The $5 philanthropist - GiveMeaning

A couple of months ago, I saw a movie that became an instant favorite of mine: Charlie Wilson's War. Charles Wilson was Congressman for the 2nd Congressional District of Texas. If you haven't seen the movie, check it out.

Today, I checked out TMZ.com, a Hollywood gossip website that is one of my guilty pleasures. Under the title Who Knew Congressman Were Cool? there was a small post about US Congressman John Culberson, who represents the 7th Congressional district who TMZ mentioned Twitters from the House floor.

So I followed him on Twitter and got a follow back immediately. I went to his website and noticed that he was about to hold a live town-hall webcast.

Congressman Culberson was the first to tweet from the House floor (even though Blackberry's are frowned upon on the floor) and tonight made history with the first ever live town hall web cast by a US Congressman.

I was interacting with him through Twitter and his UStream chat just before they started recording on UStream and it was great to see him using Summize, USTream, Twitter, and some kind of group phone-bank conference app. Talk about convergence.

Here is the embedded link to the town hall which at the time of this post is still going on:



Congressman Culberson was in his office alone and what was remarkable was that not only was he using these tools but he was totally open (i.e. not screening comments and phoners) and connected to his Constituents.

Congressman Culberson reminds me of Charlie in that he is very confident in his positions, a great orator, and quick on his feet.

It's now 930pm and the Congressman is still holding court with his constituents and has a following on his UStream of slightly more than 100 people. He is a pioneer in "Government 2.0" and a great example of what constituent communications using Web 2.0 looks like.

My prediction is that Congressman Culberson will develop a cult following (I predict an appearance on Colbert or Stewart within weeks). He is authentic, connected and accountable to his constituents and the feedback from his constituents on the town hall was overwhelmingly positive.

Elected officials everywhere, take note.

Labels: Government 2.0, john culberson, politics, US, web2