| When I went to the Town Hall on Sunday, I traveled with 3 people I'd never met before. I called a friend to ask if she knew anyone who might have room in a car, and they came and picked me up. These folks are long-time activists. On a variety of topics going back to Vietnam. They currently, amoung other things, donate time to the phone bank for the President's health care plan. In the car, we got into a discussion on the usefulness of phone banks now, and going forward. The opinion of these folks was that phone banks were good because they were conversational. They're happy to sit with a list of names, even as the percentage of people who pick up their calls dwindles. I've run phone banks, and it's a pretty simple process: each person has some training on the candidate/topic, a list of names, a pen and a phone. Ahead of time, there is a decision made as to whether to leave a message or mark "not home" on the sheet. People have access to the notebooks which contain more detailed information if anything comes up on the call that the phone banker cannot answer off the top of his/her head. I know from years of doing this that the percentage of people who answer their phones has dropped from close to 100% of those at home to less than 20%. I don't have published figures on that, just a gut sense from doing it for a few decades. Like most people I know, **I** don't answer my phone unless I know who is calling. I don't listen to voice mail. If a friend calls and I don't answer, they hang up, knowing I'll see that he/she called, and call back as soon as I can. If people REALLY want me NOW they text me. Mostly, I live in a world of emails. I don't know that I'm all that different from a lot of people in this regard. So the question becomes, how do campaigns and causes reach out? And I don't have a good answer. I still believe in going door to door, although it's the most time consuming of outreach/grassroots efforts. Hang tags are expensive, direct mail more so. Lots of emails go directly to people's junk folders. I read recently that there are now over 250 million people on Facebook, and about 90 million on MySpace. The number of people on Twitter grew 1382% in one year, to over 7 million in February 2009, per Nielson. These, and other, social networking sites provide a lot of opportunity for outreach. The questions to me revolve around whether the goal is to push information, convince people to read information, have a way to answer questions, or get people involved. How do you maximize impact, control costs, and allow for two-way communication? I don't have the answer yet, it's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to Netroots Nation next week. I'm hoping to come back with ideas. Until then, what are yours? Do you answer your phone? Your door? If someone like me wanted to reach someone like you on a candidate or issue would I be best off calling? emailing? posting to a social network? banging on your door? Or are you someone who only seeks information on your own? |
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