Following Scheerbaum's non-profit session came a solid session on political activism, presented by professional Washington activists Joe Webster (D.C. Attorney, Society Political Director), David Schuman (Attorney-Advisor, Goddard Space Center), Colonel Blake Ortner (Former Director of Political Operations, Lobbyist for the Paralyzed Veterans of America) and Mars Society Executive Director Chris Carberry.
These gentlemen have day jobs guiding the government and their insights on getting things done were, while common sense when you think about it, important to hear and to take to heart for any group desiring a greater voice in D.C..
The session began with a quick set of points and quotes setting the stage, and of course the quotes were from the main man in the history of doing Space, Von Braun:
"The hardest part about sending people to Mars, as with the Moon, is not technical it is Political"
"When large sums of money are involved in any project there's Politics involved ... and Space is very expensive"
From those came the statement "If you really want to get to Mars any time soon the hardest part is getting the money and the money is going to come from Congress"
And then the session kicked in with over an hour of the Hows of dealing with Congress.
Fundamentally the points came down to these:
- Repetition, repetition, repetition. Nothing new uner the sun, my years in advertising have always related to every other gig I've chosen :). The point was made that going out there and seeing a politician once is worthless, even if you walk away with the complete feeling that you 'got them good.' The advice was that a once a year meeting is as good as no meeting at all, twice a year minimum was mentioned as required and monthly contact is the power goal.
- Stay focused in your presentation. Again, logical and common sense, but always so hard to do in the real world especially when a person has passion and when the goals are technical or detailed or somewhat out of the mainstream. Space, while a multibillion dollar commercial industry and while so dual-use-important to any country's national defense, is still at first mention to human beings a "left field" topic.
It was strongly advised that working on a clear one-sheet of bullet points, covering just those points and leaving just that printed one-sheet will do any group better than slaving over a 50 page professionally bound booklet full of colorful charts and graphs.
According to these professionals, the reality of a political office is that the people are very busy and have a full set of topics to cover... and a one sheet is easier for them to take in hand and glance at, while all of those thick books go immediately to the "when we have time" shelf in the office never to be cracked open.
Further, staying focused means arriving on time, getting your points across and not overstaying your welcome. If you are given ten minutes, practice your presentation to fit ten minutes. With this, my mind rolled back to years of live radio and podium presentations; When you're given ten minutes, practice for 5 because in busy offices that may be all you really get and in this case you probably aren't going to be on stage doing a soliloquy, but rather having a conversation with interruptions. In popular business terms, keep always in mind that you are doing "An Elevator Pitch".
"Practice" means standing AND sitting in front of a mirror or vid/webcam and actually doing the presentation of those bullet points over and over *out loud* till you have it down as natural. If at all possible, get a friend who is not interested in the topic to sit with you and discuss your points so that you have experience deviating from the bullets yet bringing the conversation back to hit as many of them as possible within the allotted time. This last tip, coming from a media background, not specifically advised in the session, is actually better than, and easier than, practicing in front of a mirror because all it takes is inviting a friend to lunch... making the pitch to a real person as an audition of doing it "for real" IS doing it for real. We learn to get our points across, and learn what points and tactics work and what ones don't. Practice is work and any work towards any goal builds momentum... it's a law of physics, and a law of humanity.
Accept up front that you may not get all of our points done in time. If/when that happens, still leave professionally on time unless they truly want you to stay. Remember that first point "Repetition", you WILL - you Have To - get another meeting and that second meeting will let you fill in the gaps. If possible, plan the Entertainer's rule: "Leave them wanting more", that is a tougher task than it seems and being able to do it is the difference between a professional and a beginner ... but it can be done, with Practice.
All of these bits of advice are pretty standard clichés of Sales, but clichés are clichés for a reason so scanning some classic books on Sales would do anyone good. All of the other rules of thumb from Sales also apply, such as, if possible, drive to the target office at the same time of day, on the say day of the week, one week before the meeting to make sure that you don't get lost or stuck in traffic. And, as long as you are there, take a look at how the people in that office are dressed so that you don't overdress or underdress.
Back to the workaday...
In the above, Staffers have been mentioned more than politicians; this is because experience showed the presenters that getting in well with the staffers has been more effective than spending time with Congresspersons or Senators personally.
