Fireside21

The Fireside21 team has been working remote for 5 days now! It has been an interesting week, but I thought I would remind everyone that you can access all your Fireside accounts remotely too.

As we mentioned in our recent security post, you need to be on the House network to access your account, but you don’t physically need to be on the Hill to connect.

The House provides a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service that when combined with an HIR-provided SecurID allows you to securely connect to the House network from anywhere. If you don’t already have a SecurID, you will need to fill out a form on this HouseNet page.

By the way, this iPhone screenshot is real. There is a built-in VPN on all iPhones…and here’s a trick to take screenshots: press the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons at the same time and you’ll find a screenshot in your photo library.

We have received a number of calls and emails from clients about last night’s hacker attack on Congressional web sites. First of all, no Fireside21 client web sites were impacted by this attack.

I don’t know for sure exactly how these sites got hacked—I would just be speculating without conducting an audit of server logs. I do want to take this opportunity to re-assure our clients of things we do at Fireside21 to protect our client’s web site and constituent data.

Our system is safer for several reasons:

1. Our web servers run the latest software and have anti-hacking protection built-in.
2. We write our own software and adhere to the best practices for handing anonymous input.
3. All our administrative functions are limited to the house network, which means hackers have to breach the house firewall before they can even try to access our admin servers.
4. All administrative logins are encrypted with the same technology used by banks and online stores.
5. We lock accounts that enter too many bad passwords, making it hard for hackers to try and guess your password.

One thing I recommend for everyone is to be careful with your usernames and passwords. Pick a complex password, change it often, and don’t let anyone know what it is!

I had a chance to sit down and catch up with Rob Pierson from Congressman Honda’s office this week.  Rob was just back from the SxSW interactive conference and has also recently made a splash with Congressman Honda’s crowd-sourcing initiative.  You may have seen a mention in on the Open House Project’s Google list or the Congressman’s blog at The Hill.  Congrats to Rob for pushing the envelope on what a Congressional web site can do for constituents! 

I also recently chatted with Clay Johnson from Sunlight Labs to discuss similar topics.  We are really big fans of the work that all of the “open government” community is doing and can tell with all our clients that everyone has turned the corner on transparency.  Instead of Congressional staffers asking “why,” they are more frequently asking “how.”

So what does all this mean?  And what can you do differently?  Well first off, offices need to decide if they want to adopt transparency or maintain the status quo.  From there, it’s really just technical details about publishing data like votes, requests and news in a “structured” data format.  In fact, all of our clients have RSS feeds for their news content and that’s all it takes to get started!

Here’s another example: one of the recent changes to House rules is requiring offices to publish their appropriation requests on their web site.  This caught a lot of people off guard, so if you are not sure what you need to do or how to do it, please give us a call!

I was waiting for a meeting yesterday and witnessed first hand the number of calls they were receiving with constituents voicing their opinions on the stimulus vote (even after the vote had occurred!).  Different offices have different policies for how to handle these calls, but I was surprised that this office’s policy did not include asking for the constituent’s email address and permission to send them updates.

What a missed opportunity!

Offices spend a lot of money to acquire email addresses and a lot of time to build up trust with those constituent to eventually get a formal opt-in.  Here was a missed opportunity to capture hundreds and maybe thousands of new email subscribers in just a couple of days and for free!

Many of our clients utilize Fireside Web and Email’s survey tools to help out when key votes are coming to the floor.  These surveys quickly aggregate opinions that can be reported to the Congressman.  Here’s how:

1. Have an internal discussion of how you want to phrase the survey.  Just ask a yes or no question?  Potentially ask the constituent a series of questions like, “which of the following components or amendments do you support?”
2. Publish the survey on your web site, feature it on your homepage and send out an email alert to your constituents asking for their feedback.
3. Additionally, send the link around to your staff list with a script and instructions to collect the information over the phone.
4. When the calls start to hit, your staff can take constituents’ information over the phone and enter it into the web site survey.

