BACKGROUND

Darrell Shull is Vice President of Political Operations and the Executive Director of the Prosperity Project at BIPAC (Business Industry Political Action Committee), a 44-year-old political action committee based in Washington, D.C. Since he joined the organization in 1997, Darrell has been leading efforts to engage businesses and their employees to vote in elections, especially when election outcomes can result in positive changes for American businesses.

Frequent communication through the government affairs area of company Intranets, group meetings and other tools where BIPAC has contributed expertise, helps educate employees in advance of elections about issues and where individual candidates stand.

Businesses traditionally find that access to this type of information helps them quickly understand key election topics and motivates them to participate in elections. This helps BIPAC achieve its goal to have more business community voters realize their stake in the election, encouraging them to go to the polls and vote. Statistics have revealed that when employees hear about political subjects from their employers, they generally approve of and want the information, which in turn makes them more inclined to vote.

THE CHALLENGE

Healthy organizations thrive on robust and honest feedback from their stakeholders, and BIPAC is no exception. Through discussions with its Board members, the BIPAC executive team works to assure that the organization is on course with its strategic goals. However, garnering candid feedback from their Board has been a challenge.

In addition, representatives of BIPAC often feel slight resistance from other companies’ employees when visiting to discuss political issues. Finding new, effective ways of communication, opens the door for more productive and educational sessions.

Darrell had seen an audience response system in action at a Board of Directors meeting and realized the power and potential of real-time anonymous response technology. However, the system used at the meeting was a bit bulky, so Darrell researched other audience response system vendors and found Turning Technologies’ streamlined system.

THE SOLUTION

Darrell used TurningPoint, for the first time in a half-hour session at one of BIPAC’s Board of Directors meetings. Through 14 carefully crafted questions, the BIPAC management team learned from Board members the team’s strengths as well as potential opportunities for executing the organization’s current business plan.

Since then, Darrell and other BIPAC staff have used the 60-unit system they purchased in 2005 a couple of dozen times. When more ResponseCards^® were needed in larger meetings with hundreds of participants, BIPAC rented additional equipment.

As for engaging audiences in a discussion about political topics, Darrell finds TurningPoint the ideal tool for changing an individual participant’s self-perceived position of a minority thinker into one of the majority. He says, “People will come to our meetings thinking their beliefs differ significantly from the majority, so they consciously choose not to share what they think is their minority view. But they usually find, instead, that they share many of the same beliefs as others in the room.

The eye-opener for them is when they see the polling results in real-time, opening them up to broaching topics that were previously difficult to address. This change in thinking sets the mood for the meeting and we can accomplish more in a shorter amount of time.” Darrell adds, “We have seen this phenomenon repeatedly…in audiences from widely different geographies and demographics … from executives to line workers.”

CONCLUSION

Darrell says, “The learning curve for TurningPoint is almost zero … it is easy to use and learn.” He adds that his challenge has been learning how to phrase questions to gain maximum benefit from the real-time interaction and feedback from a live audience. He says, “We have had to learn how to create questions that narrow the field of topics to those that the audience identifies as relevant. Their real-time answers steer us to specific sets of topical questions they have told us interest them.”

A hidden benefit of using TurningPoint is the mileage that BIPAC continues to receive from the information that has surfaced in polling different audiences. BIPAC is able to capture data and audience opinions that were previously inaccessible … and use it in BIPAC’s various publications to give credence to messages the organization delivers to American employers and employees alike.

For more information about purchasing or renting Turning Technologies’ audience response systems for your organization, contact us at 866-746-3015.