Jan
20

Melt Faces at Mad Rose Tavern, Feb 2nd

I’m spending more time offline in 2012 planning and executing events and building integrating marketing plans around those events. Many of these projects are exploding through client work, some as experiments via my volunteer time in cause-based organizations. I’m learning a ton from it though, and I’m putting a lot of the lessons learned to work in my other passion: MUSIC.

Last year, I started two rock bands. VA Stripper grew out of mine and guitarist Andy Petrick’s love for 1990s rock, a passion we both shared experiencing the music scene at SXSW 2011. For various reasons, VA Stripper never quite got off the ground explosively, so we started another act. This act – Brains of J – paid tribute to one of our favorite ’90s bands still rocking today, Pearl Jam. Both are very different projects, and both give us very different satisfaction in performing. Brains of J is a headlong dive into the music of Pearl Jam, while we plan on writing our own music as VA Stripper at some point in the very near future. However, both use similar methods of integrated event marketing to get fans to come see our shows.

Hence, the Must. Be. AWESOME!!! call to action:

Come see both bands Feb 2nd at Mad Rose Tavern

If you’re in the DC/North Virginia/Maryland region, consider coming to see both VA Stripper and Brains of J for our first full-on rock show. Joined by DC sensations The Vandelays, we’ll have a solid show of facemelting from 9pm till closing time. The Mad Rose Tavern sits within spitting distance of the Clarendon Metro station on the Orange Line. View a Map of Mad Rose and the surrounding area.

Be sure to grab one of us and tell us what you think of the show too!

What else can you do to support us?

Engage, baby. Here are a few things you can do to keep track of us:

Enter your email address:

Email Format

 

And in closing… some FACEMELTING!


Brains of J – “Hail, Hail” Live at The Front Page from Chris Dufour on Vimeo.

 

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Dec
04

Mister Du4 Goes to Washington

Tomorrow, I’ll be accompanying my lovely wife to a holiday tweetup at the White House. While I’ve visited the White House on several occasions – some for fun, many for work – this will be my first visit where I’ll get to interact with senior members of the Obama Administration’s communications and engagement staff. I intend to livetweet the entire day, so be sure to follow me on Twitter or just search the hashtags #WHTweetup or #AtTheWH throughout the day.

I’ll monitor my Twitter and Facebook feeds all day in case you want to send me a question to ask the officials on hand. On the docket to brief and greet us are:

I’m less interested in the content of the White House’s outreach to people and more interested in how they’re doing it. I think this administration’s embrace of digital strategy has been a groundbreaking step forward in engaging and involving the public in a better, more transparent fashion. That said, I’m no stranger to throwing the occasional turd in the punch bowl, so if you’ve got something testy you want answered by these folks, holla atcha boy!
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Jul
14

Draft These Badasses to Improve US Communication Enterprise

Pundits, researchers, textperts, and academics all love to talk about how they would fix the United States’ fragmented, crapped-out communication apparatus. The overarching web of demon seed spunked across drab refurbished halls in the Eisenhower Building on 17th Street NW barely covers the Sarlacc maw of offices, officials, and assholes manning the guns of This, Our National Communication Nightmare. All suggestions for reform mandate – nay, demand! – leadership in renovating this sad enterprise, this broken transistor, these crusted lips. Though none of these tremendous gasbags has deigned to ask the question most important to we lowly peasants of the pen: “Who shall lead us?” Submitted then, for no approval, is this list of AWESOME, kermodial badasses. Executives in 21st century organization and innovation. Preeminent princes of creativity. Visionaries of the better and the righteous.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter.

Image via Wikipedia

Jack Dorsey – Creator & CEO, Twitter

Just interviewed The President using crowdsourced questions from Twitter. Twitter. A social media tool that has archived millions of impressions from people around the world and is on the way to becoming so ubiquitous that it’s considered a utility by some. Elegant simplicity and craftsmanship are his weapons. I think he knows a thing or two about designing a communication enterprise.

Image via The Guardian.

Andy Carvin – Senior Strategist, NPR

“The Crowdsorceror” who mounted a one-man content curation campaign in realtime around popular protests and demonstrations in the Middle East that later became known as the Arab Spring. Compelling, earnest believer in the power of people. His examples inspire legions of communicators to standing applause at his speaking engagements. To Carvin, community comes first. Imagine his style of realtime information gathering applied to intelligence or information operations problems.

Image via TVNewser

Jon Stewart - Host, The Daily Show

America’s funnyman turned mega-popular fake news host, consumed by millions of Americans as “real” news. Despite obvious satirical takes on journalism, staunchly defends That Which Is Right by attacking The Wrong, from Fox News insidiousness to Cramer’s role in puffing up the housing crisis. Genuinely loves America. Imagine his tenure leading government international broadcasting efforts.

