Social Media blocked on the battlefield

Working public affairs in a combat zone brings new challenges daily.  I love my job because I get to tell the story of the American Soldier in Iraq.  Specifically, in 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division.

However, lately, I’ve been really flummoxed at my inability to access Social Media sites.  I feel like I can’t, know I can do a better job as a brigade public affairs officer if I had access to sites that the Secretary of Defense wants me to use.

Herein lies my professional frustration.  The Secretary of Defense has said on numerous occasions that public affairs officers need to reach audiences through social media.  You can read various statements here, here, and video here.

“Public relations was invented in the United States, yet we are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about our policies and our goals.  It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaida is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America.” -SecDef Robert Gates, Nov. 2007

The newly appointed Principal Deputy Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs recently said about social media, “It’s not just better one-way communication; it’s better two-way communication. It’s not just us reaching people; it is them reaching us, too.”

And he has a twitter feed on the official DOD Web site.

And almost a year ago Iwrote about the Secretary of the Army encouraging military blogging.

Before deploying my brigade established a presence on several social media sites.  Several are registered on the Army’s official social media directory.

After lengthy days at the office or covering events, I update the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division Facebook page on the SniperHill internet in my containerized housing unit…it connects at Slowsky-like 8kbps and I pay $88/month.  The money is not the issue, I consider it a personal expense for occassional professional use, however, I could do much more if I had access at my desk—just like the PAOs & other Soldiers in the states.  Access the senior leaders say I should have.  Access that keeps family members informed.

I feel bad when my brigade commander asks me “Hey, PAO, when are we going to start the brigade blog?”  I have to give him the penguin salute because I can’t effectively launch it without access to monitor the activites or have a truly interactive environment.

For those who think…“stop whining, back in WWII we didn’t have that internet stuff”…I dare you to look at our Facebook page and see what the moms, dads, and spouses say when they see a photo of their Soldier or images of where the special person works and lives.  Now, you will see the power of social media.  I’m happy to “whine” on their behalf.

Recently, the Army allowed access to these sites from bases in the states.  That’s nice, however, when a Soldier can go home to their family at night there is less of a need for social media—except the fan, follower, subscriber base that’s built in garrison can be exploited during a deployment.

Meanwhile, we deployed PAOs are blocked, blocked, blocked by the network managers.  (Except for General Odierno’s PAO who updates his Fan page daily).

For my signal friends, try explaining the classic “bandwidth” argument to the families of deployed Soldiers.  Really, how much bandwidth could about five public affairs Soldiers per brigade effect things—is our networking situation really hinging on five guys uploading photos to flickr and videos on YouTube?  Not to mention the enemy is still beating us to the punch on getting out the story.

I just want do my job as a tell the story of the American Soldier and fight enemy propaganda with truth.  I post on the brigade’s page for the Soldier on guard duty who lives in a tent and seldom has internet access and may not want it–but, his family & friends still want to know how he’s doing.  Without social media access I feel like I have the proverbial a knife in an information gunfight.

DISCLAIMER:  I have submitted a waiver for access that is going through approval channels.  And, of course, views expressed here are my own.  Not the DOD, Army, or my unit.  Hope I don’t get in trouble for this posting. *fingers crossed*

If you’ve read this far, thanks for your interest. Please help us reach our goal of 4,000 Fans on Facebook to represent each Soldiers from the Highlander Brigade deployed to Iraq

Grassroots campaigning is like dating

Originally posted (10/22)…LONG POST (GRASSROOTS ORIENTED)…MYSTERIES OF MALE DATING BEHAVIOR REVEALED BELOW…You have to click the links to fully appreciate this posting (especially the “older people” one)

The Obama campaign is courting voters like a skillful man goes after the woman of his dreams.  Up today on Ben Smith’s blog at the Politico.com are some interesting stories about Obama’s integration of Calling, Canvassing, and emailing.  Back in Dec ‘07 & Jan ‘08, ten months ago, mainstream publications ran stories on the strength of Obama’s ground game (click links for articles):  Obama’s Ground Game Advantage, Inside Obama’s Iowa Ground Game, Obama’s and Huckabee’s Ground Game . Numerous other publications and bloggers have discussed the mechanical advantages of David Plouffe’s campaigning strategies.