Here is a sample script:

Thank you for calling with your concerns on this issue.  First, do you support or oppose the bill?  Okay, please let me know if you support any of the following provisions…

Thanks again for your feedback.  Would you like to receive a response from the Congressman on this issue?

[Collect name, email and address]

Would you like to receive email alerts on this and other important topics from the Congressman?

[Collect email, check the subscribe box]

This tactic is going to yield your office a lot of new opt-ins and it also greatly simplifies the data entry for staffers.  I know that sometime when there are a lot of calls, some constituents’ opinions don’t get recorded at all.

Be sure your office doesn’t miss out on this opportunity in the future!

First of all, I wanted to thank all of our clients for another great year on Capitol Hill.  We continue to be the leading provider of Web and email solutions for Congressional offices.  Despite losing a number of long-time clients who retired or did not acheive re-election, we will end the year with more clients than we started.

IN THE NEWS

Perhaps the biggest news of the year was our departure from the Adfero Group.  I know we will continue to have strong ties to all of our former colleagues at Adfero, but we’re excited about the focused mission of Fireside21.

Along with the launch of Fireside21, we re-branded all of our Web-based software tools:

• Fireside Web™ continues to be the gold standard for Congressional Web site design and content management.  Recent surges in traffic only served as a reminder of the benefits of Fireside Web™. Also, as we have promised, we’ve continued to add new features and functionality to this industry-leading platform.

• Fireside Email™ has also received attention from our development team to establish this email newsletter system as second to none.  We’re excited to be helping our clients communicate more effectively with our integrated approach.

• Fireside CRM™ gained preliminary approval from the CAO and will be entering into the Beta phase early in 2009.  Advances in software technologies have been slow to reach the Hill and we are excited about this new service and the potential it offers to all of Capitol Hill.

We were also proud to show off our creative skills in helping the office of Rep. Mike Roger’s announce and promote his Energy Independence Plan.

A welcome announcement came from the House Committee on Adminstration to finally relax the rules related to third party/Web 2.0 services.  Many offices had been ingoring the rules anyways and we expect services like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to gain wider adoption as tools to communicate with constituents.

THE FUTURE

There’s no time to rest in 2009.  As when the new Congress kicks-off, we anticipate launching many Web sites for new members of the House.

We also anticipate launching user interface enhancement that will guarantee that all our software services continue to offer the best balance between ease of use and advanced functionality among Congressional vendors.

I love working at a small business and constantly consume publications like Fast Company, Inc, Business Week, etc. Most people outside the beltway don’t know it, but Congressional offices are small businesses too. Each office has it’s own finances, technology infrastructure and HR roles to go along with drafting legislative policy and serving their constituents.

Increasingly, small businesses and Capitol Hill offices are turning to hosted, software as a service tools to improve productivity. All of Fireside21’s services (Fireside CRM™, Fireside Email™, Fireside Web™) are hosted solutions.

As Jeremy Quittner explains in How SaaS Helps Cut Small Business Costs,

Hosted software, or software-as-a-service (SaaS), has been around for about a decade. It’s software delivered via the Web rather than residing on a company’s own servers. Companies pay a monthly fee instead of buying the software outright, and don’t have to worry about software licenses, server maintenance, or IT staff to manage complex programs.

One common concern is data security, but as he says,

That might sound like a security hazard, but your SaaS provider probably has better security than you do.

Alluding to Malcolm Gladwell’s concept in The Technology Tipping Point, Gene Marks writes,

Do you really need to drop a few grand on another server this year? Can’t it wait until next year? Isn’t there some “cloud” to put it on or something?

The benefits of SaaS are clear,

The guys I know who go for SaaS do so because it makes their people more productive. They can get data to and from their people faster, no matter where they are. They don’t have an internal IT infrastructure and find it less expensive to rent the software rather than set it up themselves.

