Gadgetory

this is the US Capitol building and inside of this massive marble structure all the laws the United States of America are created now the current Congress is known as the do-nothing Congress they haven't been doing a lot of that in fact their approval ratings are abysmally low thirteen percent and they are among the least productive of all Congress's in recent history but it's an opportunity for a company called Capitol belts to actually bring transparency choose a process to allow our representatives to get real-time feedback from their constituents about the bills they're about to vote on and perhaps actually make this representative government we have even more representative of the very people who make it possible I'm Alexis Ohanian start-up founder and Y Combinator partner over the last year I went on a two hundred event book tour and met people building small empires all across North America now I'm back with a new season revisiting some of my favorite stops for their tour government has never moved quickly it's designed to be a slow process they'll be much debate and consider decisions but in the past few years the American public has become increasingly dissatisfied with the way Capitol Hill's they're behaving especially in the wake of one of the least productive Congress in recent history this inefficiency and lack of action is something a lot of people would view one company's capital bells is taking a novel approach by alerting constituents whenever a congress person is going to deliberate on a bill and letting those constituents give their thoughts directly to the congress person by means of a vote Capitol bells is trying to use technology to make the centuries-old processes and hungers more responsive to the needs of space America I am Ted Henderson I'm the founder of capital bells what use capital bells for Congress repealed work in Congress Capitol bells is an app that helps them do their jobs better for constituents for um a capital bells is an app to share our positions and to connect to Congress it's a modern version of the real life Capitol bells that have alerted Congress to votes since 1890 so you've got sensors around DC that are picking up the signals coming out of the Capitol building right identifying it and then bouncing it right back in real-time to everyone's phone who's got the app right how did you get this system installed I was a staffer for a congressman Kildee as soon as I was off the hill I realized I didn't even know when votes were happening I was just in down time I was like all right well I'm gonna apply to my next legislative assistant position and you know while I'm you know not doing anything all make an app in the mean time and so I called up the clerk's office and it's like where can I find the API for the bells and they say what's an API it makes the vote alerts happen who makes the bells buzz we go welp there are these radio-controlled clocks and so when is the button and all the clocks will will buzz when they get the signal like alright great you know what's the frequency how do we get going why hadn't anyone done this sooner it seems pretty obvious I think of part of is just that most of people on Capitol Hill aren't engineers like I am their local science majors and English majors and it's a analog community we have here on Capitol Hill and you know it's been working this way for a long time there's a lot of sort of institutional inertia and things don't change and that's why we kind of we have a chance to do so much here they're not taking advantage of modern technology at all it's almost even gone worse now because you know while we do have email email has actually stopped us from one thing that did work in 1980 which was working together face to face in Spain time together why is it important that a member of Congress can now see not only hey there's this vote happening but also here's how my constituents feel about it well if they can't see how their constituents feel about it what are they basing their votes on aren't they representatives what's the plan for Capitol balls is a business there are over 300 million people in the US who need to have their voices heard there aren't being heard and if we can capture Congress we have the the conduit to connect them to Commerce Capitol bells is clearly onto something and it is important what is less clear is whether this is just a cool project or can grow into being a big business now plenty of big businesses started out as cool projects look at Facebook but the challenge here for Ted and his team is continuing to maintain this platform's authenticity while also turning it into a profitable business what does the technology like capital bells do to change the way business gets done here it makes the operation of Congress more transparent right you know what's going on all the time the for capital belt believe it or not which is we're talking with like three years ago when I wanted to know if a bill is being voted on I had to literally call somebody a congressional office and say hey Wendy of voting on the bill it doesn't seem very efficient it doesn't know it will not not efficient but also like unlucky I know who to call but now anybody across the country can see when a bill is coming up that can see what the history of that bill is and then it's very easy for them to take action how can the government be so disconnected at a time when technology is playing such a vital role in every facet of our life part of it is a generational thing you know the congressional offices are older are over our shoulder and most of the people in there they're older people number two I think a lot of the innovation that's going on is is if you're not looking for it you don't see it entrepreneurs don't have the time to be up kind of walking around Capitol Hill and talking about what they're doing so you actually have a situation where there are people in office with power who are totally disconnected from how the world is technologically is there a solution for this because it seems to be a pretty fundamental issue I think the technology is disrupting everything every industry and government is one of those industries but I do think if you look out into the future you see a whole series of tools that will enable your average voter to become much more educated about the issue and to organize with like-minded voters and then to hold their representatives accountable and I think that is going to lead to a better more effective government the way the federal government does procurement and does IT is just generally not very efficient how do you go about bringing