The facts are these:

Information Operations (or “IO”) refers to the United States’ military’s capabilities and plans to influence non-American populations in regions where U.S. forces are engaged. In military parlance, IO is often a supporting plan to strategic operations. For example, no IO plans exist outside of a named operation or mission where U.S. forces are concerned.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) defines IO as:

The integrated employment, during military operations, of information-related capabilities in concert with other lines of operation to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision-making of adversaries and potential adversaries while protecting our own.

In joint DOD doctrine, IO is composed of five pillars:

• Electronic Warfare (or EW)
• Computer Network Operations (or CNO)
• Military Information Operations Support (or MISO, formerly known as Psychological Operations or PSYOP)
• Military Deception (or MILDEC)
• Operations Security (or OPSEC)

Image via Wikipedia

In 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reassigned policy proponency – to include doctrinal recommendations and overall budget authority – for IO to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, specifically the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, Low Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities (also called ASD-SOLIC&IC or simply “SOLIC”). The pillars of IO, however, were assigned to individual subordinate entities within DOD: CNO belongs exclusively to U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM), MISO was transferred to U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Joint Staff assumed control of OPSEC, MILDEC, and EW. These subordinate commands are essentially responsible for organizing resources, plans and strategy for their pillars and submitting them to SOLIC for overall coordination and approval.

Each service of the U.S. military trains and organizes its own IO personnel and assigns them to geographic combatant commands where they are deployed as part of joint task forces to assist in the development of IO plans and strategies. Each service, however, takes a slightly different approach to their own IO doctrine, which can lead to varying levels of ability and training in IO personnel. The U.S. Army is widely recognized as the service with the most capability and professionalized education in IO due to its long history of developing information warfare doctrine. Ultimately, however, and by law, Joint doctrine for IO supersedes any service-specific policy, strategy, plan, or resource.

Related articles

• Revising Information Operations Policy at the Department of Defense (mountainrunner.us)
• What are Information Operations? (au.af.mil)
• Joint Publication 3-13: Joint Doctrine for Information Operations (fas.org)
• WTF Is Public Diplomacy??? (mustbeawesome.com)

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.

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

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.

Having been overtaken by events in London last week, I found it untenable to get out a daily blog post covering IQPC‘s Information Operations (or IO) Europe conference. There were also quite a few concerns from some conference-goers about how new media dorks like me attending could potentially bust up IO Europe’s tradition of “Chatham House rules” where none of the gathering’s discussions were attributable let alone reportable.

Wrestling with this personally, I’ve decided to go ahead and write up my thoughts on the conference because I believe the discussions are important to the wider global communications community. I will, however, decline to name some names to protect the guilty.

That said, let’s see what’s new in another year of IO.

True Best Practices Are Usually the Most Controversial

From what conference-goers told me, this year more than ever saw more status quo-challenging presentations than ever before at IO Europe. The IO community, being as small as it is, tends to attack points of view that make these challenges. IO being a military discipline tends to rely on structure, plans, and doctrine that do not evolve. This runs counter to the promise of the Now Media Age (with apologies to MountainRunner) where we see communication innovation happening every day. And before people rail against that assertion claiming that our most popular conflict environments are in traditional media dependent regions, we also saw plenty of controversy that had nothing to do with the internet. Ed O’Connell – late of the Alternative Strategies Institute, which has now been acquired by Blue Hackle – gave a rousing talk about how he has conducted “interventions” into historically denied areas. The influence effects of Ed’s work dealt with providing forums for locals to air grievances in ways they had not considered before.

Ed’s a controversial figure in the IO world. He’s rankled quite a few feathers but his effects are undeniable. He is a fearless believer in personal, face-to-face rehabilitation of societies that have been brutalized by everything from violence and terror to poor economies. As much as we would like to put a new media solution on everything, there is still need for the de-radicalization work of someone like Ed.

Image courtesy Science 2.0

Most IO Pros Fear the Internet

Despite traditional approaches being successful and warranted in our current conflict environments, most of the IO pros I ran into at IO Europe are still massively afraid of conducting operations on the internet. While we have seen a huge ramp-up of media monitoring and analytical capabilities (i.e., programs that scour the internet for operationally relevant information and intelligence), very few organizations are actually doing anything with the information gleaned. Most arguments in favor of this fear have to do with limited policy and legislation governing influence operations on the internet but in my conversations with people, I detected a marked lack of motivation to even understand the online world. Many used excuses like “I’m too old to get it” or “My boss doesn’t care about this.” Worse, we even had a cybersecurity exercise one day lead by a facilitator who claimed to care nothing about social media and still professed to be an expert in online security operations.