 

 

 

 

Image via brosephstalin.com

Tim Hwang – Founder, Web Ecology Project, The Awesome Foundation, and The Institute for Higher Awesome Studies

A philosophical cog caught between the wheels of web analytics and netnography. Cultural researcher and student of human interaction offline, online, and elsewhere. Observer of society, real and imagined. Teamed with the right agencies, his timely insights about social communities could make AWESOMEthe work of thousands of government communication professionals.

Image via AV.com

Fred Wilson – Venture Capitalist and Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures

Social entrepreneur and investor in socially transformative technologies. Believes in the transcendant like Hashable, Etsy, Foursquare, GetGlue, Kickstarter, and more. Blogs regularly about the whys and wherefores, the how-to’s, and the aspirational dreams of his investments. Imagine a federal executive who apportions program funding according to the good of society versus short-term gains or even strategic objectives.

Image via Gawker.

Peter Thiel - Serial VC, Hedge Fund Manager

Avowed investor in the impossible, from artificial intelligence to social networks like Facebook to data analytics supergiants like Palantir. Believer in not just debating future technology and social innovation but making it happen. Convener of social creatives to discuss building an objective American future. Elusive yet visionary. Skates the edge of politics with controversial libertarian-esque views on economics and democracy, a modernist perspective badly required by an ever evolving communications ecosystem.

Image via bookgalaxo.com

Tony Hsieh – CEO, Zappos

The man who brought happiness to millions and made fun a core capability of his company. Committed to making the world a happier place, a mission sorely needed in the personnel departments of hundreds of government agencies.

John Lasseter - Chief Creative Officer, Pixar

The man who built an animated powerhouse out of a tiny studio no one believed would succeed. Since producing some of the most endearing animated films in the modern age, has merged his multibillion dollar studio with Disney to usher in a new era of Imagineering. Our communications enterprise, currently swarmed with ill-trained personnel that barely understand the social phenomena happening around them, requires creativity of this man’s magnitude.

Image via Screencrave.com

Image via Headshift.com

Lee Bryant – Co-founder & Director, Headshift

A social business maestro, he advocates for clients to change the way they do business instead of simply hanging shiny new social media toys on their websites. Understands the complex challenges of technology’s promises and shortcomings in solving organizational and communications problems. Also, very British.

Image via The Huffington Post

Baratunde Thurston – Vigilante Pundit, The Onion

Champion for The Right in all things Wrong. Outspoken advocate for diversity, a trait we see too rarely in government. His infectious influence could inspire legions of public diplomats, strategic communicators, and information operators at all levels. Laughter mandating shot caller of madness. Imagine his effect teaching communicators in institutions across government how to be AWESOME and not just govvies.

David Kilcullen – Counterinsurgency Guru

An early advocate of fighting ideologically against al-Qaeda versus hand-to-hand. Believer in people-focused counterinsurgency security. Sees war as competition managed by influence instead of shootouts and bombings. Widely regarded as the smartest man on the planet when it comes to strategically understanding the wars of the future. If the Defense Department continues playing in deployed communications – and it will – then it will need a shamanic leader like this man to responsibly pilot the interagency minefields such across-the-board coordination that will require.

Image via The Washingtonian

Official portrait of United States Secretary o...

Image via Wikipedia

Robert Gates – Former Secretary of Defense; Former Director, CIA 

The ultimate honest broker in all things government. From his perch as SECDEF, fought interminable battles with service cultures and DOD dinosaurs, breaking down inflated budgets and streamlining operations. Put this same right-is-right tenacity to work reforming and leading the rehabilitation and redesign of America’s communication enterprise across agencies, and we will see magic.

 

 

 

 

Mae Ferguson. Kind of a badass.

Mae Ferguson – President & CEO, Fort Worth Sister Cities International

People forget citizen and cultural diplomacy are cornerstone elements of strategic influence, and because of that, they remain ill coordinated with the rest of our national communication apparatus. Mae has the terrier-like tenacity and management expertise to round up the various bit parts of cultural programs and get them working properly in alignment with national influence goals. A long time nonprofit leader, she has achieved a lot with strangled budgets and limited personnel. Disclosure: she’s also my Mom. :)

Who am I missing?

I know you’ve got some ideas about kermodial badasses we need to draft into service of our faltering national communication enterprise. Tell me who they are in the comments.

Jul
13

WTF Is Public Diplomacy???

The facts are these:

Public diplomacy (PD) is a term that describes how the United States communicates officially with foreign audiences primarily to influence these audiences according to U.S. foreign policy objectives.

The term originated at the United States Information Agency (USIA) where PD program managers and planners wanted to distance the organization’s mission from the term “propaganda,” which took on a negative Cold War perception (“Propaganda is only what Nazis and Soviets do!”) USIA described in its mission statement the following definition of public diplomacy:

“To understand, inform, and influence foreign publics in promotion of the national interest and to broaden the dialogue between Americans and U.S. institutions and their counterparts abroad. To accomplish this, we

  • explain and advocate U.S. policies in terms that are credible and meaningful in foreign cultures;
  • provide information about the U.S., its people, values, and institutions;
  • build lasting relationships and mutual understanding through the exchange of people and ideas; and
  • advise U.S. decision-makers on foreign attitudes and their implications for U.S. policies.”
USIA was absorbed by the U.S. Department of State during the Clinton Administration. Elements of its programs ended up in a bureau called International Information Programs (IIP), which now falls under the responsibility of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (also called “R” in cryptic diplospeak). R also coordinates the activity of State’s Educational & Cultural Affairs Bureau (or ECA) and the Bureau for Public Affairs (PA).

