Jenci Spradlin

Campus fire safety.

Traumatic brain injury.

Stalking.

Cardiac Arrest.

Prader-Willi Syndrome.

If you wanted to inform the public today about these issues, what would be the most effective means to do this?

Would adopting a congressional resolution naming a particular month of the year "Campus Fire Safety Month" come to the top of your list?  Probably not. 

Indeed, in our world of continuous 24-hour news cycles and social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace, it seems quite outdated and even counter-productive to limit the dissemination of vital (and viral) information about a particular subject matter to some specifically designated month. 

An article on Read Write Web by Rick Turoczy called Social Media Saves Lives: Salmonella Outbreak Pushes HHS, FDA, CDC to Get Social, highlights how the US Government is using social media to "more effectively serve the health and well-being needs of its constiuents."

Trying to spread the word about the dangers of Salmonella-infected peanut butter forced the HHS, FDA, and CDC to get creative. Leveraging social media to spread the word, proved to be the point on which the agencies could quickly combine forces.

In a crisis situation like the presence of contaminated food products, these government agencies saw the effectiveness of using these tools to reach the masses quickly because speed was important.  The efforts were not only worthwhile externally, but were also good at getting the various governmental agencies thinking "socially" from an internal perspective. 

Social media not only enabled the agencies to accelerate outreach, it made the health organizations more social, themselves, by introducing a means of collaborating among the formerly disjointed departments.

And while it's hard to pinpoint how many potential illnesses or deaths were prevented, it's safe to say that far more people were aware of the dangers of Salmonella-tainted peanut butter thanks to the social media efforts of these agencies.

With all the fringe benefits of utilizing social media to distribute information, technology has certainly provided ample solutions for reaching people in a timely and targeted manner.  It would behoove Congress to discontinue "feeding the beast" of antiquated information distribution and the often-times disjointed efforts by "the few" when they issue resolution after resolution. (Because let's face it Congress, who in the world knows about your resolutions anyway?) Simply tell people to "get social!" 

Indeed, HRES167 is a prime example of how taxpayer dollars are spent drafting and eventually passing bills that would be best served by today's social media tools.  House Resolution 167 would designate September as "Campus Fire Safety Month" because, as the findings describe, 129 people have died since 2000 in fire-related deaths (80% of which happened off-campus).  The BEST thing Congress can think to do in this case is to pass a resolution that will make September 2009 "Campus Fire Safety Month." And, to that end, I'm not sure what that exactly means? What is the ROI on that? Sure, perhaps no federal funds are being appropriated for this Resolution, but what is the cost of the staff member's time in drafting this Resolution?  What is the cost of entering this into the official record? In submitting it to committee? Discussing it? Not dicussing other worthwhile Resolutions because time was spent on this one?

Surely; however, given the power of social media networks on college campuses, colleges and universities can use those networks to remind students to check their fire alarms, change the batteries, and have a fire escape plan without having to engage the resources of Congress? (Am I nuts in thinking this?)

Here is a list of some of the other issues that the House of Representatives have submitted just this year:

HRES16 - National Life Insurance Awareness Month

HRES114 - National Girls and Women in Sports Day

HJRES17 - National Country Music Month

HJRES12 - National Gospel Music Heritage Month

HRES25 - National Internet Safety Month

HRES45 - National Criminal Justic Month

HRES41 - National Mentoring Month

HRES82 - National Stalking Awareness Month

HCONRES25 - National Sudden Caridac Arrest Awareness Month

HRES55 - National Prader-Willi Syndrome Awareness Month

HRES178 National Traumatic Brain Injury Awareness Month

Given the scope of these issues, it seems clear to me that the intent of these resolutions is not so much to "raise awareness" but to raise the profile and capital of the Representative sponsoring the bill by way of voters sympathetic to this cause.  We should not allow Congress to use their legislative powers in this way when clearly there are more effective means to accomplish the same goals using social media tools.  These are certainly worthwhile causes in and of themselves; "get social" and start spreading the word today about these issues! (In fact, any of these causes would make for perfect groups to form on Politics4all!  Engage others, recruit like-minded friends, debate the issues, and more!)