U.S. Congress And Email 163
Carnage4Life writes "While browsing ZDNet I found this article that describes how U.S. members of congress receive so much email (about 55,000 a month) that they now routinely ignore email messages especially since a lot of them do not even come from their constituents. " Here's a similiar story where emails to our congressional representatives are referred to as spam. Although I'm sure mass-mailing reps is common, I wouldn't be at all surprised if 50,000 people emailed during the Napster hearings. But we've said it before, Reps don't understand bits and bytes. If you don't send them dead trees, they don't think you vote.
Dead Trees? (Score:1)
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:1)
MOCHTAR RIADY FRIENDSHIP FUND
100 LIPPO WAY
JAKARTA BARAT 10260
INDONESIA
And slip in a few hundred thousand.
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:1)
Re:CRM software? They know. (Score:2)
"The Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Office will soon be rolling out EchoMail, which will put all messages sent to Senators' public e-mail addresses on a separate server, a move that will help prevent large batches of outside mail from interfering with internal messages sent to staff.
The report finds promise in the EchoMail system, though it cautions that, like all new technology, it will take time for Senate offices to work out the kinks in the program."
Time. (Score:1)
Time.
not just Congress (Score:2)
Email is much over-hyped (Score:5)
Whilst it's true that email is in some senses the "killer app" of the internet, it's also one of the most over-hyped, productivity destroying pieces of crap ever developed :) On the one hand it allows for free, nearly instantaneous conversation and information sharing with people anywhere in the world, but at the same time it allows those people to send each other "humourous" clips of cats doing martial arts and Americans going "Wazzzup!" at each other, clogging networks and stopping people from working.
The trouble is that because email just seems so convenient companies love it. If they don't have email, then they just aren't part of the modern business world in their view. But this isn't true. Despite the internet hype, everything necessary can be done over the phone or even by post, without ever touching a computer! And in many cases, the computer merely serves to waste time whilst appearing to be more efficient.
It's the same here. Despite email promising to let people get in touch with their congress people, in reality all it does is let so much stuff get there that it can't all be checked properly. It's just a waste of time, and people are far more likely to get their message across if they sit down with pen and a paper and write out a letter stating the issues at hand.
And besides, the quick and easy nature of email means it's a very sloppy method of communication. It lends itself to knee-jerk, flaming reponses and mails full of factual and grammatical errors, which all serve to make the user look bad. At least with a letter you have to take your time and consider what you're writing.
Email is great for letting the office know about the next progress meeting. But it's not really very good for getting someone's attention and making a point.
Re:Slashdot.gov anyone? (Score:2)
Same focus, no need for another domain =)
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:1)
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:2)
Yeah, but if *I* was in office, and somebody took the time to spend three bucks to send me a certified letter, I think I'd take the time to read it . . . that sort of person is probably pretty serious. Of course, I get the impression that many of our reps don't care that much . . .
Of course, best case scenario would be all correspondence got read, but I'd bet that at least ten percent of the correspondence these folks get (whether on paper or electronic) is hate mail . . .
Re:CRM software? (Score:2)
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that we have too much democracy. That the question of the teaching about the origins of life, the nature of mental disease, and so forth is determined by popular sentiment rather than objective fact is a disaster. Look around - how much ear-time do you really want your representatives giving to the yahoos that populate this mudball?
Hasty Generalization! (Score:1)
You want to get a hold of me, send email. I don't answer the phone or read postal mail (unless the return address includes a family member).
Joe
[ before you ask, no I don't do the bills. ]
Ignoring your email? Then don't send it! (Score:2)
Send a FAX instead. I've heard aout Congressional staffer ignoring emails for some time. Honest-to-God letters and FAXes are more difficult to ignore. Imagine how difficult it'd be to mount a campaign where everyone send a letter via registered mail. ``Senator Smith, we've been signing for registered letters all day long for the last two weeks. I think your constituents have a strong opinion about that Bill you're sponsoring.'' Too bad sending a registered letter costs a couple of bucks. If only there were a way to send a registered FAX.