The reasons include the fact that politicians are very busy (believe it or not) and are being pulled in lots of directions at once ... and [not explicitly spoken by the presenters, but implied] they are professionals at telling people face to face whatever they think the person wants to hear, but that does not always translate directly into votes when bills come up.
Also there is the age-old proven reality that all people are more likely to trust and take action on the information that they get from a friend or someone that they know and have reason to trust than someone they just met, even if that new person has a compelling set of arguments. Politicians rely on their staffers, to quote the session "Staffers do 90 to 99 percent of the work", and so if a group gets the mind of a trusted staffer they are more likely to get the mind of the voting politician. In professional Marketing it is often the goal to figure out and get at the decision makers in a person's personal life (wives, husbands, children, etc.) rather than the person who signs the checks themselves and it's the same in Politics, but in Politics the main decision makers are already known... they are the office Staffers.
This did roll into some important realities of dealing with the staffs. To quote the session: "Staffers are overworked, highly stressed and underpaid." Keeping to the point, acting professionally and continuing to come back over and over to remind them of you and your goals helps you and they stay focused. It was mentioned that most staffers have a list of about ten topics that they are responsible for so they are being pulled in several concurrent directions (that's where Repetition comes back) and also that most of the people who they meet with are more one-shot passion with not enough professionalism or at least not enough empathy for the staffer's day to day stresses. An advantage goes to the person who can fit the staffer's needs, attention spans and needs.
Anecdotally, there was a story of how at the end of each day most all of the staffers unwind at the same bars or cafes and talk about, you guessed it, all of the idiots that they had to deal with that day. The point was raised that if you can do a professional meeting it will stand out. At those after work bull sessions there is a high likelihood that you will be mentioned as being different from the rest (and simply because your topic is Space, you've got a little off-the-beaten-track top of mind to begin with). Tacked onto this was that it does happen that one staffer, perhaps not yours, will at some point mention that their politician has to do something related to Space ... and if your presentations were professional and memorable in a good way then there is a good chance that you will get a call from that other office for help. In time, you may become a resource... and when you get those calls you should do anything in your power to get their questions answered; if you don't have answers right off the bat then say so and set a time that you can call them back directly to give them the answers that they need. This is an "In." Blowing this opportunity is death.
Speaking of Death, Staffers have a very high turnover rate. You may have one as a great contact who takes your calls and eats your lunches for months and then you call in and find out that they are reassigned or just gone. You will have to start all over with the new person; there is no way around it, so we were advised to accept it up front.
Another point from the field was that thing that came up in most every session on most every topic: Age differences. In general, Politicians are older and typically from the Apollo generation so the presenters said that they found the Congresspeople and Senators to be more open to talking Space and even waxing personal on the issue, because many Senior Staffers (who it takes a while to get to) also are generally older, they too tend to be more open and positive about Space related meetings.
And the rank and file Staffers? Younger. And the attitudes of these folks match the attitudes of most of those in their age groups; Space can be considered silly, old fashioned and just plain irrelevant it might even be obvious when they meet you that they are only doing it because they have been assigned this "fluff" topic. Know that and work with it... and see the previous blog post about Gustave Scheerbaum's research with non-profits for some insights that might help. When dealing with younger people who have been indoctrinated into the "We went to the Moon and if Space were so important we would still be there" mindset, a key lynchpin is to break down that wall with facts about what Space really offers, to get it under their skin that Earth is truly just a ball in Space, and that Space work is relevant and even of primary importance to their own person futures.
One last biggie that I almost forgot: It was advised that dealing with the local Staff offices can be more effective than travelling to D.C.. Why? Because all of those weeks per year that CNN and Fox talk up as being "vacations" are really times when the politicians go back to their voters. Their absolute fundamental job is to get re-elected and that can only happen by getting their constituents to want then in office. Washington lobbyists can be tempting but Constituents keep your people in the game. So work the local office .
Remember, if you aren't really living in a person's district then that person really isn't all that interested in you. So if you need a politician to help a Society goal and you don't physically live in their towns try to find some way to get someone who is (perhaps from some company in the Space Industry) to make the pitches for you. That's a hard pill to swallow, because it seems like the most work of all... but if the goal is to get things done then we have to be realistic.