 

Seal of the United States Department of State....

Image via Wikipedia

 

PD activities include any type of information dissemination and/or influence program aimed at foreign audiences. These also include activities labeled as cultural diplomacy, citizen diplomacy, and other descriptors for different types of non-traditional diplomacy. PD also entails international broadcasting activities governed by the Broadcasting Board of Governors (or BBG), which is a quasi-governmental organization only tangentially affiliated with the State Department. The BBG manages organizations like Radio Free Europe and Al-Hurra, which are out-facing broadcast news services aimed at foreign audiences. Said services once primarily operated only on radio but have modernized to disseminate their content via television, the internet, and other means.

Public diplomacy officers are stationed around the world at all U.S. embassies and within the geographic bureaus at Main State in Washington, DC.

For more definitional resources in This, Our National Communication Nightmare:
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Jul
12

I’m Coming For You, Public Diplomacy!!!

 

Spider Jerusalem

Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan. Image by Darek_Smid via Flickr

Inspired by a recent reading of Warren Ellis‘ and Darick Robertson‘s exceptional sci-fi journalism epic Transmetropolitan, I’m going guns up on a number of communications issues affecting the communities through which I circulate in DC. Ellis’ self-described “outlaw journalist” Spider Jerusalem – fueled by copious amounts of drugs and madness in a delightful send-up of Hunter S. Thompson – promises his readership “The Truth. No matter what.” In his writing, Spider goes after all that is wrong with his beloved society, targeting everything from corrupt politicians to the public’s ignorance of special sub-cultures in their fine City. I find Spider’s epic story a galvanizing bullwhip across my back, forcing me off my Xbox-addled arse to write about some of the iniquities in government I see as part of my work. This will be just the first in a series of posts on subjects across the communications spectrum. I’m coming for ALL OF YOU.

Today, my first target is public diplomacy.

OMGWTF

Readers of this blog should not be surprised by my intense disappointment in the modern public diplomacy (or PD) community.  Today’s premeditated murder was spurred on by my attendance and yet another PD gathering in Washington, DC: a meeting of the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy (ACPD). On the shores of our august capitol, PD enthusiasts, practitioners, and executives met to talk about the same retarded problems they have been since before the U.S. Information Agency‘s (aka the USIA) absorption by the State Department during the Clinton Administration. Panelists lamented continued lack of resources for PD initiatives, the imbalance between the State and Defense Departments in strategic communication capability, and a dilapidated piece of shitheel legislation called the Smith-Mundt Act whose Cold War roots strangle in the crib any offspring of modern government communication and engagement initiatives.

At issue for you oppressed, tax-fucked Americans? These same people have debated this same issue for a decade with no charted course for reform.

Hunter S. Thompson would have brain-smacked you all by now. Be thankful for my gonzo. Moo hoo ha ha. (Image from TopTenz.net. Comedy shamelessly ripped off of Warren Ellis.)

“That’s not fair!” some asshole will undoubtedly object, choking himself masturbatorially on reams of “DipNotes” from PD officers both home-based and overseas, begging our pardon thank you very much, “We have changed SO. MUCH. in the Obama Administration!” Let not these purported achievements fill you with comfort, dear seekers of AWESOME, for they elicit mere “yays” from the govvies roaming the halls of cavernous Main State and snickering derision from their interagency compatriots behind the green doors of MacDill and Bragg and Langley. Progress made under Judith McHale‘s reign as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs registers as little more than a cursory reshuffling of office space for most of the strategic communication community. Progress that scores an administration enough points for a minor electoral anecdote but changes nothing. In fact, Dame Judith hung her Mission Accomplished banner on July 1st and dashed back to the private sector, a political appointment weighing under her belt for new boardroom dances with wolves.

They define “progress” as anything more than what the last administration achieved. The politicization of public diplomacy continues. Even PD Jesus Bruce Gregory’s voice cracked with torpor as he queried the Commission about any indication of motivation amongst The Bastards of Capitol Hill to make revising legislation like Smith-Mundt a priority. No one could answer with anything but googly-eyed evasion and exhortations of more progress. All bullshit.

Key to these liver spotted deliberations is the disconcerting lack of any personage on the Commission the age of, it seems, 60? 50? 40? Said Commissioners are charged with advising the White House and Congress on the current state of PD and any required changes. Have these venerable veterans achieved any of these changes in the past? NO. Debates continue unabashed under their scrutiny, but ultimately, no capable young saviors have appeared to dash the fuckery of this decrepit profession into some semblance of modernization. Instead, more meetings. Many, many meetings.

