"Disruption" has been de rigueur for the past several years. However, one sector I have never heard disruption mentioned is the Lobby. That is, the paid advocacy industry. Typically, the term is applied to tech oriented firms seeking to upend incumbents through creative innovation. From healthcare to banking, and transportation to the law, you have likely heard about how all will be disrupted. I do not believe the Lobby can be.

As background, I have been a lobbyist for nearly a decade in Austin, TX. While lobbyists in every state and in D.C. have their own styles, the core nature of our business is information. This is distilled further into the collection and dissemination of information from which we advance clients interests.

Friends and proximity exposed me to various levels of Austin's creative and tech community, which drove me to examine my industry. And moreover the potential for disruption was top of mind in launching my own lobbying firm, The Bingham Group, LLC nine months ago (and I'll think about it everyday forward).

On the whole lobbyists excel at adopting tools which allow us to conduct our business rapidly, particularly mobile (Blackberries to iPhones, Laptops to Tablets). Yet our industry through the decades (really centuries if you go back to the petitioners of English courts) has fundamentally not changed.

Technology has and will augment lobbyists abilities on the information-side for certain, but under our current policy making process (at all levels of government) face-to-face contact at key points will be necessary for the foreseeable future. Yes, this is even taking into account leaps and bounds advances in A/R and V/R technology.

While I do not believe the Lobby can be disrupted, it can be shaken by ripples, not quite disruptions but changes that the industry notices.

Those have and will likely come from:

(1) Governments (from local, state, and federal) seeking to curb perceived lobbyist influence;

(2) Mergers and consolidations among public relations and traditional lobby practices; and

(3) Sporadic instances of lobbyist misconduct (including alleged or impropriety, See Podesta Group).

I would love to hear your thoughts, particularly colleagues in Texas. This has been on my mind for awhile.

Best,

//A.J.