Twitter, Congress, Video and Leverage

How many ways can you leverage social media to tell an important story, yours or someone else's?


Robert Scoble at Fast Company recently did a video interview above with Congressman Tim Ryan (D) (@timryan) Ohio who, along with many other members of congress, has become active on a microblog called Twitter. It struck me as I watched how great an example this is of what is possible when it comes to weaving together and leveraging social media for prevention?

Scoble masterfully weaves together multiple forms of social media. I noticed when I went to Fast Company TV, he was using a high-end video camera and crew to capture the interview with Congressman Ryan. As I watched I realized in the video he was using his Nokia N95 cell phone to live stream video via Qik. I'm pretty confident he tweeted the live video so anyone who follows can watch in real time (although I couldn't find the tweet). In his Fast Company role, he/crew edits/posts the interview online which means anyone can link to it or send the link (URL) to others via email.

But he does something else indicative of social media.

He kicks it up a notch by offering the embed code so I (and you) can include it in our own blog post. He then posts photos on Flickr and finally does a piece for the November issue of Fast Company Magazine (titled Passion Play) where he mentions this work. He may have even done more things with this interview than I noticed or found?

If you are new to Twitter?
Twitter (as written about several times on this blog) is a microblog where you have 140 characters to answer the question, What are you doing? I think of Twitter like - group instant messaging. Twitter allows both us/others to "follow" each other and stay in-the-know or in-the-communications-loop. There's some good resources for supporting getting started like this awesome 3-minute video from Common Craft, or this Newbies Guide by Chris Brogan and his follow up post or this one by Jennifer Laycock or finally, this blog post on How to be a Model Twitizen. There's a lot of support and advice emerging to help people use Twitter well.


A little about Twitter and Congress
When this whole thing about Twitter and Congress first came to light, there was much ado about whether Twittering was breaking the rules. It was reported well in the New York Times and all across the country both in blogs and mainstream media. When the initial "NO Twitter" message surfaced, The Sunlight Foundation started an online petition, Let Our Congress Tweet, to support and encourage changes in the outdated 20th century congressional rules and take into consideration newer forms of emergent communications.

Change happened! At an unusually fast pace, new rules were verified and now many congressional members are tweeting. If you already Twitter you can click and "follow". If Twitter is new, all you need to do is join (its free) and then follow the leaders of your choice. For those with a website or blog, you can pick up the widget (small piece of code) and add it so your readers can check out all the live congressional tweets. While I suspect this adventure was a first step into digital media for many in congress - I fully expect it won't be the last.

Times are definitely changing. Where are you and your organization or coalition in this new age of participation? There's so many new social media tools for information, communication and collaboration, what does your new media strategy look like?