24-Nov-2011 Posted by Chris on 24-Nov-2011 | View Comments

Real Mayors Don’t Tweet?

I recall having a meeting last winter at the Mayors office. It was a one-on-one set for 8:00 am in his boardroom, and at that time of the year, the snowfall in our city was reaching epic proportions. I made a mental note, that while waiting in his reception area, his receptionist had already taken 3 phone calls from citizens complaining about the snow banks and snow plowing in residential areas. The poor woman was doing everything she could to appease those who were calling to complain.

Who calls the Mayor of the 4th largest City in the country to complain about the snow in front of their individual house? If you answered “Bat-Shit” crazy people, you are half right. If you answered “people who look to the Mayor when they are very frustrated, BUT are also Bat-Shit crazy”, then you would be 100% right. My point? Some people expect our elected officials to dote over their every need. I personally think it’s crazy… but it is the way that some people have used to connect to their elected official for many years.

We idolize elected officials who take these calls and solve these problems. No matter how inefficient and ridiculous these requests may be.

Now imagine with me a web-based technology where our Mayor, or any Mayor, could have that conversation with the individual citizen, in plain view of thousands of other citizens. The level of responsiveness would of course be direct, as well as provide a highly amplified/leveraged way to also send the same message to the thousands watching.

So you know, that technology exists, and it’s called Twitter,

So when I read this article by Calgary Herald Journalist Karen Klassen, I laughed out loud. Her’s is a desperate attempt to suggest that “Real Mayors Don’t Tweet”. For some reason, Ms. Klassen thinks that “tweeting” is for the kid-set, perhaps those who like to play on their iPhones in-between games of Angry Birds. She was attacking Mayor Naheed Nenshi of Calgary.

She is dead wrong.

Twitter is to many tech savvy citizens as the telephone is to disgruntled citizens who prefer that tool. The difference, which she fails to appreciate, is that Twitter is real-time and viewed by thousands. It can be the most efficient way for any public figure to engage one individual, while allowing a whole group to participate in the discussion.

When reading her article, I replaced “Tweet” with telephone, and I began to appreciate the hands-on service Mayor Nenshi of Calgary and Mayor Stephen Mandel are providing their citizens using the medium of social media. It’s efficient, responsive and transparent. Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey has become a national icon by using this medium to rally his citizens to identify potholes, exercise more, and take more personal responsibility for their communities. It’s ONE way to communicate with citizens, and should be no more dismissed than the Mayor taking a phone call to his/her office.

Ms. Klassen also misses the bigger picture about the impact of Twitter on her industry, the newspaper medium. Real stories, the REAL pulse of her community, are being discussed every day on Twitter. By rejecting the medium, she is missing many stories. She mistakenly makes the medium her story, by showing disdain for it, when the real story will always be what is being discussed in the medium.

She is a dinosaur, and she will soon be left behind by the citizen journalist, the social-media connected professional journalist and the web-savvy citizen.

Good riddance.

(Afterthought: Many great Mayors are active and accessible on Twitter. One who has become almost 100% accessible to his community, and by doing so has transformed the role of Mayor… is my friend Bill Given of my hometown Grande Prairie. He get’s the value as much as any politician I know.)

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