by Steven R. Corman
I guess if it’s good enough for Queen Raina, then it’s good enough for State Department Spokesman Sean McCormick.  He will be taking your questions via YouTube video.  All you have to do is go to the State Deparment YouTube Channel and post your question.
According to a video statement by McCormick, this [...]

by Steven R. Corman
On Thursday the American Academy of Diplomacy released a new report on the dismal state of funding for U.S. diplomacy and public diplomacy efforts, compiled by a Task Force of 14 former senior foreign service officers.  They reckon that the diplomatic capacity of the United States has been “hollowed out” since the [...]

by Steven R. Corman and Angela Trethewey
One year ago, COMOPS Journal ran an analysis of the State Department’s blog Dipnote, which was then a brand new effort. We complimented them for making the foray into Web 2.0, reviewed the content and users’ reactions, and made recommendations for improving the blog.
For reasons that aren’t completely [...]

by Steven R. Corman
There has been some dispute in our little corner of the blogosphere lately about whether strategic communication is a good term for describing the government’s efforts to communicate strategically.  Matt Armstrong commented on this in the course of reviewing the latest plan from the DoD to get their strategic communication house in [...]

by Steven R. Corman
Matt Armstrong recently posted  an essay on the Smith-Mundt Act that has been getting a lot of attention.  In it he claims that the Act has outlived its usefulness, and I am on record as agreeing with him. Sharon Weinberger over at Danger Room has just finished posting a three part critique [...]

by Mark Woodward*
On May 3, 2008 Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy delta in Southern Burma with devastating force. Nargis was a killer. The Burma government did not warn people in the region that the storm was coming or how severe it would be, though they clearly knew. According to some reports wind speeds of forty [...]

by Steven R. Corman
Matt over at Mountain Runner did an interesting post today about a bill pending in Congress to create a Strategic Communication Management Board. He says:
While members of this advisory body may and are likely to come from all parts of the government, it consolidates the shaping and execution of government-wide strategic communication, [...]

by Nicholas Brody
Wikipedia is becoming a major source of news and reference information for the American public. A Pew internet poll found that 36% of online adults consult Wikipedia. That number jumps to 50% for college-educated adults. Among educational and reference websites, Wikipedia is by far the most popular, owning a 24.33% [...]

by Steven R. Corman
A couple of weeks ago the State Department released the report of its Advisory Committee on Transformational Diplomacy. It strikes me as an odd exercise in that it doesn’t define clear problems, doesn’t talk about diplomacy much, and offers solutions that are rooted existing approaches, adding some technological and organizational changes. [...]

By Bud Goodall
Pardon my rant. I say that in advance but without apology. Today’s New York Times article about the United States Senate vote to approve President Bush’s plan to grant legal protection to telephone companies for cooperating with illegal wiretaps on American citizens as well as to expand existing government spy powers [...]