An Interactive Chat With an Old School Instrument
Received a fascinating telemarketing call that I almost hung up on, but have been listening now for 30+ minutes. One of the only groups that can escape the do not call laws are the politicians. This call was from Tom Campbell, who is running for the governor of California. Instead of a recorded call, this brought me into a live, interactive chat room. Inside this chat room there were upwards of 22,000 listeners.
It truly was interactive, as it seemed like Campbell gave his callers at least 50% of the airtime. By pressing *3, anyone could join in with a question (there were call screeners). There was even interactive polling with the audience. According to the moderator, the top concerns of the listeners on the call were
- 41% – the budget
- 33% – the economy
- 13% – the health care
- 7% – water
- 6% – education
What makes this fascinating is that it was so simple and sort of a back to future experience, as my phone proved to be a great tool for holding a one-to-many conversation; a computer wasn’t required; software plug-ins were not necessary and I could walk around with my speaker phone annoying the rest of my family with this virtual town hall meeting.
An update
87% of the people are happy with their health care, according to a second survey they took later in the call.
After the call, it was possible to ask a question of Tom Campbell via voicemail.
And it looks like Meg Whitman is a copycat, as she called me to participate in a town hall meeting. Wow, all of these high powered people giving me a call makes me feel pretty darn important!