A few months ago, I mentioned to a classmate that Obama is registering masses of voters in Virginia.  The naysayers scoff and say “new voters don’t vote…young voters don’t go to polls…they’re to lazy…”

Another groups of naysayers and pundits have asserted that the “Bradley Effect” (the idea the white voters lie to pollsters about who they are supporting and will balk at pulling the lever for a black man when inside voting booth) will kick in on election day.  Turns out the pollster for the 1982 California Governors election said his polls were old. The winning candidates pollster said the election ended up how he predicted it in last minute polling. The Bradley Effect has been debunked here and here too. It doesn’t exist!

And finally there are people who say “Black people are only voting for Obama because he’s black.”  In 2004, Blacks went for Kerry 88%; In 2000, Blacks went for Gore by 90%.  Could it be that black people overwhelmingly vote Democrat?  Does the fact Obama is leading in some of the “whitests” states in America (ME, IA, VT, NH, MN, WI) and losing some of the “blackest” (MS, AL, LA, SC) mean anything?  A vote is a vote…bottomline

Back to my opening paragraph.  When a skillful guy really wants a girl he will call her; he will check in periodically to say “I’m thinking about you”; he will invite her to events she likes; he will ask her questions to get to know her better; he will have his friends and family say positive things about him as third-party endorsers; he will wear his best clothes in her presence; he will show he’s good dancer, brave & athletic; he will demonstrate his smarts; he will send her emails; he will impress her by name dropping his rich & powerful friends; he’ll show he cares by helping older people and inspiring younger people; he will demonstrate he’s a man of faith, and he will always say “baby it’s all about you“…most importantly he will repeat all of these actions until he closes the deal.  Meanwhile…the angry dude and his hatin’ friends will try to discredit the guy with scurrilous accusations, school-yard gossip, and name calling.  But the angry dude can’t get his message through because the skillful guy has sent an overwhelming amount of positive messages and has cultivated a relationship with the dream gal.  Sometimes, even in politics, nice guys finish first.

More stories on grassroots campaigning:  here, here, and here

Factcheck: The military embraces blogging

RUMOR:  The military does not allow servicemembers to blog.

FACT:  The military embraces blogging and even runs a few blogs on the .mil domain (See examples of official blogs, here, here, here, here)

Military bloggers provide the Naked Conversations that much of the general public can benefit from.

I found it really interesting that my Social Media classroom blog run by Professor Garrett Graff is linked to a large Military blog.

I agree with Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, IV that the military should embrace blogging (and other Social Media).  Caldwell was previously Senior Spokesperson for Multi-National Force–Iraq (MNF-I).  His current duties include serving as Commandant of the Command & General Staff College.  He has published a policy letter that encourages blogging on .mil and commercial websites.

Caldwell’s views on the importance of internet/social media (as outlined in the policy letter):

Interactive internet activities are an essential part of our responsibilities to provide information to the public, usher in a culture of change within our Army’s officer Leadership, Development, and Education and support military operations.  Leaders within the Army need to understand the power of the internet and leverage as many communications means as possible to communicate what the CAC is doing and more importantly to “Share the Story” of those serving in uniform and highlight the incredible sacrifices they and their families are making.

Here is one of the blogs from a classroom of Army Majors.

In fact the Army has accounts at twitter, youtube, and flickr.  Though they don’t have many followers, subscribers, contacts, respectively; consider these sites a sign that Senior Leaders are embracing social media.

UPDATE 1:  I just found this link where Pete Geren, Secretary of the Army says:

Senior Army leaders have fallen behind the breakneck development of cheap digital communications including cell phones, digital cameras and Web 2.0 Internet sites such as blogs and Facebook, Army Secretary Pete Geren said at a trade conference on July 10. That helps explain how “just one man in a cave that’s hooked up to the Internet has been able to out-communicate the greatest communications society in the history of the world — the United States”.