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Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:5)
CRM software? (Score:2)
that will make a preliminary attempt to sort
mail based on content. Smart companies use this
to pull out the most important problems first.
Do Congressmen use this?
Re:Not surprising... (Score:2)
Yup. From what I hear, the usual rule of thumb is that the more effort a person makes to contact their congresscritter, the more seriously they're taken. (Up to a point, of course.) Email is so easy, it's practically pointless.
Oh, grow up. (Score:3)
Oh, stop being such a crybaby, Taco. If you received over 1000 emails a day, you wouldn't read them all either. If you were in charge of representing several hundred thousand people to Congress, and kept getting e-mail from the millions you weren't representing, it would probably sour you on the whole thing as well.
Don't forget, these are people whose lives don't revolve around sitting in front of a computer all day. E-mail makes sending a thought to another user nearly effortless, the product of mere seconds of work. In such a position, I'd probably treat the average e-mail with the same amount of gravity I usually reserve for Post-it notes. Less, since the majority of post-its I get are from people I actually know, about things which are actually important.
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
Re:Opposite... (Score:2)
The Lesson (Score:2)
Don't rely on one method of reaching your congressperson:
Make all of these intelligent and to the point.
And most importantly, when you do these 3 things at once? Note that you send the message all three ways. If you've sent an intelligent message, it may just make them appreciate the people they represent more.
Re:Just follow the rules (Score:2)
I like it-- someone who writes a letter cares enough to take the few extra minutes to print the thing out and mail it. If people took the time to spell and sanity-check their letters, and to think about what they said rather than flinging them out into the ether, Congressmen would take them seriously, too. As is, most of the e-mails they get are probably form-letters and flames, with a few intellegent comments nestled somewhere in a deep inbox.
-m
Re:Mine read them at least (Score:1)
Do they have the equipment to do it ??? (Score:2)
While this may not be the general case, I ask the question: do they have the hardware for it ? Remember, the Congresscritters and Senators may have nice, new, shiny boxen, but the mail gets answered by admin types with old, slow boxen. And these are mostly political types, not techies. Can they handle it ??
Holy bawls, what did you write?!? (Score:1)
Opposite... (Score:1)
If con is opposite to pro, whats the opposite of congress?
regards,
kenneth
Time-Wasting Morons (Score:1)
While we're amending the Constitution, do the same for the Executive branch. There are too many regulations also.
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:2)
Re:Why email is ignored - too easy to get rid of! (Score:2)
Compare getting three bags of US mail with 10,000 email messages... how easy is it to clean up the emails vs. regular mail.
Also, there's the idea that regular mail is more 'official' and that you'd be breaking a whole lot of laws to tamper with it, whereas I can set up a yahoo email alias, and never read any of the mail/spam I get and nobody cares.
Unfortunately, I believe that email is a poor political medium because it's too easy to get rid of.
Re:Why email is ignored (Score:1)
Re:Ignoring your email? Then don't send it! (Score:1)
Well, you get a transmission report at the end of the fax anyway, and if you had the correct number, there's really no difference from a registered letter... there's no way to prove anyone read the fax, but there is also no way to prove or force them to open and read the registered mail, either...
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Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:2)
I've tried the dead tree approach (Score:3)
Admittedly, whenever you send anything to a congressperson's office, that person will VERY seldom actually read it. They have interns to evaluate those which can get form responses, those which can be completely ignored (apparently I've always been in that category), and those which should go to the attention of the congressperson himself. Only things which require action go to the congressperson, everything else just gets tallied.
But I'm still surprised at the total lack of response. Maybe the overall trend is to just ignore everybody these days and wait until the poll numbers are in. If so, then the issue of ignoring email is part of a larger trend: politicians don't care, or don't have time to respond, to all the demands placed on them by their constituents.
