small talk 2.0

Here is a link to the wonderful post in GovLoop about using the social media tools in the right way: http://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/military-and-government

The following link leads to an intersting article by Ernst Sucharipa, Director of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. http://campus.diplomacy.edu/lms/pool/BD%20materials/Sucharipa.htm The article was written a couple of years ago, but many conclusions are even more relevant today. There are two points that I'd like to bring to your attention - one talks about the transformation in information sharing between the diplomats and the institutional consequenses of this change, the other deals with the characteristics of a future diplomat/ 1. Information sharing" "The introduction of Intranet-systems has brought about most important changes for the diplomatic service. Among them: - direct contacts between all officers, without the need for prior authorization, to get a message, an inquiry, an information note out or to get it received. The welcome results are higher motivation, no loss of time and greater sense of responsibility among younger colleagues; - development of an infor...

One month ago me and my good friend Alex Gafni created the new social network for public sector employees in Israel. The example for us was the american government network GovLoop that was created one year ago. After one month of activity we have 40 members and 10 groups, most of them created by two of us. So far this network's activities are based on our enthusiasm. It could be expected that not everybody will jump into active participation. So we will keep doing it, until we'll become a fashion first, and later - a tool for networking and inforamtio n sharing. And this will happen sooner than we think...

One of the important components of public diplomacy - in the past, in the future, and to even greater degree, in the future - is engagement with different ethnic groups in the host country/city. As public diplomacy strategy requires identification of groups and subgroups as target audiences, in order to try and influence them, the multuethnic environment provides good definition of such groups. The modern day communication, including social media, could serve as a tool for broa outreach effort as opposed to the limired outreach to formal heads of the ethnic groups if they exist. For many years diplomats were aware of the importance of leveraging the influence of ethnic groups. The ethnic communities that originated in the country of a diplomat were obvious and central targets in an effort to improve the image the country they represent inthe host country. Thus, for example, Italian Americans wanted to help their country of origin on US soil, and of course Jewish Americans are involved ...

It is already common knowledge that social media became a tool in recruitment process in the private sector. I would like to bring to oyur attention our experiment with social media (forum in one of the most popular israel's websites TAPUZ ("orange") whan dealing with the candidates to the new cadet course that will start next year. The forum started without our previous knowledge or involvement. We found it accidentally, but immediately started to engage with the candidates sharing information about the diplomatic service in general, about the selection process and encouraging them to contact us directly when the questions were too specific or private. It's not that all the participants respected the rules of civilized dialogue... it is not that we could just give the candidates all the questions and aswers in the written test... But the responces were very positive and encouraging and most of them mentioned that we helped them to understand better the whole process ...

Good article by LA Times journalist Tim Rutten http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oe-rutten24-2009jun24,0,4671617.column

Everybody should listen to it... And act accordingly. http://www.state.gov/r/remarks/124640.htm