Yesterday, AmericaSpeaks and the Congressional Management Foundation briefed about 40 Congressional staff members about how they can think about engaging constituents more effectively. In addition to talking about barriers that they face and principles of public engagement, we used keypad polling to ask questions about their attitudes with regard to convening the public.

I thought the most interesting statistic came out of a poll about which mediums for engaging the public did they find most useful. The top response: tele-town halls, which are structured conference call sessions in which members of Congress respond to selected questions over the phone.

Here were the results to the question:

• Focus group (6%)
• Traditional town hall meeting that uses Q&A format (18%)
• Forums that encourage dialogue among participants (15%)
• Field hearings (3%)
• One-on-one office hours (18%)
• Surveys conducted by mail (0%)
• Surveys conducted on the web site or through email newsletter (3%)
• Tele-town hall meeting (30%)
• Online town hall meeting (6%)
• Other (0%)

This was certainly not a representative group and I’d like to think that our briefing helped to broaden their perspectives about the value of face-to-face deliberation when done right. But I thought it was a useful and interesting statement about the realities that Congressional staff operate within.