IO Policy Still Stuck in the Dark Ages

Such fearmongering is exacerbated by onerous IO and strategic communication policy. There were more discussions on what simple terms mean than I could count, and when you factor in the international perspectives from the US, NATO, the UK, Canada, and many other nationalities represented, doctrinal debates became comical. Because of these debates, IO policy (and its overriding legislation) is still clawing for relevancy in an information age that has already left it behind. While professed IO policymakers and “experts” continually disagree over the meaning of “strategic communications,” citizens are moving on to the next platform, the next online game, the next social network, the next INNOVATION.

This facet of IO Europe upset me a little because this was one of the reasons I got out of the government business a while back. One of my former bosses used to say that government is about maintaining the status quo NOT innovation. Because of that, we will never see an IO or influence organization that thinks and operates ahead of the curve.

That Doesn’t Mean Innovation Isn’t Happening Though…

Quite a few private sector companies talked about communication systems monitoring platforms and methodologies. As we all know, entrepreneurial creativity occurs in the private sector. I met a number of companies who claimed to have technical solutions that provided end-to-end monitoring and sentiment analysis capabilities in multiple languages. Unfortunately, none of them were on hand to demo, something I would challenge all of them to rectify next year. IO Europe could be a great conference if IO pros could cycle from table to table to see the latest innovations in online data analysis.

Aside from tools, there were some great case studies of innovative approaches to operations. Hats off to the gents from Bell Pottinger for a supercool study of their strategic communications work in the Horn of Africa.

For Every Jerk You Meet, There Are 10 AWESOME Mofos

The IO community has its share of smarmy turd biscuits slinking through events like IO Europe, whether they’re government reps or otherwise. However, there are just as many, if not more AWESOME people hanging around with amazing stories, conversation, and things from which you can learn. I made twice as many friends at this IO Europe than I did last year, and these are folks with whom I anticipate having lasting professional friendships as well. The value of so many international perspectives in one place is hard to calculate, but may of the non-Americans at the conference gave me tons of new things to think about. I especially have to thank the gents from M&C Saatchi who recruited me to speak, offered some great conversations about music, and – in one case – hosted me at their home for my last day in country.

Final Thoughts: Be Better, Do Good

Ultimately, IO Europe was a great annual get-together for those of us in the community, but I think we can all do better. Too many of us got wrapped up in our own organizational prejudices, focusing on selling something or satisfying a government requirement. Instead, I think we all need to take a step back and remember why we’re in the influence business. For me, it’s all about experiential sharing – the process of understanding the complex global ecosystem in which we live that is made manifest by online means. At the end of the day though, all of us need to recognize a passion for communication, whether we’re a NATO PAO or a PR firm VP. There are too many people in this business who are just punching a clock, and that’s a shitty way to communicate with other cultures even if all you’re doing is approving comms plans.

See y’all next year.

Related articles

• Engaging in a Now Media Continuum (mountainrunner.us)
• Now Media: engagement based on information not platforms (mountainrunner.us)

Greetings from wet and humid London! Your intrepid host of AWESOME has skipped the pond to attend and speak at IQPC’s 10th Annual Information Operations Europe conference.

The guts of the conference don’t actually begin until tomorrow, but the organizers have a history of bookending the conference with operator-focused practical workshops like the one I started with today. Because wifi is a bitch to string up (shame on you, IQPC), I figure I’ll try my hand at a read-out via blog and livetweet when possible (under the hashtag #IOeurope).

Chatham House rules generally apply at IO Europe, so I’ll be judicious in my reportage.

Session 1: Can Commercial Advertising Teach IO Professionals Anything?

M&C Saatchi presented a case study on its Change 4 Life campaign against obesity, executed on contract from the UK Department of Health. I really liked this campaign’s use of iconography to get across its message: demographic-neutral cartoon characters aimed at borderline impoverished families. While several lessons could be learned from the case study, many IO pros in the room didn’t find application because the nuances of public information campaigns work very differently from military information operations. Most military attendees were fresh off IO tours in Afghanistan and Iraq where they have a very different environment in which to work versus the generally permissible domestic audience to which M&C Saatchi catered.