Imagine you're a standard representative. Imagine you have what, 10 staffers? (I don't know the exact number). Imagine you get just 1000 emails and letters and faxes a day. How are you going to actually get through all those. If you expect that each piece of correspondence requires some kind of response, and you have 10 staffers, each one has to get through 100 pieces of correspondance a day. On a 10-hour day, that's 6 minutes per piece of correspondance. You're never going to get any ability to deal with ALL that on an ongoing basis, so you have to figure out very quickly what to drop and ignore.
Tell me about it... (Score:1)
Anyway, I agree. E-mail is incredibly overrated. What the hell is wrong with a telephone? When people that are in local calling distance send me e-mail, I reply with my phone number. I consider e-mail inferior for some types of communication.
Illiteracy doesn't help, either. (Score:2)
Besides, if you think only messages from consituents count, think again; lobbyists and other goons bearing cash get more attention from congressmen than their consituents do.
What is amazing is that the chain letters, stock scams, etc are getting sent straight to congressmen, who are less interested in forwarding the messages to law enforcement than in simply deleting it.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Why not just walk in hand full of money? (Score:2)
Re:It depends on your message (Score:2)
when I was in the military I was shocked to see how much the military wastes on training their people on the proper way to wear a hat and all the damned rules about when, how, which hat to wear. The funny thing is that none of the damned hats (except the BDUs) served a purpose at all. they did not keep the sun out of your eyes, did not keep your head warm, did not keep it from getting wet. Stupid
Re:Email is much over-hyped (Score:4)
But in some ways doing things by phone or post is even more inefficent than using email. Phone people up and they start chattering on and on about non-work related stuff. Do you know how much it costs in paper to send everyone the company newsletter?
I could do everything a business needs using smokesignals and carrier-pigeons, but would that be the best solution?
>the quick and easy nature of email means it's a very sloppy method of communication
I've heard this before and the same thing can be said for verbal communication. How do you think slang developed before email? Its not email which is "evil", its the way its used.
Certified Mail ! (Score:5)
It costs $1.40 to send a letter by certified mail and an additional $1.25 for the sender to get a receipt back confirming delivery.
If you really care about a topic - show it by spending the $2.65 to make sure your message gets to your congressman.
Hints for mailing people who get too much mail (Score:3)
Chances are, they took more time on yours than they did on others, as there are probably quite a few that they just outright trash without even blinking.
Here's a few hints for you who might want to mail your representatives --
I know, there's Bcc, but people will recognize that you're mailing it to more than one person. [And you sure as hell don't put it all in To: or CC:, as then they'll know they were 345 of the 347 of people you mailed.]
In the case of congressmen, tell 'em where you live, so they realize that you're in their district, so you're one of the people who affects their re-election.
Sure, someone's got some nice 'copy and paste this to send to whomever' form letter. If if's the first one they get, they might be impressed. When you're the 200th one they've seen, they couldn't really give a shit. [And it's not like they have to read it. They can recognize it from the layout of the page]
You'd be amazed how many people bitch and bitch, and you just want to choke the damned ignorant ungrateful bastards. When you get the one nice message after 30 some rude ones, you're a little more likely to take some time on this one, so you don't have to go back through the rest of the rude ones.
If you're going to complain about something, give suggestions for improvements. There's no point in telling someone that something sucks, unless you can suggest an alternative for them to do instead.
Writing form letters is an art form. (Score:4)
The first few times you receive something on a new topic, you actually respond to the person. Buy the third or fourth time, you're copying the bulk of the response from one of the earlier messages.
Once you've got a reply that you really like, you save it somewhere, so you can grab it when needed. The next time someone asks the question, you insert the text file. You trim out any bits that aren't relevant to their question [one of the sure signs of form letters], and you might tack in a sentance or two in there to make sure you highlight the answer to their question. [Eg, 'To explain why we're doing X, you really have to understand the whole process behind Y']
Once you're replied, you save their message to the appropriate bin, so that when you have to report to your boss later, you can state that 27 people complained today about A, 14 about B, and you received 42 copies of 'The Internet Spy'.
