It looks like a lot of people are unhappy with their communications with Congress, according to a new report by the Congressional Management Foundation called Communicating with Congress: How the Internet Has Changed Citizen Engagement.

• 92% of Internet users who contact Congress through email, web forms, etc. want a response.
• Only 63% recall receiving a response.
• Almost half (46%) were dissatisfied with the response.
• More than half (64%) say the response did not address their concerns and that the response was too political biased.

It gets (a little) worse: only 39% of those who contacted Congress (and 36% of those who had not contacted Congress) thought the information they received from their Senators and Representatives was trustworthy.

More than half said they did not think their Members cared about what they had to say (55%) or were interested in what they had to say (62%).

That’s a lot of disgruntled voters, but there is a silver lining, according to Kathy Goldschmidt and Leslie Ochreiter, authors of the study. Despite their dissatisfaction, voters want their Senators and Representatives to update them on their activities and the policy issues they are addressing in Washington. As Goldschmidt and Ochreiter reveal, almost half of Americans contacted a U.S. Senator of Representative in the past five years (44%), providing elected officials with an opportunity to create more positive moments with constituents who communicate with their offices – if they use the technology effectively.

This is where Communicating with Congress transitions from being just a research study into a handbook. Goldschmidt and Ochreiter spend half of the publication reviewing the implications their research has on Congress and suggestions tactics to help Congressional offices better communicate with constituents – and help the advocacy community better communicate with Congress.

One recommendation asks Congressional offices to “reconsider the tone of your responses”:

many [Congressional offices] use their responses solely as opportunities to talk up the Senator or Representative and explain all the actions and votes he or she has taken on the issue. These messages often sound like press releases or marketing materials. When people express their views and opinions, responses which “sell” the Member may not be the best approach, as it amounts to an exchange of opinion without a meeting of the minds. Congressional offices may want to consider how to craft response with the primary goal of acknowledging constituents’ key concerns and a secondary goal of conveying the Member’s accomplishments.

This may go some (but perhaps not all) of the way toward turning potential dissatisfied constituents into satisfied constituents.

While I focus on satisfaction in this post, some of the Goldschmidt and Ochreiter’s most interesting findings look at the role advocacy play in citizen communications with Congress. You can find a copy on the Congressional Management Foundation website.

It’s 2008. We call this the digital era. Yet, in the United States we seem to lack political leaders with a vision for technology, much less an interest in the ways technology can make all levels of government services more efficient, effective, and accessible to regular voters.

Yes, indeed, the rumblings are starting to get a little louder – snuggled, as they currently are, within our niche community of tech-savvy politicos and politics-friendly techies. Is a technology transformation upon us?

For some, the transformation begins when elected officials use technology to listen. There’s a word – listening. In the middle of an election season that has seen a glut of staged conversations, online and offline. Andrew Feinberg rants about some of these so-called listening exercises today at Capitol Valley. There’s a difference between talker at voters and listening to them.

Talkers get headlines. Listeners get things done.

Like fixing potholes and handling case work, increasing the efficiency and efficacy of government programs. A year ago, IPDI published Constituent Relationship Management: The New Little Black Book of Politics, which looks how political campaigns and elected office can use online and offline feedback loops to run case management and constituent communications. Many elected officials and political candidates already use database platforms to help this process.

The next step? Government institutions that employ tech-enabled feedback loops to deliver better goods and services.

In their Politico column, Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry write about some of the ways in which foreign citizens and governments are using technology to listen and act, including e-petitions in the United Kingdom and the government of New Zealand’s wiki for a new Policing Act. As Rasiej and Sifry put it, you can use the Internet to file your taxes, but you can’t use it to make suggestions on how your tax dollars ought to be spent:

Imagine then, that the next time you file your taxes online, your government asks for your feedback on how those tax dollars are being spent. Or it takes your suggestions on how to make a law more understandable. Or it helps you find groups near you that are doing things that benefit your community. It may sound mundane, but today in America, it would be the equivalent of a revolution. How much longer do we have to wait to bridge yet another digital divide?

What about tech policy?

At the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, Robert D. Atkinson writes,

we need a debate in America that focuses on the most important issues like to get fast broadband networks to all Americans; how to use IT to transform our health care system, transportation system, education system, and government; and how to encourage all organizations to become digital, thereby driving productivity and income growth and a better quality of life.

Atkinson thinks that better private-public partnerships can help create an environment of “digital transformation.”

Over at Open Left, Matt Stoller blogs about the successful efforts of blogger and member of the California Democratic Party platform committee, Dante Atkins, to get Net Neutrality in the party platform:

California Democrats, in order to promote vigorous free speech, a vibrant business community, and unfettered access to all information on the Internet, support policies to preserve an open, neutral and interconnected Internet. California Democrats strongly agree with recent rulings by the Federal Election Commission that political communications, including blogging, which take place independent of a political party, committee or candidate, receive a media exemption from campaign finance regulations. California Democrats further reaffirm their support of the right to free speech as expressed in the First Amendment, including the right to critique any elected official or comment on any and all public policy, whether during war or peace, without fear of reprisal.

 Perhaps it is time that we — voters that we are — begin to expect more from our elected officials and encourage digital leadership on our blogs as well as in our voting booths.

Salesforce has teamed up with Facebook to create a potentially very useful mashup. Two engineers, one at Facebook and one at Salesforce (but working independently of their respective employers), have created a potentially very useful mashup. They’re calling it Faceforce, and it allows the user to link the two platforms. With the nearly hysterical coverage of Facebook metrics and the presidential campaign- ‘Obama has more friends than Clinton!’- nobody has made it clear why any of it mattered. Faceforce looks like a solid option for the Internet team trying to convert Facebook friends into emails lists, donations, and votes.

A good technical rundown of the application is here. We don’t know which campaigns use Salesforce, though the company has made no secret of Mitt Romney’s success with their software.

CRM expert Paul Greenberg , author of CRM at the Speed of Light: Capturing and Keeping Customers in Real Internet Time, believes that constituents are customers, and that elected officials, advocacy groups, trade associations, and, yes, even political campaigns should focus a little more on building relationships with their “customers.”

Check out his new essay, CRM Politics: Do, and Lots of Don’t, for Legislators, Administrators & the Rest of the Tribe.

Greenberg writes that too many government and political institutions see interactions with constituents as a hindrance. When people feel that their government is non-responsive, cynicism sets in. And the people begin to distrust the government.

What’s a congressional office, political campaign, or advocacy group to do? Greenberg offers several best practices for building engagement into your constituent communications program. Read them here.

Next week is a busy week for IPDI! We’re hosting two events. The first, Ready-Made Constituent Relationships: A Look at How Technology Empowers and Enables Effective Constituent Relationship Management, will be held on Monday, April 30, 2007 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the U.S. Capitol Building Basement, Room HC-8

Ready-Made Constituent Relationships will look at how technology is changing constituent communications on the Hill and in elected office – and what the offices of elected officials can do to keep up.

Speakers include Kathy Goldschmidt (Congressional Management Foundation), Greg Roney (Housecall IT), and Ken Ward (Adfero Group).

Register for Ready-Made Constituent Relationships at http://www.ipdi.org/CRMevent/register.htm

Before you come, read IPDI’s latest publication, Constituent Relationship Management: The New Little Black Book of Politics.