The UK Department of Health (Image via Wikipedia)

This doesn’t necessarily mean there weren’t any good kernels of knowledge here; there were. But I think only in the context of those who are looking at evolving the IO practice. Unfortunately, few of those people exist as today’s current environment of budget cuts and drawdowns leaves very little research & development space for future state IO and influence. It may become incumbent upon the private sector PR, marketing and advertising industry to consider designing future state IO training pro bono or at least in such a fashion as it can be demonstrated as useful and effective to those who watch the number of zeroes in the check box. Most of the cutting edge work and thought in influence is happening at places like Edelman, Wieden + Kennedy, and the tech startup world… all of which are a long way from MacDill Air Force Base.

Side note: there was a fun little practical exercise where we were to put together an on-the-fly ad campaign for selling more caravans (RVs, to you Americans). It was interesting that all the groups arrived at many of the same conclusions when presenting their campaigns. Ultimately, however, the exercise was too short to get into the meat of the differences between IO processes and PR/advertising processes. I’ve long argued that communication is communication is communication, but delineations do exist between disciplines like IO and PR… even though they are very, very subtle.

Session 2: Afghanistan

I hesitate to mention too much about this session due to operational sensitivities, but suffice to say, there is no good news about the situation in Afghanistan. Everything every pessimist has written or analyzed about that country and our united presence there is true. Much of the problem involves flawed objectives and poor partnerships with corrupt Afghans not to mention the looming drawdown coming in the next year. Afghans trust Westerners very little on long-term promises or operations; they know our political will to sustain change in their country is fleeting. Worse, we keep pumping money and time into communication through a flawed-from-the-start Afghan national government, where tribal engagement at the lowest possible local level proves more effective in the long run.

Many of the Afghanistan vets in the room conveyed a sense of unfortunate hopelessness. They believe that it’s possible to sustain change in the region, but they’re not optimistic about it given the political and economic realities in their native governments.

Fish and chips, lads?

Coming up: THE PUB. Where the real work in the influence business gets done.

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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And now, the final video from my MountainRunner Institute talk at the “Now Media Seminar.” Let me know what you thought!

You can also find the slides from this preso by following this link.

Here’s Part 4 of my MountainRunner Institute talk from the “Now Media Seminar.” HOWF!

Also, you can follow this link to see the actual slides from the event.

Here’s the third part of my MountainRunner Institute talk from our “Now Media Seminar” on July 6th. Hope you dig!

Here’s the second part of my MountainRunner Institute talk from July 6th’s “Now Media Seminar.” Enjoy!

This past Tuesday, July 6th, 2010, I got the opportunity to speak as part of the MountainRunner Institute’s “Now Media” seminar at the National Press Club. For the less sharp-eyed out there, I’ve been proud to call Matt Armstrong (MRi President and a highly AWESOME blogger) a friend for some time… even before he provided the first forum for Must. Be. AWESOME!!! in its proto-stage. A few months ago, Matt asked me to help him transform his blog, MountainRunner, into a full-fledged nonprofit institute devoted to the study of and conversations about public diplomacy and strategic communication.

One of MRi’s key offerings is a seminar Matt honchos about “Now Media,” his concept of understanding the existing and emerging media environment as it relates to influence and engagement. These seminars give us an opportunity to wrap up everything we learn into something useful for communication practitioners. At this particular event, we had attendees from the U.S. Marine Corps public affairs team, the State Department, and even a contingent of Indonesian bloggers visiting the States on a State Department exchange.

Matt asked me to put together something to capstone the day, integrating everything from his lectures to the examples and information of our guest lecturers. I thought I would present that briefing, “Engaging in a Now Media Continuum,” here for everyone to check out. Accompanying the slideshow is the first of five videos of my actual presentation. I’ll deploy a new chapter of this video series every day for the next five days, so tune in or subscribe to the blog via RSS to get the whole story!

This was my first time presenting on behalf of MountainRunner, so I’d be really interested in everyone’s feedback: What do you think about engaging in a “now media” continuum?

(Note: Special thanks to Rob Watwood for his time and energy discussing the various ideas, thoughts, and challenges that I eventually cobbled together into this preso.)

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