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
www.perceive.net [perceive.net]
Come on now.. (Score:4)
This largely depends on the representative, their staff, the issue you are referring to and your tone in the letter. I don't think it's appropriate to make broad generalizations like this with little evidence.. the reps are doing the best they can.
//Phizzy
It's not Dead Trees they want.... (Score:1)
While it may be true that your average Congressperson is for sale, there are good rental options.
Worked For Me (Score:1)
I am not a Republican, nor are there a huge population of people in Virginia that own Hybrid Vehicles. The system seems to work to me!
Though I live in the tech hub in the DC Metro area, so that may be why Tom Davis finds e-mail to be a necessary form of communication. Perhaps in states with lower tech income, the Congressmen ignore the fact that we are in the 21st century. If I lived in one of those states, I'd be packing my bags.
--
you are not what you own
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:1)
Here's a better explaination for those who would like it, from http://www.madsciencelaboratories.com/laboratory/c at/what.html
In response to how ridiculous Bohr's belief that atoms should obey quantum mechanics:
One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following diabolical device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of one hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The Psi function for the entire system would express this by having in it the living and the dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts. It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks. -- Erwin Schrödinger
No score +1 due to being terribly off-topic..
I've worked in a Congressional office (Score:2)
At least your attitude on an issue will be tallied with other emails, phones, faxes, and postal mails received by the Congressmen for the month.
Re:Do they have the equipment to do it ??? (Score:1)
Congressional budgets for compters/staff/phones are extremely limited given the number of constituents they are there to serve. The budget process is perpetually 3-4 years behind the technology curve. The support staff that works for Congress as a whole is civil service, and loathe to adopt anything new. Many offices are still using Dos based applications, and cc:Mail is still the e-mail client for Senate offices. The average salary for a Senate sysadmin is $40,000 a year - to manage a system for 40-70 people, including 3-4 remote offices, massive amounts of e-mail, and generally clueless users. Oh, and they are usually the entire IT staff.
There are a number of staffers and members who would like to see this changed, but due to the self-fulfilling complaints that "Congress sucks" it is political suicide to attempt to increase the budgets to something even close to what is needed.
Senator Ben Nelson (Nebraska) (Score:2)
After trying calls for 45 minutes, I got through to his assistants who told me that he had no plans on adding one since it was "too much of a hassel." Apparently making your constituents have to dial for 45 minutes (for what sounded like a total of two staffers answering phones - nifty bottleneck) isn't a hassel...
What's next? Limiting calls to one phone line, one hour a day? Rejecting U.S. mail letters? I think our freshman senator has found a new way to say "Gosh, I never heard anything from my constituents to the contrary of my opinion, so that's why I voted that way."
So much for a "representative" republic...
*scoove*
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:1)
Re:Email is much over-hyped (Score:1)
Heh. My former roommate once threatened the phone company that he was going to cancel our service and start using Pony Express if they didn't stop telespamming us during dinner. It worked, too.
Nope! (Score:2)
They understand... (Score:1)
I think they understand perfectly well. It takes significantly more effort to write a paper letter than an e-mail. If you were trying to figure out what issues your constituents really cared about, which would you pay more attention to?
Re:Email is much over-hyped (Score:1)
The phone allows just as much time-wasting, doesn't it? With the phone, Americans can actually go "Wazzzup!" at each other, though cats doing martial arts probably loses a lot in the translation.
Re:Illiteracy doesn't help, either. (Score:1)
Re:So would it stand to reason ... ? (Score:1)
Re:Its email's flaws, not government's (Score:1)
I'm sure that our government has a better grasp on technology than CmdrTaco would like you to beleive. How do you confirm the origin of snail-mail? Similarly reliable methods could be applied to email.
They don't think we vote, perhaps because... (Score:3)
Re:Email is much over-hyped (Score:1)
You mean like slashdot?
Re:Be realistic (Score:2)
Re:Email is much over-hyped (Score:2)
So, it's back to punch cards, is it?
:-)
You are correct... (Score:2)
Without a doubt, they filter the letter-writing campaigns, because they are a waste of resources.