The whole session came down to a lot of common sense once we heard the details of the political industry. All well, all good. The three presenters proved to me that they know what they are talking about. And the fact was stressed that if it all seems easy, think again because it is tedious and time consuming and that is what makes it hard work.
The system is set up the way it is to make getting things done difficult, yet it works. If the process is followed, the system ensures that the squeakiest wheels do, in the end, get the grease. This session made it clear that in reality there are not all that many squeaky wheels out there sticking out the process and so if you just follow the steps over and over then odds are even a small organization can actually make a difference.
Excited, intrigued? Ok, here're the downsides:
The Mars Society doesn't have a single set of tools to make individual efforts organized. There currently is no single page that a registered member can hit to find out when or if the Society has pitched any politician, no database of local office staff members or those common "blackberry points" on staffers or politicians (name, interests, emails, phones, pets and family notes and so on). Technically speaking you could set up a pitch and hear at the start that some other person already did the same the other day... though from what I saw in the response to the session that is unlikely;-(.
This lack of tools made part of me happy for a second... I've been in the biz of databases and information support tools for years and years so this could be a niche that I could take on to help the cause! That feeling didn't last too long though, because it strikes the same chord as the Education vs. Inspiration arguments. Tools are needed, but getting hung up on them is getting sidetracked by a smokescreen. What is far more important is a clear set of qualitative Goals that the Mars Society can present. When you have the specific goals, as specifically as possible, the tools almost write themselves (are you a geek? Then you know this is the latest computer industry buzz-phrase: "Domain Driven Design").
It's all about those bullet points mentioned at the beginning, the ones we are supposed to work on for our pitches and leave behind on a logo-ed one sheet.
From what I can see from the questions that came up in this session, and those that came up in the Society Town Hall meeting and a Marketing session thrown together (very well) on the last day of the convention... the bottom line is that the Mars Society itself doesn't have the one-sheet. Members are on their own to come up with what to say to politicians and what to ask for in the Society's name.
That lightbulb going off was a huge buzzkill. Think about it, all of the neat and fun tips and tricks in this session really were all "tools" but lacking was the content.
I liked the session, it was very informative. But it also deepened my despair. I believe that Humans can get to Mars, stay for extended periods and come back, all with technology we already have. But NASA is going to the Moon and Mars is an afterthought.
Young people are right when they say that they don't 'get' the Moon, we have done it and there was nothing inspiring there or we would have stayed. But there is still this NASA effort to go back... which makes those young folks (and anyone with a second to think) lump all of Space in the same "NASA is wasting money" category. Mars IS a way out, but getting out of the Moon program is going to be hard and the first step is to prove to any anti-Space people why shifting the monies to Mars now is going to be worth the effort.
Even if people don't care about Space at all, the Constellation project does give them an easy out. They just say "Look, we are already funding Space and a lot of work is already being done, so what's the problem?" I can imagine it being hard for them to see why we aren't getting with the program and wondering why Mars people are continuing to be a small group of infighters. It's like the Planetary Society's magazine railing against the Lunar return missions month after month after month... and then out comes a recent issue with every article doing an about face to get behind Constellation; They gave up and figured what the heck at least it is Space (sort of). I think that that is going to come back and bite us. We will prove that the Moon is worthless and offers no inspiration and those who said so before it started will have all that they need to shut down any hope of Mars.
Zubrin made The Case For Mars... all of the reasons are in there and after reading that book over again and doing a lot of fact checking I personally have found that Zubrin was right on target. But it's a long book that gets into technical details. It's a book that we could leave with every staffer and every politician ... only to see filed on the "Someday" shelf.
"To Mars!" is the chant of the convention. But exactly how, in simple terms, to get from here and now's funding to there remains the unanswered question. With every new day spent on NASA's uninspiring, ROI-lacking "Return to the Moon" money-pit, that lack of a clear set of action items for Mars is a big problem.
I see now why people, especially people who have been doing the Mars Society and it's conventions for years ended up more happy to talk about Dyson Spheres than going to the volunteering sessions.
And I see that it's time for Society members to break out the Zubrin again... this time with the focus on assembling those bullets.