Is PD even a necessary discipline in the 21st century? This existential question should be considered by this Commission and more. Panelists admitted that as communication becomes more social and content ownership franchises more to the individual… does a government agency have any equitable place in this modern communication continuum? How much of said agency’s budget could be repurposed into something more effective, especially in This, Our Decade of Economic Anal Probity?

In truth, some kind of coordinative communication apparatus is probably mandated, but a standalone office of diplomats still trying to get Teh Brown Peeples to read our press releases is not the answer. The profession of public diplomacy itself has even been attacked indirectly by the wild success of independent citizen diplomacy efforts. As much as foreign cultures balk at the elitist diplomacy practiced by our leaders, they clamor for more of US. OUR people. Our CITIZENS and THEIR culture. It is THIS influence, the kind Americans exude in their daily interactions with EVERYONE, that fosters our best destiny in achieving any kind of global equilibrium where U.S. interests and foreign policy objectives are met.

So. What to do?

Less bullshittery. More AWESOME.

We need not more reportage of the latest personnel changes in State PD to accommodate engagement with people of different cultures online. Instead, we need INSANE RISK TAKING. We need programs that make managers shit their pants. We need BOLDNESS. We need MADNESS. We need BETTER. Everyone lives in fear of breaking the law (i.e., Smith-Mundt), but no one has ever been prosecuted much less charged for it. COWBOY UP, PEOPLE.

Retire the old. Empower the new.

If PD is to survive, it needs to stop chasing off all its talent. Instead of rewarding the tired old Foreign Service Officers in their Cold War era suits with prime postings and political appointments, recruit badass social communicators and rockstars. Were I the President, I’d beg Jack Dorsey to fix my State Department. I’d heap tons of cash upon Katie Stanton and Jared Cohen to keep challenging the system instead of being chased off by white-faced, skeleton-eyed Statey lifers. It’s time for PD to evolve and kill its parents.

Flexible, dynamic interagency doctrine.

Christopher Paul, RAND analyst and a speaker at the ACPD meeting, noted voluminous mountains of reports all describing the same problems with the US government’s PD and strategic communication enterprise. All of them, he said, cited failures in strategy, leadership, and resources. While this is true, understand that they can only be fixed with doctrine– legislated, enforceable operating procedures that name the leader and give them authority, power, and dollars. Said doctrine should be written and executed dynamically and train its future communications professionals to a standard of dynamism instead of the usual tired old PD goals shat out by Foreign Service Institute instructors.

An organization… or not?

Since PD people love to retread the same issue over and over, the ACPD discussion inevitably turned toward the idea of a rehabilitated USIA of the future or some such public/private organization that could strategically execute funding for PD or strategic communication programs. If you think this is the solution to your PD problems, I refer you to the abortion that is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a case study in placenta cannibalization. Ultimately, we will not know if a new organization is needed until we agree upon one final yet primarily critical issue.

Communication is communication is communication.

In the ecosystem of government influence, we have public diplomacy. We have strategic communication. We have military information operations and its subordinate components. We have public affairs. We have countless different ways of describing the same thing, mainly because Our Bastardry In Office refuse to modernize legislation and policy to reflect the present day much less prepare for the ever-fluid yet super-AWESOME future. Instead of rewriting arcane definitions and arguing them over interagency turf, we need a frank and fundamental understanding by our entire government that all of these things are influence and communication is the mechanism by which we engage that influence, be it passively or actively, openly or surreptitiously. We need a pedigree for professionals charged to operate in this ecosystem and high qualifications for the ones assigned to advise senior leaders and decision makers.

Hope Is Not Lost

It sounds doomy and gloomy from the PD pulpit, doesn’t it? Well, here’s another lovely fact for you to chew on: NOBODY CARES. That’s right. Outside of DC, Americans could care less about a minuscule communication discipline practiced by a cadre of foggy eyed concerto directors and staffs of douchebags wielding postgraduate degrees from learning institutions designed to pump out partisanly political clones year after year.

Within this black hole of apathy lies opportunity. While no one is looking, those with the drive and the passion to make change – not ask for it – can turn the modernization of PD into an ecstasy fueled RAVE. The Executive Branch needs not the pusillanimous posturing of political poobahs on the Hill to create true strategic communication primacy in government right now. But to make permanent visionary change, we will eventually need to rustle Congress into the pasture of the future.

To achieve this, however, we need YOU – that’s right, YOU – to get up off your ass and MAKE THIS AN ISSUE. Every time you vote for the guy who likes to tweet dick pics to his mistresses, you screw us out of balanced, effective decisions. Stop sending immense wankers to DC.

Next Time On Strategic Communication Theater…

In subsequent posts, we’ll explore more about what this weird world of strategic communication and influence looks like from Washington. Many of you dear AWESOMESAUCERS have no idea what I’m talking about, and that’s part of the problem. So look for a series of “WTF…?” posts detailing simple explanations of complex processes, systems, and disciplines related to Our National Communication Nightmare.