However, each congressman's budget includes "constituent work" budgets, which includes helping constituents deal with the Federal government, and responding to letters.
Why do they do that? Given the low turnout in congression elections (especially off-year), it is estimated that 5%-8% of the vote can be changed by these constituent actions.
As a congressman, I'm nuts to let my staff trash anything. While Slashdotters probably will not affect their vote by the thing, my father's poorly constructed prose will definitely affect his vote, etc.
The reason that they listen to letters is that they can't afford to alienate a vote.
Assume average American. Family of 4. One of them writes their congressman. If he gets a response, they and their spouse are likely to view that person more favorably. They are also more likely to defend them to their friends, etc. Assume each response generates 3 votes (0-6), if you can get 5%-8% of the voters to personally identify you because you responded/helped their friends and family, you are a shoe-in.
They would be insane to ignore e-mail. While your congressman doesn't personally read it, I can assure you that his staff has some people reading it, and letting him know what is going on.
Re:that makes sense... (Score:2)
The real travesty is that it was provided for Congress to keep the locals informed when the House was representing the people and the political elites controlled the Senate and White House (officially, not just in reality).
It wasn't used much until computers... with targetted mail, Congress went nuts.
Alex
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:2)
Funny thing...I wasn't being "politically" correct. Merely "inclusive," which is sort of an egalitarian thing to do, you see.
If all persons in Congress were either male or female, I'd use gender specific terms. If all were white or black or purple, I might even use those terms. If they were all fat bastards, I'd say that too....
But they aren't, so I went for gender neutral.
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:2)
True, but at least it shows greater interest than if you spam a *congressman*.
BTW, political correctness is the bane of our society.
KyleKyle
Who cares if it is funny? (Score:3)
Perhaps you should not be so anal as to care who does the post and look at the value of the post. If all posts should be serious then we should take away the +1, Funny option...
I give you "-1, Needs a Life"
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:2)
I'll bet you. I working in a Congressional office, and I've signed for mail. ;)
This article is, excuse my french, total bullshit. Congressional office mailrooms have a staff of between two and five people to read through all that mail, sort it, and get a response. To say that they are unresponsive because they don't favor people who they don't represent over their constituents is just trolling.
Note that ZDNet didn't say "Congressional offices ignore their constituent email" because that would be untrue. However, due to the volume of mail received (typically spammed to all congressmen, often included on a mailing list), offices often don't respond to email that didn't come from constituents.
This is a pretty low thing for ZD to be writing. Most congressmen are strapped just to read all their constituent mail-- those are the people they should be responsible for communicating with. We responded to everything we received from constituents.
More /. crap (Score:3)
Oh, they don't, do they? How about those clueless reps who are fighting the DMCA, and worked to get encryption software delisted as a weapon?
Let's face it fifty thousand emails a month is WAY too much to read. That's over 2000/business day. If you had a secretary to do nothing but read email 40 hr/week, you _might_ get through it all.
Of course they're going to ignore it. The sheer volume pretty much proves that any idiot with a computer and too much time can bash out an email to his rep. Write a real letter if you want to be heard.
FAQ's? (Score:2)
What I would really like to see is our representatives putting some actual content on their web pages--FAQs on their opinions on the latest issues. That way when they start getting tons of duplicate messages, they can use that wonderful 5-char response: RTFM!
If the FAQs were kept up-to-date, it would be a real benefit to democracy. Many times people don't realize that there is careful reasoning that goes into lawmakers' decisions that just doesn't occur to us. (and yes, sometimes that reasoning is planted in their ears in tandem with checks in their pockets, and sometimes there's no reasoning at all). But if our reprsentatives could tell us why they voted the way they did, without us having to sit through hours of CSPAN, that would be really cool, I think.
