conversations because they tend to dribble after awhile," Maak said, adding she prefers that the conversation be scheduled and have a start and end.

Apparently she is not a fan of legislators maintaining ongoing conversations with constituents via blogs.

Urquhart says he doesn't feel the need to update his blog daily, and only posts when there are issues or things to write about. "I don't feel a need to keep my blog very current," said Urquhart, noting he doesn't have staff help for the blog. "I have my job, I have my family.

"If you did that with a typical blog it wouldn't work. People wouldn't read you anymore," he said.

Urquhart said there is a Utah politics blog that is updated daily with links to the latest articles and blog posts, including the latest on his blog. "That's the way a lot of people start their day, reading that blog," he said. I didn't catch the name of that Utah politics blog, and Urquhart's bare bones blog doesn't have a blogroll, but a quick Google search turned up UtahPolicy.com

Responding to a question about credibility of what is posted on blogs, Urquhart says he links to things from credible sources like newspapers and think tanks, adding, "I verify the things that I link to on my site."

Blog posts are a way to "move" the policy discussion, he said. "I do promote my agenda on my blog." The media "read the heck out of my blog," says Urquhart, who is Majority Whip in the Utah House of Representatives.

Urquhart says his blog and the information he's received from readers via comments and emails responding to a blog post has helped him pass legislation. "I've passed some legislation that I wouldn't have been able to pass, or it wouldn't have been in as good shape as it was, if it were not for the [feedback] from my blog."

He says that, when he started his blog, some thought he was nuts, telling him that opponents "are going to take things out of context" and use it against him in a future campaign. But he's finding instead that people are appreciative of the blog, even if they don't always agree with him on issues. "You can show that in a blog - that you are attentive to the people and listening to what they have to say."

The biggest benefit from blogging, Urquhart says, is the openness it conveys to constituents. "How could anyone think someone who would put up idiocy like this would be unapproachable?"

Previous coverage of the NCSL annual meeting:
NCSL: Term Limits Shift Budget Power To Executive Branch
NCSL Says Term Limits May Boost Power Of Lobbyists
NCSL Agrees To Let Blogger Cover Session on Blogs
NCSL's Report Belies Its Press Release
Newsflash: Association of Legislators Doesn't Like Term Limits

P.S. Before yesterday, the NCSL's official policy on giving bloggers media credentials to cover NCSL events was a flat, "We don't credential bloggers." Which, I'm guessing, makes me the first blogger in history to get media credentials from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Which is almost kind of a cool thing.

Meanwhile, it ain't live-blogging, but The Tennessean does have notes from the NCSL, and a story today about an NCSL session yesterday on lobbying.

Update: I emailed the NCSL press room after live-blogging the session and got a response. Both are below. My email:

Dear NCSL press room.Thanks again for the press credentials to cover that session this morning. I blogged the session live. You can read my post here: http://billhobbs.com/.

The direct link for it in the archives is http://billhobbs.com/2006/08/liveblogging_from_the_ncsl.html

By the way, I am a founding board member of the Media Bloggers Association (www.mediabloggers.org) and I'm sure we would be interested in working with the NCSL next year to arrange for a group of media-and-political bloggers to cover the NCSL annual meeting in Boston. I have cc'd this email to Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association.

Pretty cool, Bill. This live blog of a session is a first, and a great idea. Except 100 people at one session is a pretty good showing. Did you see our agenda? There is so much going on here, and many, many of them overlap. Just look here to see what this session was competing with: http://www.ncsl.org/annualmeeting/agenda/index.cfm. You have to select the day and scroll down to the time. And there are actually about 6,000 total people registered. There are about 1500 legislative staff and there are other government officials.

Nicole