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 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.