Re:Be realistic (Score:2)
Each congresscritter gets some set amount of funding per year to maintain his or her office staff. Last year I have information on (1989, came across it by random chance, haven't been curious enough to find out more recently), the total staff salary was on the order of $400K, which sounds like a lot but a small congressperson's office probably employs 8-12 people (head AA, 2 or 3 other office people that handle mundanities and snail mail, staff in the home district, etc.). Simply put, they may not have the budget to dedicate 2+ more people to something as ephemeral as email.
Of course, they could get interns, but a) there are only so many unpaid interns available, and b) unpaid interns and politicians are a potentially unstable mix... ;-)
--
News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org [geekaustin.org]
Re:They understand... (Score:2)
I think they understand perfectly well. It takes significantly more effort to write a paper letter than an e-mail. If you were trying to figure out what issues your constituents really cared about, which would you pay more attention to?
Its pretty common /. usage to say "don't understand" when you mean "don't respect, don't agree with me on or don't have time for."
Aside from the effort that each shows, it says the main problem right there in the article. Emails are coming from all over the country to state based offices. A postal letter comes with a return address and even a postmark that says where it comes from. I'd be very suprized if the first sort that congressional mail went through wasn't to put anything out of their district on the bottom of the stack. Even faxes come with a return number. But email could be from anywhere, even a forgien country, and theres often no way to tell without reading through the letter hoping the person thought to mention thier address. How many times would you have a staffer spend all morning plowing through a thousand emails only to find that only 100 of them were from constituents before you decided they could be doing better things with their time.
Finally, email responses are way too easy to "astroturf"* and while 1000 identical postcards are easy to stack and mostly ignore, 1000 identical emails are in some ways even more annoying. Long story short, if you want congress critters to pay attention to their email, stop people from spamming all 400 or so of them at the drop of a hat and use more restraint in mailing. (and put your name and home town in the subject line, maybe you'll make the cut that way)
*Astroturf is a activist term for fake grassroots. In snail mail this means mailing out a bunch of postcards or letters preadressed to the recipients reps with a message on a particular issue. The recipeint just signs it and mails it in. With email versions, you go to a website and enter your zip plus four and get a form letter with your extra comments automaticly sent to your reps. (on the state issues I've worked on we often also send it to the governor, speaker of the house and senate president.)
The problem is that telling your rep what you think is all well and good, but I worry about too much contact turning the situation into government by polling. When groups that I've worked with ask people to write their reps, we don't want them to just say "I support/don't support this", because when it comes down to it, we don't have the majority position on a lot of issues. we ask people to tell their rep WHY this issue is important, try to give them some insight into the real world cost or benifit of the legislation being discussed, give them more information than a data point on popularity. IMHO, if a thousand people write in and say "X is bad! No X!" and a hundred write in to explain how X will directly effect their lives and address the arguments against it, just counting up the "votes" and suporting the side with the most people is not what I expect from a congressman.
Kahuna Burger
Re:Congressional staffers' definition of "spam" (Score:2)
See, the Congressman for your state is your representative. That means that if you want stuff doing, you talk to him, and he passes it on. Talking to someone from another state - if they're interested/pleasant/not busy, then you may get an answer, but there's nothing that says they have to. They're not there to represent you, they're there to represent the ppl in their state.
That's the theory, anyway. So if you send out emails to every Congressman about something, you've just wasted 49 of the 50 emails. And these 49 are going to obscure those ppl who genuinely do want to make themselves heard. You can probably except the chair of a committee - he/she takes on extra responsibilities with that. But the rest is pure spam.
And "barrage" sounds a bit strong. If lots of ppl are sending in multiple messages just to put pressure on, basically you're DDOS-ing them. And that makes it likely that, as with any other messaging system, they'll just shut it down until the "attack" goes away.
Personally anyway, my reply to ppl complaining about Napster is to shut up, stop whining, and grow up. But that's just my opinion...
Grab.
Re:Don't understand? (Score:2)
Re:Be realistic (Score:2)
55000 / 30 = approximately 1833 emails a day :)
And that number is expected to go up after the recount!!!
Re:FAQ's? (Score:2)
Oh, no. RTFM is not going to happen, because there will never be an FM.