In particular, Customer/Constituent Relationship Management software is particularly well suited to the SaaS model.  So how do you know if CRM software is right for your office?  Well, pretend that Marks is speaking of constituents rather than customers when measuring the ROI of CRM,

By making sure that all quotes are being pursued to their very end. By making sure customers who haven’t heard from you in the past six months are hearing from you. By making sure prospects who may in the future think about buying something you sell are hearing from you frequently enough to make them come to you first. By making sure you don’t look like a dope when customers call because you don’t know who communicated with them last and what problems they may be having. Think of all of all these situations you’ve encountered in the past three years, calculate how much revenue you’ve lost, and then compare that against the cost of a CRM system—and voilà!

On Capitol Hill, Fireside21 is the only vendor to offer a hosted CRM solution that unites traditional correspondence tools with our web and email platforms.  This is the future of Congressional communications and is exactly what Fireside21 is all about.

We recently completed a new demo Web site design that takes advantage of all of the latest easy-to-use features of our Fireside Web service.

This year, we’ve actually created a couple of different versions to demonstrate different layouts and color schemes.  Take a look:

We liked the new demo design so much, we went ahead and built out Web sites for all of the incoming members of the 111th Congress.  We prefer to do custom designs for all of our clients, but using this design will enable the new members to save money and have a fully-functional Web site launched in 24-72 hours.

I’m attending the Congressional Management Foundation’s Navigating the First 90 Days workshop today.  As always, the CMF has a well organized forum to help new members:

• Transition into office
• Make staffing decisions
• Develop your first budget
• Get started with mail and a web site

Fireside21 is ready to help too.  We have Fireside Web sites set up already for every incoming member of the House.  We can launch these new sites in just 72 hours!

Pair this new Web site with our Fireside Email and Fireside CRM services and your office will be off to a great start!

Today, Adfero Group announces the formation of a new company for congressional services. Adfero’s Congressional Team will now be operating as Fireside21.

From the press release:

Today, Adfero Group announced the launch of Fireside21, a new company that was formed from Adfero’s growing Congressional practice. The spin-off marks Fireside21’s evolution and growth as a provider of Web-based software for elected officials including award-winning Web sites and highly efficient methods for delivering emails to targeted constituents.

Here is a little more about us:

What is Fireside21?
Founded by former congressional staffers, Fireside21 creates easy-to-use Web-based tools that help legislators keep in close contact with their constituents. We produce attractive, highly functional Web sites; offer improved methods of delivering emails to the right constituents; and provide a simplified method of managing the overwhelming volume of constituent letters, emails and requests that are sent to elected officials.

Where does the name “Fireside21” come from?
Just as President Franklin D. Roosevelt connected with individual citizens via radio through his “Fireside chats” radio broadcasts, we believe politicians in the 21st century can similarly build close relationships with constituents using the latest technologies and strategies. Hence the name Fireside21.

What happened to Adfero Group?
In a sense, Fireside21 and Adfero Group are sister companies. We are both rooted in providing innovative services that help our clients leverage the Internet to advance their message. Adfero is primarily a public relations firm that integrates sophisticated digital strategies with traditional communications tactics to advance the public affairs or business agendas of corporations, associations, non-profits and government entities.

As Adfero has expanded its capabilities to become a full-service PR firm and offer new software services to Congress, it only made sense to spin off the congressional division to minimize any confusion and to establish a separate brand that reflects our total dedication to the delivery of superior Web-based software services to congressional offices.

I look forward to telling you more about Fireside21 our new services in the near future!

Over the last week, the House and Senate have experienced an enormous increase in daily traffic. While in the last 48 hours the www.house.gov, Write Your Rep service and many Member Web sites have gone down, I’m happy to report Fireside21 clients’ Web sites and constituent comment forms have not experienced any problems.

We’re happy that our clients have been able to maintain an open avenue of communication with their constituents via the Web during this important debate.

In addition to having the benefit of our infrastructure, many of our clients have wisely intercepted an influx of emails by posting a Web survey for their constituents. These same offices have instructed staff to submit the same survey on behalf of constituents who call their DC and district offices. This real-time feedback clearly had an impact on yesterday’s vote.

Here’s a glimpse at requests to one of our servers over the last 10 days:

For a little perspective, here is a graph of requests over the last 6 months: