A little about Capitol News Connection:

CNC is non-profit public radio news service that covers and localizes congressional news stories for small public radio stations across the country (really: list, visual). To get a better sense of how we connect lawmakers to their citizens check out some of our current news stories. Our stations often run these stories during their Morning Edition and All Things Considered broadcast... and though our content isn't part of the NPR lineup, most of our listeners don't know that. For that reason we created our news website (http://www.cncnews.org)to feature our content and start developing a web presence independent of our subscribing stations. 

A little about Ask Your Lawmaker:

While we were developing the CNC site we spent time brainstorming about the types of web-only content we could easily create. We worked on a few ideas: Bite of the Day was a simple module that would feature some of the bizarre things that we've recorded lawmakers saying; and Are You Dialed In? was another module that allowed web users to submit questions to lawmakers that we would get answered on our call in show, also called Are You Dialed In? Eventually these two ideas collided and became Ask Your Lawmaker, an interactive website that connects citizens to their lawmakers by giving users the opportunity to pose the questions that our congressional reporters ask congress people. We liked the idea, and the fact that it reinforced our mission, so much that we started fund raising round the idea of building a separate AYL site. 

And a little  about where we are now:

The Ask Your Lawmaker website has been up and running since early December 2007. Built on the Drupal platform, I have found AYL to be a fun andpleasurable website to manage. Lots of great questions have been asked from our users, and we've gotten interesting answers for most questions. In a lot of ways, I'd say its fair to say that most of the really hard work is done... we have a functional platform and access to plenty of solid content. That being said, when I look at the future and growth of the AYL project, I have several concerns about the sustainability and development of the site. 

As I see it, our primary challenge is fostering the growth of an excited and engaged audience that is eager to take advantage of the opportunities that AYL provides, namely the ability to ask questions of their lawmakers, vote on other questions, and then comment on and share on questions and ideas. Without a loyal user base, the platform that we have created is essentially useless. Does anyone have any ideas on strategies for developing a user base?

Another concern / challenge that we are having is identifying the best ways to utilize what little in house 'web project management' experience that we have and pairing that with outside managers and developers to continue expanding the platform. To date we have worked with a number of web firms and individuals -- and while we have found the time and energy that we have invested in individuals developers to be cheaper and more gratifying -- the bottom line is that building and operating a website is expensive endeavor. And although we are running AYL at a deficit, we are interested in figuring out  a sustainable model the balances our investment (time and money) with the benefit that AYL is providing its community. Again, if anyone has ideas, feel free to comment.

In the long run I am confident that there is something to Ask Your Lawmaker that is appealing to and useful for the average web-engaged citizen. Hopefully our participation in this Net2 Mashup Challenge will help us take AYL to the next level, so that it become a forum for community discussion about politics and a source for citizen journalism as well as informing CNC's own journalism.