Re:Be realistic (Score:2)
Ok, politically, that might be tricky. But I promise you that there are regions of the US with >15% unemployment and low costs of living, to which email sorting and analysis could be easily off-loaded.
Hm, I think I smell a business.
I got a reply (Score:2)
--
Re:CRM software? (Score:2)
I used to work in enterprise CRM software. Any solution that you pay $1M for is a custom solution.
Some platforms, like Vignette, are merely engines upon which you can create a dynamic Web app. Any Vignette implementation is custom by its very nature... and Vignette as a company makes 80% of its revenue off Professional Services (ie customization) fees.
(Another topic is what the heck does Vignette offer that you can't get with less money, your own programmers, and free software? But I digress.)
Its email's flaws, not government's (Score:3)
You can't have it both ways kids, the /. crowd equates anonymity to privacy, but total anonymity makes it pretty difficult to ascertain anything about an email automatically, so by default it should be discounted as spam.
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:5)
"The only person who can sign for it is the congressman, ..."
Anybody can sign for a certified letter. For an additional fee, around $5, you can send it "restricted delivery." Then only the addressee or their registered agent can sign for it.
Of course, your representative is supposed to live in your district, and their address is public record. If you really want to be sure they get the message, go knock on their door.
How can we change this behaviour? (Score:2)
Re:Email is much over-hyped (Score:3)
It depends. With a phone, the sender has to pay a significant time cost for each recipient. With email, there is virtually no cost for the sender to instantly send a given joke or other inane forward to 200 of his/her closest acquaintances.
It's just too easy for someone to flood out the signal with noise. Someone you hardly know might not call you up to say, "Wazzup???", but there's a much lower treshold before they put you on their "Wazzup???", "All your base", "FW: FUNNY JOKES!!!", "Re: re: re: MISSING CHILD" mailing list.
It depends on your message (Score:4)
I recently wrote Senator Bob Graham of Florida regarding the Rangers' Black Beret and how the U.S. Army is screwing the Rangers by issuing the beret to every soldier. I wrote Senator Graham using my own words and not those of the Ranger Association [ranger.org]. I was surprised to get the response that I got. It was a detailed description as to why the Rangers are losing their black beret with responses that addressed my concerns. I don't agree with Senator Graham's position but at least he wrote me back in something other than a form letter. I believe that since I used my own words, Senator Graham's staff didn't ignore the message.
Re:Certified Mail! (Score:5)
While certified mail with receipt is the only way to be sure somebody handled your mail, it is no guarantee the Congressman ever saw it, or that it was even read.
In America, anybody can sign anybody's signature as long as the person signing is doing so with the full knowledge and consent of the signature owner.
As Congressmen are quite busy, or would like you to think they are, it is almost certain that every Congressman has designated an signing agent.
Most likely, said agent simply runs the document through the signature machine, so that it is a perfect match... you won't be able to tell who signed for your mail.
I've always found the following two methods work perfectly for getting your Congressman's attention:
A new year calls for a new signature.
Cool! (Score:5)
Try it yourself!
Be realistic (Score:3)
55000 / 30 = approximately 1833 emails a day
A day!? Thats a hell of a lot of emails. I get approximately 200 a day and even then I don't have time to read them all let alone do any other work.
Sending snail mail registered or not probably won't make much of a difference to be honest, 1833 messages is too much to read on a daily basis in whatever medium you care to think of.
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Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:2)
Wrong. The only person that can sign for it is a representative of the congressman. It's the same sorta system that allows a CEO's personal assistant to stamp his signature on checks. The actual congressman/CEO really doesn't have enough time to sign/read everything that comes his way. That what filters are for.
-Andrew
Use that Homefield advantage (Score:3)
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Why email is ignored (Score:4)
Email is an annoyance, snail mail is a reality.
Re:Don't understand? (Score:2)
If you just show up at those weekly or monthly Town Halls they announce in the local paper, you can talk with them and they'll even give you coffee/tea and some snack food. You could work on some code during the boring parts, and there are usually only 30 to 40 people at such events.