technology into an industry like government that has generally been really reluctant to government and technology have very different logics and operating principles government is supposed to be slow and deliberate injudicious technology is about in many ways disruption innovation and a very quick pace and so what I've seen for my time working on the hill and the executive branch and out the open gov foundation is the difficulty really is sinking up this the pace at which things move our mission is to make government accountable accessible and understandable to citizens using technology right now your government is making new laws new taxes new rules that directly impact your life did you have a say in shaping them why should government be accountable to its citizens right I as a citizen it's really easy to feel disenfranchised from it all the government stems of the people by the people and it's supposed to work for the people and that all adds up to accountability it was baked into our Constitution and it it's hard to find around here sometimes today so there's a lot of talk about opening up the data within government but there is a big difference between taking laws for instance that are currently in a dead tree book right and turning them into PDFs versus turning them into machine readable data can you talk about that a little bit for many the PDF is the apotheosis of internet-based document technology it works but it doesn't work as well as it could explaining the value proposition behind open data and all the things that it can do with you is the first place to start and I think that the technology community has not done a good enough job telling that story like we can help you government people do your jobs for citizens way more efficiently and effectively at lower cost with open data and open source software what do you think of a modern internet tool like Capitol bells I love Capitol bells I think it's a great hack in the the original sense of the term looking at an internal system like the house radio system for votes and getting that very very tiny in the grand scheme of things data point at to your mobile phone and attach to all of this other information that's available about what Congress is doing is brilliant I high-five Ted every time I see him what's what's been the biggest challenge so far you know you're you're starting a start-up that is working with the government that's usually an industry that does not rank very high on the list of industries startup founders are excited to work in this isn't something that's sexy to most you know people in Silicon Valley and to developers and to that word show and you know one of the hardest things for me has actually just been you know finding technical people to work with you know I came so you know we've we've raised money now and you know it's still difficult to find good engineers to actually you know get applicants to find you want to you want to be on the founding team of capital bells how do you go about thinking about building us into it big-time business I want capital bells to be where the data is so I want to be able to say here's what's happening right now here's what's happening Congress here so typing your state capital here's what's happening in two agencies here's the data of government here's what your government is doing for you right now and here's the metadata of you know what those people are doing and what these people are thinking a government that is by the people and for the people should be open and transparent with its data that data belongs to us after all the three hundred years ago in this country was getting started it was a lot harder to spread ideas there are only so many quilt hens and horses to go around but today because of technology like the internet and software it's a lot easier in fact the thing that's holding us back today isn't the technology it's the rules rules that have been in place for centuries that keep us from going forward you look at a place like this that has gobs of money that has lots of power and influence well why doesn't have the best tools to do its job their rules barriers they're up here of people that make laws love to make rules and the body is governed by Technology rules and Technology infrastructure that are out of date and so things like open-source software it's not clear if you can even use it here and that was actually one of the main reasons that we left the hill we have to get the heck out of Dodge and create this in an infrastructure outside of government it's because there are rules that straight-up prevent really cool innovative stuff from happening inside the walls of government I think in the ideal world we stay and we improve the institution from the inside but right now we have to do some work to change those rules and make the house open-source friendly just like the white house down the street can enough people using an online platform be enough of a force if they all say yes we want this bill to motivate someone on the hill to be the first one to say all right I'm gonna get behind this cuz it normally seems like they're just looking to their peers around the hillford for that first step well members of Congress have hacked because people ask that's part of it many of them bring their own agenda they might read what's in the papers but if people ask Congress will act and that's really what it comes down to this is another opportunity to give Congress an idea of what the people are asking for what does the average citizen get wrong about Lobby they assume that money buys action that special interest control the agenda and control the vote that's not how it works it's not how it works you're not gonna get access with your dollars you're not gonna change white to black or yes to no but you are gonna be able to support the people who support your thought so that will give you the opportunity what money does is gives you a seat at the table what we're able to do electronically through Capitol bells is give average citizens a seat at the table with all the things you'd be doing giving your experience and everything why Capitol well one of the things that I missed most about the time that I was on the hill is working together with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle I hope that Capitol bells will provide an opportunity for members and staff to communicate with each other in ways that they haven't done three years there's a lot of information on the street these days a lot of it free but there's very little communication and what good could Capitol bells do by connecting these people I think