The gloves come off.

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Mar
23

The SXSW Experience

I tried to document as many of my ongoing thoughts as I could over on my Posterous feed during SXSW, but I thought I’d take some time to try and make some coherent sense of the week-long insanity I put myself through.

Location, Location, Location

There didn’t seem to be any consensus on a single new technology or app that debuted or blew up SXSW this year. However, plenty of existing ones brought immense marketing campaigns to Austin, and the majority of those seemed to be location-based services. Gowalla, in my opinion, severely dropped the ball by not preparing local Austin businesses for the influx of SXSW geeks galvanized by the Gowalla passport scavenger hunt. Foursquare, on the other hand, ruled the day by deploying 2000 virtual “Golden Tickets” into specific checkin spots in Austin that unlocked free tickets to their Big Boi headliner show. So many more location-based companies littered the landfalls in Austin as well, each with some zany promotional campaign to get people to download and use their app.

David Armano's Allhat3 at Guero's.

For my money, Foursquare was the clear popularity winner here. Their partnership with Pepsi – where they created an actual competitive foursquare court near the Austin Convention Center – culminated with an AWESOME party at the Seaholm Power Plant, where all sorts of people got to chill with Dennis Crowley and his Foursquare army to the tunes of Locksley, The Sounds, and Big Boi.

App Discovery of SXSW: Roqbot

Roqbot is an app-based service that allows you to take control of online-enabled jukeboxes in bars, clubs, restaurants, and other locations featuring these types of music services. Once you download the app, you develop a DJ profile of your favorite music and check into whatever location you happen upon that has one of these net-enabled jukeboxes. From there, you’re able to control the music playlist emanating from the box. Don’t like Lady Gaga? Spend a couple Roqbot credits to put some Oasis on higher in the music queue. You also earn free credits to play by unlocking various checkin rewards or you can just connect Roqbot to a Paypal account and buy songs directly. It’s SUCH a great a control solution for jukeboxes in places. I can’t wait till they expand their services into the DC/NOVA region.

DC Represents

I was caught off-guard by the massive DC presence at SXSW. From government rockstars like Amanda Eamich from USDA to nonprofit supercolliders like Tammy Gordon of AARP, DC’s varied social media community descended on Austin in force. I hung out with Mike Schaffer, Director for Social Media at iostudio the most, and lamented that despite having met and living near DC, we never hang out like we did at SXSW. I’m making a pledge to change that behavior on my part now that I’m home, and I want to invite any and all DC/NOVA peeps to call me on any antisocial leanings I may display from this point forward.

Margie and Dave Newman, masterminds of the DC Flacks Meetup group, created an on-the-fly “DCxSW” Twitter handle and hash for all of us while in Austin. They also organized an impromptu meetup of these DCists at the Driskill Hotel one night where I had the best networking conversations of the week. I met a lot of folks i only knew through Twitter here, and I am super-excited to build upon those relationships in the future.

So here’s a big public shout-out to all my DCxSW peeps: Margie, Dave, Schaffer, Gabe Hilado, Amandare!, Alejandra Owens, Peter Corbett, Tammy Gordon, Tammy Portnoy, Lisa Byrne, Patti Shea, and all the rest of you AWESOME DC peeps. It was also great meeting a bunch of non-DC folks like Jeff Esposito, Teresa Cantwell, and old friends Anne Weiskopf and Tonia Reis (formerly of TWTRCON fame, now The Realtime Report

"You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." --Davy Crockett

).

Walking in Your Footsteps

Much of the research I performed in prep for this massive undertaking panned out well. I intend to do up a fuller post on the travel hacks I came with on the fly, but the basics came down to comfortable shoes and clothing at all times. I can’t tell you how many times I just had to sit down because my feet hurt so bad from walking around so much. People recommended Converse as the go-to shoes for SXSW, but I have to put in a plug for the much comfier and supportive Merrel’s that I brought.

Panels & Speakers

For the mot part, I found SXSW panels pedantic and freshman. The only ones that piqued my interest and delivered a good conversation were a panel on The Singularity and another with John Hagel III on shaping the future. The Singularity panel brought together experts like Michael Vassar from the Singularity Institute and Natasha Vita-More from Humanity+ for a SUPER-AWESOME discussion about the ethical limits of transhumanism and posthumanity. I’m stll processing a lot of the info from this panel, but be sure to check out the convo archived on the #singularity hashtag. That conversation is still going on, so feel free to jump in and add your thoughts.

Seaholm Power Plant, site of the Foursquare/PepsiMax party.

