Without a doubt, one of the greatest achievements of the netroots has been the creation of new forums where citizens and elected leaders sit together and talk about the future of the country. If Thomas Jefferson could have seen the Leadership Forum at last year's YK in Chicago, he would have nodded in approval and said, "That's exactly what I meant by 'We The People.'"
Well, this year, the organizers at Netroots Nation have stepped up again, organizing another citizen-driven forum called: Ask The Speaker. Last year, we spoke with the Democratic candidates for President. This year, we will spend an entire keynote session in conversation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Sometimes I can hardly believe how far the netroots has come, and in such a short amount of time. Amazing!
Once again, In the great tradition of people-powered democracy, the key to the success of "Ask The Speaker" will be your questions submitted online prior to the event, which will then be put to Speaker Pelosi. Just like last year, bloggers will moderate the event (Gina Cooper and Jeffrey Feldman). And not unlike last year's interactive Leadership Forum, "Ask The Speaker" will, be, awesome.
Submit Your Questions Online!
Given all that, the only thing standing between you and submitting a question to Speaker Pelosi is knowing where to go and how to get started. Voila! The website for question submissions is now live and ready to go: http://www.askthespeaker.org.
Want to submit a question? Head on over the submission page and follow these basic instructions:
- Take A Quick Look Around First: Before you submit your own question, read around to see that the site has been divided into categories to help organize the submissions and elicit as wide a range of ideas as possible. Also, take a quick peek at what's already been submitted.
- Click on "New Idea": To submit a question start by clicking the big orange button that says "New Idea." You will be asked for a valid email, and then taken to a basic comment submission form.
- Formulate a Concise Question: Keep in mind that a question is a single sentence with a question mark at the end of it--preferably a sentence that can be spoken in one breath. If your question has chapter headings ; ) consider (1) revising it to make it shorter and more concise and/or (2) dividing it into multiple submissions. What makes for a great question? Try for a question that invites the Speaker onto new terrain having to do with policy, campaigns, or democratic engagement. Questions that invite the Speaker to admit failure on a past issue are not off-limits, but they will likely be folded into other submissions to create more vibrant starting points for a back-and-forth.
- Hit "Submit" : Once your questions is written, submit it and your job is complete! Feel free to submit as many questions as you have in as many categories as you like.
- Vote Up! Vote Down!: The final step is one that every blogger knows well: recommending. Our system has a built in voting system not unlike Digg or Reddit. All you need to do is vote a comment up or down and everyone (including the moderators) will get to see which questions sit best with the most blog readers and conference attendees
What Happens After I Submit My Question?
Prior to the conference, the moderators will print out all the
questions and the vote tally, and then pull together a list of
questions to pose to Speaker Pelosi during her keynote. Some questions will be posed exactly as they were submitted, some will be edited down, some will be combined with others. The final result will be a set of questions based entirely on open-source contributions from blog readers across the netroots--progressive democracy in action and delivered to the third most powerful member of our government.
What Question Should I Ask? (Categories)
To help elicit the broadest range of questions, the submission page will divide all questions into six basic categories:
- Issues: Domestic
- Issues: Foreign
- Issues: Technology
- Governing Philosophy/Process
- Elections/Strategy
- Miscellaneous
For example, I predict that somebody will submit a question about the FISA bill--an important topic of interest to just everyone. That question would fall under "Issues: Domestic" and "Governing Philosophy/Process" (and maybe "Elections/Strategy"). But as important as that question is, it is only one question--and we will need many more!
Great questions merge three distinct factors that are unique to the netroots: (1) progressive issues, (2) people-powered politics and (3) new media technology.
Based on my experience from collecting questions for last-years Leadership Forum, I noticed that many submissions were driven by the news cycle rather than progressive issues. So, be sure to look beyond the headlines and dig deep inside your own progressive principles and priorities for inspiration. It goes without saying that the more we allow big media to dictate our questions, the less interesting "Ask The Speaker" will be. Our job is to do what we do best: Set the terms for the debate and lead a discussion that moves the country forward!
Talk Amongst Yourselves
One thing to make good use of as you submit questions are the various reader/writer issue groups that each of us contributes to on the blogs. We can all be described by the generic term 'blogger,' but in our day-to-day lives on this site and elsewhere, we write and read within communities of common interest. Now is the time to turn to those communities to elicit concerns and formulate the best questions.
Great questions for Speaker Pelosi,in other words, will be the product of your individual concerns and the concerns of the groups that you join online each day to discuss ideas and generate solutions.
Talk amongst yourselves! Write a diary inviting people to generate questions. Initiate a discussion on your own site or on the group site that you run with the goal of generating a few submissions for "Ask The Speaker." Talk about questions for the event at your next Drinking Liberally or local meet up--or when you met a few Liberal friends for a latte. The more buzz you generate, the more insightful and far-reaching the questions for Speaker Pelosi will be.
So...what are you waiting for?! You've already spent way too much time reading a diary about submitting questions to "Ask The Speaker"--now's the time to do it!
**Submit your questions to Speaker Pelosi here
**Register for Netroots Nation here