Not all forms of communication require an equal amount of investment by the communcator--therefore they should get unequal amounts of attention from the communicatee.
Nothing wrong with gaming the program - just look at what everyone else does and do something different. Heck, I'm sure they'd notice if someone hacked their website
If you want your opinion read, just write it down (or print it out)--it only costs $.33 to send.
Nope, only costs $.20 to send a handwritten postcard with name, address, phone and brief message. Forget all the verbiage, and use a cool free postcard from your local coffee house or restaurant.
OK... (Score:2)
Re:Certified Mail ! (Score:2)
If you love God, burn a church!
Another way to get through... (Score:2)
Quoted from www.michaelmoore.com [michaelmoore.com]
Dead Trees? (Score:3)
Cmdr, what up? All the energy required to power the web, my computer, etc, certainly amounts to a lot of dead trees, or fossil fuel, or nuclear waste. So in a way, just sending email isn't being 'conservative' of the environment anyway. Plus, the written word on paper always says more than an electronic message shot off to whomever you want. Sending snail mail means you took some serious time to sit down and write/type it out and then put it in the mail. And W. already announced he isn't sending email anymore due to privacy concerns, so I think snail mail is still the way to go to be heard in this country.
Re:CRM software? (Score:2)
I saw This article earlier today, and it really got my guts frothing. Congress works for *us*, not the other way around, but they sometimes forget that sort of stuff.
Brant
Communication "effort" (Score:2)
Just follow the rules (Score:5)
The facts (at least, I'm assuming them to be facts) and statistics in the article are saddening. There is, however, still a way to get your message through.
First, follow the rules they set. If you're writing about a specific issue, make the subject line of the message reflect the issue and your position. As an example, "Please vote NO on AB12345." Most emails, like most snail mails and faxes, are just used to tally support for a position. This means, of course, that the carefully thought-out and worded contents of your email will probably never be seen.
Second, identify yourself properly. Members of the House, for example, are elected to represent only members of their own district, and if you don't show a snail mail address in their district, they're not going to pay attention to your email.
Third, ask for action in a separate email. Not the one with the short, sweet "No on AB12345" header. Like I said, they probably didn't read it. Send an email asking for information or asking for some specific document (again, make the header clear and identify yourself). Staffers will deal with those, and if you phrase your message well, you can get across a point along with your request. If you phrase it extremely well, the staffer will pass it on to the boss.
There's no question, though, that emails get lower priority than phone calls, faxes, or snail mail. I don't like it, and I don't agree with it, but when the subject matters, I do my best to go around it.
Re:Cool! (Score:2)
You mean CmdrTaco has constituents?! What's his jurisdiction?! I want to move there!
Re:Do they have the equipment to do it ??? (Score:2)
I agree man! I just bought a 1.1Ghz athlon so I could check my mail faster! With a beowulf cluster, I bet they could process those 50,000 e-mails in a few seconds!
atrowe is a known troll (Score:2)
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Don't understand? (Score:4)
Let's see a show of hands of all those that have emailed a congressperson via webpage touting some issue. (Probable answer: 60%)
Now let's see a show of hands of those that have emailed a congressperson "manually". (Probable answer: 30%)
Now let's see a show of hands of those that have snailmailed a congressperson. (Probable answer: 2%)
Now let's see a show of hands of those that have personally spoken with a congressperson. (Probable answer:
Not all forms of communication require an equal amount of investment by the communcator--therefore they should get unequal amounts of attention from the communicatee.
If you want your opinion read, just write it down (or print it out)--it only costs $.33 to send.
Addenda: Not all congresspeople are deleting all mail. I emailed my reps recently and got a physical (admittedly form-) letter back from one of them.
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get them to listen (Score:2)
have a go - it opens up your communication methods. sure i wish everyone used email, but they don't yet.
i was angry:1 with:2 my:4 friend - i told:3 4 wrath:5, 4 5 did end.