Activism needs to be reinvented.
Legislators are already not paying attention to email, because so much of it is automated. At best, some legislators tally email, many of them don't pay attention to it at all.
Automating phone calls is an inevitable continuation. Right now, phone calls have _some_ impact. Unfortunately, technology will make calling less effective.
On one end we have software, on the other we have the poor Congressional staffers who have to pick up the phone every time it rings. Eventually the staff will become numb to phone calls, stop paying attention, and turn to people sitting in their offices for guidance (lobbyists, who get paid to be there, or, less likely, people like you and me who find the time to actually go and talk to them.)
We have a disconnect between taking the smallest step (sending an email, calling) and the next one, physically going somewhere. This is why we -- we the tech industry, in partnership with visionaries from the non-profit space -- have to reinvent activism. To make the transition from the online to the offline world smoother. And to make the time spent online more meaningful.
Increasingly, people look online first. The dozens of petition sites -- Change.org is a full social network type of deal -- are making it easy to confuse "doing something" with "doing something effective."
Legislators are already not paying attention to email, because so much of it is automated. At best, some legislators tally email, many of them don't pay attention to it at all.
Automating phone calls is an inevitable continuation. Right now, phone calls have _some_ impact. Unfortunately, technology will make calling less effective.
On one end we have software, on the other we have the poor Congressional staffers who have to pick up the phone every time it rings. Eventually the staff will become numb to phone calls, stop paying attention, and turn to people sitting in their offices for guidance (lobbyists, who get paid to be there, or, less likely, people like you and me who find the time to actually go and talk to them.)
We have a disconnect between taking the smallest step (sending an email, calling) and the next one, physically going somewhere. This is why we -- we the tech industry, in partnership with visionaries from the non-profit space -- have to reinvent activism. To make the transition from the online to the offline world smoother. And to make the time spent online more meaningful.
Increasingly, people look online first. The dozens of petition sites -- Change.org is a full social network type of deal -- are making it easy to confuse "doing something" with "doing something effective."