I missed Seth Priebatsch’s keynote on the gamification of marketing and education, but I heard it was cool. I also missed Christopher Poole, aka moot of 4chan, who gave a keynote on social communities online and how their influence will continue to grow in the future. I heard good things about both of these keynotes but just couldn’y sync schedules to make them

Getting Your Groove On

I was most disappointed by the party situation. I RSVP’d for several parties specifically to hang out with or meet people that were throwing them. Unfortunately, every party is oversold, leading to massive numbers of people often crowding into small clubs, all trying to figure out who’s there that’s important or famous. What’s worse, I got the distinct impression at many of these parties that pre-existing community relationships led to a degree of “cliquey-ness” that isolated a lot of outsiders. This bothered me mainly because a lot of folks like myself stood in these long-ass lines for long periods of time to get into cool parties that only turned out to be fun for the cool kids.

 

Ogilvy Notes, a cool attempt to make visual sense out of all the information overloading SXSW's attendees.

There were literally so many people at many of these parties that you would get interrupted talking to someone of note, and they would never come back to you due to successive interruptions. It’s damned hard to connect with someone in this fashion, and you can damn sure bet I’ll be working on a SXSW Guide to Party Ethics for 2012.

Even worse, most of the Interactive parties featured some of the worst, most annoying DJs on the planet. Note to party organizers of the future: they don’t call Austin the “Live Music Capital of the World” for nothing. If you want to throw a SXSW party next time, do some fucking due diligence and get a couple of inexpensive but AWESOME live acts instead of a bunch of douchy DJ pricks.

Music vs. Interactive

SXSW should really be broken up into two conferences for Music and Interactive because virtually everyone from the Interactive festival popped smoke when the Music festival began. It was SUCH a sea change in personalities too: I joked to a buddy that all the Interactive geeks stayed inside the Convention Center for Interactive where Austin had to shut down streets to accommodate the influx of Music nerds.

What’s funny about the disparity between Music and Interactive attendees (and the lurking Film festival geeks too), is that they could all stand to spend time in each other’s sessions. So much inspiration flowed out of musical performances that I think would have benefited Interactive attendees, particularly the PR and marketing types who were hard-charging the entire time selling and jiving versus soaking up the people’s culture.

 

Emmylou Harris performing solo on the Radio Day Stage.

I’ll do up a separate post later on the musical discoveries I made. Those are stories in and of themselves.

Omni Hotels Continue to Rock

Not only did my lovely friends at Omni Hotels hook me up with a couple free drinks and grab bag of SXSW necessities, I also found that the Omni’s parking situation far outweighed any other in downtown Austin. Where other lots were jacking prices up to $10 and $20 at a time, the Omni kept a moderate $7 a day parking charge for SXSWi. What’s more, you could avoid that charge completely if you returned for your car after midnight, where they opened the garage. GREAT customer service from Omni, especially for people who weren’t even staying at their hotel for SXSW. Thanks again for the stops along the way!

(Pro-tip: The Omni also had the cleanest bathrooms in town. At about midnight when those tacos are kicking in, ain’t nothing better than a spotless and empty bathroom!)

Where Do We Go From Here?

 

The Macallan 15, proud sponsor of SXSW and drunk-asses everywhere.

SXSW was a worthy event, but I’m not sure I can do it all in one sitting again. It was a great time, and I enjoyed it, but had it not been for the people I met there, it could have been a big old bust. I brought back with me a ton of great ideas and content that I have to work with, so I hope to see some heavy return on investment soon. In that vein, keep your eyes peeled for successive posts about different SXSW aspects that I couldn’t fit into this one.

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Mar
02

Conversations at American University: The Double Facepalm

I had a great time last week talking with my buddy Dr. Craig Hayden in his Public Diplomacy class at American University in DC. Craig and I are sometimes-partners-in-crime at the MountainRunner Institute (along with His AWESOMEness, Matt Armstrong, and “Georgia Peach” Shawn Powers). We have a lot of interesting discussions about public diplomacy, strategic communication, and the nature of information and influence in today’s post-digital world.

Craig asked me to bring my perspective on those discussions to his class. We managed to film parts of the conversation, so I’m going to be chopping them up into bite-sized morsels of BADASS AWESOME for you, my loving public, to digest. In the first of these videos (all of which will be hosted here on my YouTube channel as well), Craig asks why I chose the metaphor of the “double facepalm” in last week’s introductory blog post about my experiences in public diplomacy and government. (Larger, HD versions of the video are available via the YouTube link.)

I’d like to give a great big THANK YOU to all the AU students I met during this discussion. It’s really heartening to me to see so many potential citizen diplomat rockstars in this soul-sucking town. Great talking with you, and I hope we can continue the conversation outside the classroom.

Speaking of which: I know a lot of you are blogging as part of Craig’s class and on your own. Please be sure to call yourselves out in the comments section of these video posts. I’d really like to promote some of the student-led commentary I’ve seen since the in-class discussion. We build our audiences socially, so I’d love to feature some of your opinions and content on Must. Be. AWESOME!!! dot com.

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Feb
25

Links of the Week: February 25, 2011 Edition

Skipped out on doing these for a couple weeks as I head my head down in the trenches producing pages for a brand new writing project I’m cooking up. Sometimes, you have to quit consuming to create. This week, we’re back!

