["The Hill" is a newspaper published most weekdays when congress is in session and distributed to congressional offices & lobbying firms.]
Congress lacks tech savvy By Jordy Yager TheHill.com Posted: 12/15/08 11:03 AM [ET] http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/congress-lacks-tech-savvy-2008-12-15.html Congress is still inhibited by its inability to adapt to modern technological tools, according to a nonprofit organization that promotes a more effective Congress. From congressional websites to constituent e-mail, lawmakers and their staffs continue to underperform and overextend themselves, said the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) in a report released Monday. Following a period in September during which congressional e-mail was limited to prevent House websites from crashing due to constituents voicing their concerns over the economic bailout package, the CMF, after hundreds of interviews and surveys, suggested increasing the technological funding and resources available to congressional offices. "There is only one recommendation for the institution itself, but it is a significant and politically charged one," the report states. "If individual congressional offices ever hope to manage the volume of constituent communications and perform the rest of their duties successfully, we believe Congress must provide them with more resources. "This could mean additional budget, additional staff, new enterprise services or technologies, or any number of solutions to help them work more effectively and efficiently." CMF is planning to work with members of Congress to form a task force in hopes of creating a plan to improve office interoperability and constituent communication. "What's most surprising is how simple the solution is," said Tim Hysom, CMF's director for communications and technology services. "This is by no means rocket science." Hysom said CMF plans to draw on the resources of the key overseers of Congress's technological capabilities, including the Chief Administrative Office, the House Administration Committee, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and the Senate Sergeant at Arms. "It's not enough to put out solutions without a mechanism to act," Hysom said. "It's going to take out-of-the-box thinking." From growing the limited number of 10 technological service providers to shifting the way staffers think about electronic communications, the CMF has a plethora of suggestions to make Congress more effective. "Many in Congress still view technology as merely providing tools to accomplish the same tasks they have always performed," said the CMF report. "They view e-mail as postal mail that is sent electronically. They think of PDAs as replacements for paper schedules. They view websites as direct mail pieces that can be seen on a computer. "But this mindset fails to take into account the very significant ways that the Internet has altered the public's access to information, expanded coalition-building opportunities and created fresh communications habits across the entire electorate," the reported stated. After a campaign that thrived off of unprecedented support from Internet fundraising and communication, much speculation falls on President-elect Obama's administration to set new technological precedents. "I think a lot of people are looking to Obama's administration to set an example," Hysom said. "But Congress is already headed in that direction." ================================================= George Antunes Voice (713) 743-3923 Associate Professor Fax (713) 743-3927 Political Science Internet: antunes at uh dot edu University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-3011 *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
