A new year in Congress means new Members, staff and policy agendas. Washington is full of organizations looking to connect with Congressional staff on their policy issues. The proliferation of mobile technology and new media has officially changed the way we communicate – and that goes for citizens’ and organizations’ connection with Congress as well. According to a Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) report from 2010, incoming mail to Hill staffers has increased exponentially in recent years. Senate offices reported a (...)
As Election Day nears, pollsters release more and more estimates in the race to the White House—there are national polls, state-by-state polls, and polls involving specific demographic characteristics. We know which candidate is seen as “more likeable,” whose wife is the favorite, and we can even find out which candidate Americans think is more capable of handling an alien invasion (President Obama has the lead on this one). The real race, and the real competition—one that is fairly new in (...)
After two years of buzzing around Chinatown, we are excited to announce that Beekeeper Group recently moved to a new hive at 1331 G Street NW. We are already settled in to our new offices and are having fun getting to know our new Metro Center neighborhood. Although we love our 9th floor views, it is the shared conference facility on the 1st floor that really sold us on our new location. We look forward to hosting you at future (...)
We’re excited to share the news that Beekeeper Group recently marked its one year anniversary. To help celebrate, we’ve compiled this little video highlighting five trends in digital public affairs — Beekeeper Group style of course!!
With the release of the latest passenger produced video slamming an airline – this time Delta – for poor customer service (see the video below of U.S. soldiers returning from Afganistan forced to pay $200 out-of-pocket per person in extra bag costs), it made me recall a recent observation from my business partner, Mike Panetta: “Airlines must learn that passengers now have their own production, editing and distribution studios built into their mobile phones. With these tools, a documentary style (...)
Well, it was only a matter of time… Politico’s Morning Tech reports that the Consumer Electronics Association has gone where no advocacy group has gone before — THE VIDEO BROCHURE. Members of Congress will begin receiving a video brochure from CEA today. MT was lucky enough to play around with the paper brochure, titled ‘America is Ready for a Comeback.’ When you open it up, a video screen begins playing an introduction from CEA chief Gary Shapiro, who outlines the (...)
Kudos to the U.S. Army Golden Knights precision parachute team for a timely, funny, clever self-promotion, video response to a recent UFO scare over El Paso. Watch the TV news report and then the Golden Knights’ video produced in response. Beekeeper Group has often talked about the power of a quick video response to either bring attention to your cause or address PR and advocacy challenges head-on (although try to avoid using copyright protected music like Men-in-Black as this can sometimes lead to (...)
With a possible lame duck session set to start the week of November 15th, 2010 and continuing for as long as 6 weeks (assuming lawmakers take a week off for thanksgiving and work til Christmas) there is a lot of prep work that many trade associations, corporations and interest groups will need to start working on right now so they aren’t caught-out in November. Beekeeper Group has devised a quick list of 10 tips for advocacy professionals preparing for a lame duck session this Congress: (...)
The rise of political ’gotcha’ videos is nothing new, but people may be surprised to learn the power that video can truly give the amateur activist. Take the recent career ending Helen Thomas YouTube video filmed by Rabbi David F. Nesenoff. According to Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, speaking at last week’s Vocus Users Conference, uploading of the video was delayed for 10 days because Rabbi Nesenoff’s ‘webmaster’ son had finals and just didn’t have time to get it online. This was not some carefully (...)