The Future of Work

I’ve specifically tried to not link to or quote anything from the big social media men on campus like Brogan or Godin. It’s simple linkbait for one thing, and more importantly, a lot of their content lately has been less than interesting. This post from Chris Brogan, however, is a spot-on bit of writing. Others have been writing about how we’re changing the definition of “work” in the 21st century, but Brogan has a good summary of the high points in this conversation here. I think more of us should be sticking this post in front of our bosses and every worker over the age of 25 in this country.

Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators

Developing this week is a Rolling Stone story about LTG William Caldwell‘s orders to an Afghanistan IO/PSYOP cell to influence the perceptions of visiting U.S. legislators. There is a HUGE kerfluffle happening in DC over this, and it’s the latest ding against military psychological (or information support) operations. On the front lines, Joint forces – and particularly the Army, historical home of the PSYOP regiment – have been trying to make sense of convoluted legislation and backwards policy governing the employment of information warfare in combat. There are clear lanes between strategic communicators, and one is that IO/PSYOP pros are only allowed to deploy their craft against foreign populations. To do so against Americans would be an illegal propagandizing effect, which seems to have been committed by LTG Caldwell.

That said, the modern information environment is such that easy distinctions between what’s propaganda and what’s neutral information are fast becoming irrelevant. Worse, America’s national security apparatus has essentially thrown in the towel on addressing this issue, afraid to engage the White House and Congress on the very real need to reform our en toto strategic influence and communication capability. Until such a thing happens, mistakes like Caldwell’s will continue to provide justifications to know-nothings in the Pentagon and on the Hill to further eviscerate our badly-needed interagency strategic communications and influence budget.

FUBAR: Army Inquiry Taints Its Next Chief

For those not familiar with the U.S. Army‘s non-warfighting components, this should be an interesting read. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, or TRADOC, should be designing the doctrine of the future and developing or modifying training programs across the force to support soldiers’ learning needs against future threats. Instead, TRADOC is INFESTED with old, ineffectual men trapped in the Cold War who are convinced the U.S. will be going to conventional war again any day now. I think Ackerman is way too lenient in this Danger Room post. Having worked at Fort Leavenworth myself for a TRADOC element, I can say with authority that the Army’s future leaders are FUCKED if we keep guys like Dempsey in charge of things. Buddies of mine who have recently graduated Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth have told me that things are getting somewhat better: counterinsurgency training is finally attaining primacy. But if I were Secretary Gates, I wouldn’t have nominated Dempsey for Chief of Staff of the Army with such a horrid track record for backsliding behind him at TRADOC.

Kirk to Clapper on Muslim Brotherhood: WTF?

I used to have a modicum of respect for James Clapper, former Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and recently appointed Director of National Intelligence. However, he has made a number of embarrassing gaffes answering questions in public lately, so many so that I’m beginning to think the guy really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I echo Congress’ WTF on this one. If ANYONE should know ALL the nuances of the Muslim Brotherhood – to include its doctrinal promise to subvert America using its own legal system – it’s the top intel guy in the country. FAIL.

Pentagon’s Clandestine Killers Get New Chief

Here’s some good news: the only uniformed officer of the American military for whom I would lay down in traffic is taking over Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the military command that coordinates the activities of Delta Force, Navy SEALS, and other elite American special ops teams. Major General Joseph Votel was nominated by Secretary Gates for his third star last week and command of JSOC. I worked for Votel on the IED Task Force back when he was a wee colonel and I was a wet-behind-the-ears contractor. He’s the type of leader we need more of in our government: fearless, risk tolerant, intensely dedicated to his people, and a true patriot. I’m really proud that he’s achieved such success.

Many STAR TREK Bridges, No Bathrooms

Count on my new favorite pop culture blog, BADASS DIGEST, to find the OCD Star Trek fan’s guide to every bridge design in the history of the series.

Image courtesy Ex Astris Scientia

Happy 50th Birthday, Bruce Timm! [Art]

To round off this week’s batch of catch-up links, here’s Comic Alliance‘s tribute to Bruce Timm, one of the AWESOMEst animators and comic artists EVAR. Timm was one of the design brains behind the landmark Batman: The Animated Series from the 1990s, which went on to spawn a host of AWESOME television featuring DC characters (Superman, Justice League Unlimited, etc). Aside from his inimitable artistic style that defined said generation of DC characters, Timm’s an amazing storyteller and producer. He has since left television behind but not the DCU: Timm continues to adapt popular DC storylines and characters into direct-to-DVD features. Comic Alliance has a full gallery of their favorite Bruce Timm art at the link.

This AWESOMEST image EVAR brought to you by Comics Alliance and DC Women Kicking Ass.

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Feb
23

Public Diplomacy for AWESOME People… the Du4 Way!

