Internet Advocacy Roundtable: The Future of Emailing Congress - New Solutions Offered and Old Myths Busted

With Congress receiving hundreds of millions of emails a year, the workload for staffers is crushing. Despite the soaring numbers of emails flowing into Members' inboxes in the past few years, there has been no increase in their staff size or technology budgets in twenty years. Everyone, from Capitol Hill to advocacy groups to grassroots advocacy software vendors, is scrambling to solve this problem. Our speaker this month, Daniel Bennett, may just be the knight in shining armor riding to our rescue. Daniel has the great advantage of having helped to develop the email capability for the congressional correspondence systems and, with that perspective, has developed an elegant solution to the problem - XML Topic Tags.

Join us on May 15 for a discussion about this innovative solution, as well as an exploration of the history of how Congress handles email. Daniel will also bust several myths about how the Congressional email system works.

Speaker:
Daniel Bennett

Daniel Bennett is currently consulting for elected representatives and non-profit organizations. He has served the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet as a Practitioner-in-Residence. Previously, Daniel Bennett was the Chief Technology Officer of @dvocacy Inc. He co-founded DotGov Communications, the first private webhoster for Members of Congress. He served as president of the House Systems Administrators Association, co-chair of the Legislative Documents Technical Committee of OASIS/LegalXML and won the Federal Computer Week's Fed 100 Award in 2000. Daniel was Technology Liaison for Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, representative from California's Silicon Valley . He is a writer on technology and politics, including co-writer of "The Net Effect: How Cyberadvocacy is Changing the Political Landscape" and was a columnist for The Cloakroom, a web site for the National Journal. Daniel Bennett received a BA degree from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA

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Event Location

Center for American Progress Action Fund

1333 H Street, NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005

Directions

One block from the McPherson Square Metro station (Orange/Blue lines). Exit on 14th Street, NW side. Walk one block south to H Street, NW. Turn left onto H Street, NW. Enter on left side of street, just after the Cosi. Two blocks from the Metro Center Metro Station (Red/Orange/Blue lines). Exit on 13th Street, NW side. Walk north on 13th Street to H Street. Turn left on H St. (keep New York Avenue Church to your left). Entrance is next building after Cafe Mozart.

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About the Internet Advocacy Roundtable
The Internet Advocacy Roundtable is a monthly forum brought to you by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. We feature in-depth discussions about digital technology strategies for advocacy and policy campaigns. We strive to help the advocacy community use digital technology more effectively and provide a gathering for those working in this space to network and learn from their peers. Our speakers are drawn from experts in the field and our audiences typically include many other experts, as well as people new to the field. The format is designed to maximize discussion time. As a result, we have consistently lived up to our reputation that our speakers will learn as much from the audience as the audience learns from the speakers. The Internet Advocacy Roundtable was launched in August 2005 and now carries on the tradition of our earlier Online Progressive Advocacy Network (OPAN) series.

Click here for an archive of videos and materials from past Roundtables.