they'll be able to do their jobs better I mean they really need the exchange of information there is not that much discourse that goes on between members members of here from Tuesday to Thursday they don't make Washington their home anymore and as a consequence even the staffers don't have the kind of relationships that they had within their party or across party lines for as long as there's been voting there has been voter fraud and for all the advantages of software that make it possible for people to have their voices heard from all over the world also let people fake voices from all over the world plenty of social platforms can wait and so much later to deal with it look at things like Instagram and Twitter that are right with fake accounts Capitol bells is not one of them they need to have 100 percent authenticity from jump they're not a hundred percent authentic those representatives aren't going to trust those votes because they're not coming from their constituents they could be coming from anywhere Sam a senator from New York and I see that there is a bill that's come up and I can see on Capitol bells how my constituents believe I should vote on it how do I know that they're actually my constituents constituent Ally's right now is based off of emails and calls that they receive so you can call a congressman's office and say hey I'm so-and-so and I live at such-and-such address and here's my opinion but they don't really know if that person's coming from the place that they are you know we have an online system a web-based system that's you know open and it's covered all districts you know we can actually track which districts a user is voting from yeah we can you know see are they are they just trying to hop around a whole bunch if you start trying to vote in different places we can see that you've switched multiple times and it looks like you're gaming it and we can basically you know give your Wang hey you know you've changed your location three times in the past three months you really have to make sure that you get your address right or else you know you're not gonna change anymore right now your votes gonna get wasted with capital bells the most important thing that it does is it tells you what's happening on floor it tells us that we're in session it shows us the bills are going on right now that they're considering and it gives us a play-by-play of you know what has been happening on the floor so seven minutes ago they've just begun forty minutes of debate just suspend the rules and pass this bill HR 492 for I think it's really interesting now with technology you know every staffer is on her iPhone checking media they can they can see how much people like the photo they took of their lunch wouldn't it be interesting if they could get a sense for how people are feeling about a bill it would help the wildfire of what goes on a 24-hour news cycles every crevice needs to be filled with information that's part of why we're trying to lend some some text textual nature to it so that there is you know some quality to that discourse you make sure some Canadian doesn't fire up this app and try to have her voice heard on Capitol bells well currently you can only download it from the United States App Store how do you then make sure that the you know good congressman from the state or whatever knows that every one of those votes is coming from a constituent instead of some sneaky Canadian I guess I don't all right fair enough what was there anything where to go that surprised you going into this every time that I think that I'm on the cusp of something new that horizon just kind of gets farther and farther away like it's a it's a constant struggle you have to constantly push it together to the next level why do you do what you do are you jumping out of bed because you love bringing data to the world from from the bowels of government I get out of bed every morning trying to give people a voice and what happens in their government whether it's at a state a county local or a federal level there are so many people in this country who are brilliant who have good ideas who are crying out for government to meet their needs that they should be that aren't heard because they aren't rich they don't have lobbyists they don't have an influence and they don't get through and where technology comes into that is it makes government fundamentally able to listen I do think if you look out into the future you see a whole series of tools that will enable your average voter to become much more educated about the issues and to organize with like-minded voters and then to hold their representatives accountable and I think that is going to lead to a better more effective government awesome I'm hoping for it because we are their bosses me my vision for Capitol bells is that we have tools that don't just let constituents say hey here's what I'm voting on but you know allow you know you and me be able to form into a group and say hey like we want to share our votes together we want to we want to bring strength in numbers to an issue and like I know that Alexis you know you're like really like on the ball with Internet policy and I want to make sure that we're all following you all that policy and you know we can make sure that you know it's not just my voice or your voice as all our voices we don't know for sure if Capitol bells or some other service is necessarily gonna fix government but at the very least we need to try anything that helps our representatives be more accountable to their constituents is a major success so to that end ring the bell and cross your fingers and hope for a better more responsive government of the future marketing your business is already in the central part of being successful but the marketplaces move far beyond newspaper ads and television spots while many companies like Capitol bells start by spreading through word-of-mouth a smart marketing strategy needs to be used to take further consider utilizing these tips for your company during business hours focus on getting information across quickly for helping customers get stuff done like easily getting a price quote during evening hours people are using their devices to relax so send more entertaining us you can even tie them into popular TV shows or events how to better connect with customers lastly consider your demographic know your audience and adjust the message and timing based on who you want to talk to for more business advice visit the AT&T business circle what I don't understand okay why am i running up the hill though just like alright okay alright it's weird oh you guys