I am extremely honored that Dr. Craig Hayden has invited me to speak to his public diplomacy class at American University Thursday evening this week. I met Craig through shared colleagues at the MountainRunner Institute, and we have since collaborated on a number of things. He’s a great dude, loves beer, and I thought it would be cool to throw up a landing post for me, him, his class, and anyone else who gets PO’d by the sure-to-incense incendiary fire that will come burbling out of my Macallan-addled lips Thursday night.

I have a love-hate relationship with public diplomacy. Coming from a background in the Department of Defense, I did not understand the peculiar delineation between PD and other forms of government communication and influence until my own graduate work at Johns Hopkins. Upon discovering the very simple definition that PD involves a government’s communications directly to foreign governments’ citizens (and thus bypassing that foreign government), I became instantly enamored of the idea. After all, in DOD, when you “communicate” with a foreign population, you’re usually dropping a bunch of comic strips from the sky written so badly that the recipients think all Americans really are retarded.

My work generally involved finding ways to improve the U.S. government’s communication capability, be it PD, public affairs, IO/PSYOP, or other means. One of my mentors, the late Jeffrey B. Jones, called all of these disciplines strategic communication, a term that has since entered the DOD lexicon and gone on to confuse and infuriate virtually everyone else in government. If DOD does one thing well, it defines its doctrine exhaustively, and an integrated communication and influence doctrine is something our government has needed for a long time. I became a fan of Jeff’s definition from the get-go, and I proceeded to execute my work under such a fashion.

This is how it feels like working in public diplomacy EVERY DAY.

How does this affect public diplomacy? Well, aside from all the other problems in the U.S. national security apparatus, PD practitioners have been almost historically kicked in the ass by said interagency apparatus. Since the U.S. Information Agency – the premier public diplomacy institution of the Cold War – was folded up into the State Department by the Clinton Administration, PD has been regarded as a largely unnecessary, unneeded career field.

However, some of the brightest information warriors I have ever met have come from PD backgrounds. Some still serve the State Department. But they are a dying breed, and State is not adapting fast enough to the 21st century to train, educate, and deploy PD officers of the future. Many communication and diplomacy experts have even called for the dissolution of the public diplomacy career field, arguing that others do it better in today’s day and age.

I come down on this issue very simply: communication is influence. Period. Call it public diplomacy. Call it public affairs. Call it public relations. Call it fuck all, I don’t care. It’s all the same shit and these penny-ante fights government gets into over who owns influence planning and execution are mere dick measuring exercises to protect budgets and retain standing within our own ranks. If any of us PD “professionals” had a whit about us, we would (re)read Unrestricted Warfare by Senior Col Qiao Liang and Senior Col Wang Xiangsui and understand that global communication, global influence, requires the strategic, national integration of ALL government branches and agencies and their communications initiatives. It requires, to borrow an analogy, for America to conduct herself as a composer would an orchestra, creating multitudes of musical movements that all combine into one big, beautiful symphony.

If you’re a student in Craig’s class, drop me a line in the comments. Send questions, concerns, or even challenges, and I promise to answer them to the best of my ability in class on Thursday.

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Feb
21

Please Consider Joining Us for the Sister Cities Annual Conference Next Week

Arlington County, Virginia seal

Image via Wikipedia

Next week, March 3-5, Sister Cities International brings its 55th annual conference to Arlington, Virginia. As a member of the board of directors for both SCI and Arlington’s own Sister City Association, I’ve been helping to put together an AWESOME conference experience for everyone. SCI has a great schedule lined up this year, from briefings by the State Department to best practices roundtables. You can get a fuller look at the schedule and register here: http://www.sistercitiesconference.org/.

Additionally, the Arlington Sister City Association will be throwing a reception Friday March 4th at 6:30pm to celebrate its sister city relationships around the world. Arlington’s sister cities include Reims, France; Aachen, Germany; San Miguel, El Salvador; Coyoacan, Mexico; and friendship city Cochabamba, Bolivia. We will be celebrating the official signing of a sister city relationship between Arlington and longtime friendship city Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine as well. As part of our reception, attendees will see dancing and music from some of these groups and get to experience ethnic foods from each of these unique cultures. Tickets to the reception are only $40 or free with the purchase of a full conference registration from the SCI website above. We’re also giving away free memberships to ASCA for a year with the purchase of any of these tickets.

If you’re interested in volunteering, SCI and ASCA could use a few AWESOME citizen diplomats. We have open shifts for ushers, greeters, desk managers, and badge checkers all days of the conference. These are all-ages volunteer opportunities; we’ve got something for everybody. You also get free access to some of the conference sessions and some other cool bennies, so give it a think.

We at ASCA are also still searching for 2011 sponsors. Sponsorships help us not only conduct cultural celebrations like this reception, but also specific trips for students, artists, and musicians between Arlington and its sister cities. We welcome corporate and individual sponsorships with a variety of different benefits including logo and brand placement amongst our community, access to speakers at the SCI conference, and free tickets to conference events (dependent on sponsorship level).

If you would like to contribute, learn more, volunteer, or just buy a reception ticket, shoot me a note at du4 at mustbeawesome dot com.

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