Social Media: What to Look for in 2010

Oliver here from SOUTHCOM (Science Technology and Experimentation). Glad to see people out there paying attention to the employment of web 2.0 technologies to facilitate greater information sharing / collaboration. As you know, SOUTHCOM is still very much involved in the Haiti response (Operation Unified Response). Thought the operation is still ongoing, there are many lessons to be learned -- lessons that relate to online collaborating with non-traditional partners during crisis actions. SOUTHCOM's use of web 2.0 technologies during the response extended far beyond traditional Public Affairs responsibilities. The SOUTHCOM PAO did an awesome job in getting the official information out and into cyberspace; however, the command went far further to enable robust "whole of society" collaborations. Through the All Partners Access Network (APAN), the command was able to exchange information, and collaborate with over 1800 geographically dispersed stakeholders in the APAN Haiti HA/DR Community of Interest. APAN (also used extensively be PACOM), integrates diverse technologies like; forums, blogs, wikis, file sharing etc. that make it easy for stakeholders to connect and collaborate. * The SOUTHCOM APAN community grew from under 100 members prior to the crisis to around 1800 within a few days!). The complexity of this crisis action in terms of the diversity of actors demanded a networked UNCLASS capability to support collaboration across multiple domestic and international organizations. There is no way that this could have been done using conventional communications tools (email, phones etc.). The need for the military to plan and execute with non-DOD stakeholders is becoming increasingly apparent as we all operate in the same space, especially in HA/DR operations. Really, online collaboration with Non-DOD entities is not something the COCOMs can avoid or should want to avoid. Leveraging tools like APAN, information was shared in real time resulting in lives

Kris, I couldn't agree with you more. I've seen many folks establish Facebook and Twitter accounts to simply distribute press releases and articles then call it a day. They need to "repurposing" their products for this new two-way venue (like generating a Social Media news release) to open up conversation with our communities and ultimately build relationships with them. This doesn't mean we get rid of the old way of pushing our stories out via the "traditional media". PAOs need to adapt their "old" methods for this new medium. As Brian Solis mentioned in his book "Putting the Public Back in Public Relations," Social Media is the biggest revolution to the Public Relations profession since the introduction of the internet. As for DoD, Mr. Price Floyd, Principle Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, is truly leading the charge in the Pentagon to get all military PAOs and leaders to use Social Media. A few months back he unveiled their new Defense.gov site which is rich in Social Media. Same kudos goes to the US Army, who's really leading the charge at the service level. It'll take time, but I do know more and more of my counterparts do understand the significance of Social Media. Now they just need the funding and resources to execute this new Public Affairs core capability.

Hello, Nice post, its good to see you moving forward with efforts to better understand, use and manage a wide array of available technologies. I was hoping you could outline your position on a couple issues regarding government use of commercial systems such as the ones you have identified and how they affect your role and decision making process in the application of these technologies. Firstly I am curious as to how your archiving this site to make sure it complies with freedom of information act requirements, and what advice you can offer other government web-masters and IT departments who may be looking to outsource their content hosting regarding this issue. Also if I'm an American citizen and this is a gov system, wondering how you handle my email under privacy act guidelines, and again what guidance you might be able to provide in terms of how to deal with record and personal information? Additionally could you speak to the use of Social Media in an official capacity and the gray area of "tracking" personal information of private citizens and how this impacts privacy act compliance? Is there a policy that you can point to for how you have dealt with this issue? I wonder also what your thoughts on Facebook shift in data privacy rules are and how they impact your view as a PAO of the use of such systems? Related to the above - How do you view government use of public cloud systems is going to manage compliance issues of these types? As a PAO what would your recommendations be? What is your view of how these types of compliance issues and legal mandates will affect the role of government interactions with commercial cloud based systems and the trends you have outlined? I look forward to reading about your opinions on this matter. Keep up the good work and good luck for this next year of fun emerging tech! Cheers, Ivan

I really have to hand it to you and your public affairs team at EUCOM for the efforts you are making in light of the social media revolution. You have highlighted many of the emerging internet tools and technology trends that will allow public affairs and servicemembers to tell their stories and speak with their "real" voice. I only hope that as the military and public affairs embraces social media that we don't use it as simply another forum to push traditional command information products. I have seen far too many DoD social media sites where it is PAO shops simply posting their standard packaged news releases with a photo, video and cutline. I'm not saying that we shouldn't inform our audiences of our latest stories on social media sites, but if that is the majority of what we do on these sites then all we have done is brought our traditional one-way communication to a "social" two-way communication environment that is meant to be conversational. I feel like there has been a knee-jerk reaction by PAOs that think, "Yea, now I don't only have to email or post our stories on our web site, I can Facebook it and Twitter it too..." This, in my opinion, is a flawed approach. We have to see social media as a normal conversation where real people are simply sharing ideas, thougths and experiences. If all we do is post news releases than we look like used-car salesmen crashing a casual party or get-together. Before we shove our press releases on Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, etc., we first need to establish real relationships with people. You wouldn't walk into a party for the first time and say, "Hey, I work for the military, check out this story on our web site about a unit that's getting ready to deploy." People would look at you like you are crazy and think you are only at the party to sell them your "message." In social media, it is about people getting to know each other, not a product placement forum. I know there is a lot of excitement about the p

Good questions, Ivan! I look forward to CAPT Buclatin's reply.

Very good overview, CAPT Buclatin! I am very pleased and impressed you see the value in Google Wave and similar products. Google Wave-type platforms will be the standard once people get accustomed to the dynamic nature of page. Thank you. Respectfully, C.P.