"Case by Case"

Day 3 and we had the opportunity to visit with a trade association as well as a private lobbying firm. I was looking forward to having opportunity to talk about new media, strategic planning and other issues concerning the fields of strategic communication.

First, we went to TechAmerica, a trade association that represents the IT industry, both nationally and internationally. They admitted to being “dirty lobbyists” but they advocate for flexibility and growth within the technology industry. Jason Langsner, VP of Marketing and Charlie Greenwald, VP of Communication, offered their personal and professional opinions on issues like the impact of social media, specific legislation that could affect the technology industry and how IT companies need to deal with the issue of privacy in the future. I thought it was interesting how TechAmerica was “protected” from bad PR because they represent an industry. And although I don’t think “any press is good press” is a theory that should be promoted in the world of politics or corporate public relations, I can understand why they like it – 50,000 more eyes on any story or subject is 50,000 more eyes then they had before. Additionally, with an industry like technology, people are pro-technology, which makes it easier to be heard on the Hill. At least for now.

I also found it interesting that both Jason and Charlie seemed young for their high-level position and how small the entire TechAmerica staff was (Jason indicated at one time there were 7.5 people working in the Marketing team and now it was only him, wearing several different hats). I would have thought that for such a big industry that has so many different issues, worries and concerns, that TechAmerica would need a lot of manpower to successfully represent IT on the Hill.

Clearly, this organization does influence the political system – evidence by their recent work with quieting a bill in Maine that wanted cell phone boxes to have a warning label on them about the relationship between cancer and the use of the cell phone. I was also slightly disappointed by how long it took TechAmerica to get onto social media sites and how flippant they were about not having a strategic social media plan established before they went online.

We also went to mCapitol Management on Wednesday afternoon and unfortunately I didn’t glean much insight from this meeting. I appreciated them taking the time to talk to us and did find the advice about how to move from college life to the professional world helpful. I would have liked to ask them how the develop relationships with the clients and whether mCapitol Management recruits or if companies seek them out – although they might not have been able to answer my question since they deal with the private sector, which is understandable.

So far the score for the day was dead even – a good visit and a bad one. After an excellent 3-hour dinner at Smith & Wollensky – it was clearly a GREAT day.