“The 21st century is a really terrible time to be a control freak.”
– Jared Cohen in the New York Times Magazine piece, “Digital Diplomacy” (July 16, 2010)

In the city of suits, Blackberries, and tight-lipped messaging, social media can be a hard sell. Anyone who’s worked for any amount of time in DC knows that most organizations — whether government, nonprofit, or private sector — are obsessed with controlling the message.

So it is interesting to see how in the last few years the State Department has been loosening the shackles of “the message” a bit and embracing social media to get its message out both in the United States and countries where the US has diplomatic missions. And it’s about time, really.

Last weekI listened to US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul talk (via Google hangouts at a DC Social Media Week event) about how he uses Twitter and Facebook to respond to questions and comments from his various constituencies. McFaul tweets a lot for a busy ambassador. (You can check out his feed at @McFaul) He also tweets prolifically in Russian, which he says helps him connect with his audience, even when he makes language mistakes.

His tip for using social media to engage an audience in an official capacity? Take your time with your response. Social media moves fast, but you can take your time before responding. McFaul also says he sets aside time after dinner–often a few hours–to respond to tweets and Facebook messages personally.

The State Department’s use of social media fascinates me not only because of my personal interest in foreign affairs, but because it’s an agency average Americans rarely interact with and have little idea about how it functions. The same can be true for citizens of countries where the United States has diplomatic missions. If you ask the average person what a diplomat or foreign service officer does day-to-day, they might tell you something about meetings over tea with foreign officials or frantically sending a cable back to Washington about unexpected political turmoil or a hostage situation — all images cemented by movies and television. If you ask the same question in a country like China or the Philippines, two countries I’ve spent a year or more in, the answer might be something like: “They reject visa applications.”

One perception is largely negative, one is positive, and both are stereotypes that social media has the potential to break apart. McFaul said when he heard feedback from Russian that they thought everyone was getting rejected for a US visa, his staff used visa stats to show that Russian nationals were among the top visa recipients in the region.

Of course, digital diplomacy initiatives can’t solve everything. Bob Boorstin, Google’s director of public policy, argues that diplomacy is best practiced face-to-face, and that no amount of social media communication could change the Iranian nuclear program. But he says the tools are effecting the scale and speed of communication, as well as introducing new audiences to the State Department’s messages. It’s important to keep in mind that an audience on the Internet will be wealthier and better educated, and has not only access to the Internet, but often access that is not restricted by their own government.

Digital initiatives are relatively new to the State Department, and will no doubt evolve and change over the years to address new challenges.

Further reading:
America’s Edge: Power in the Networked Century by Anne-Marie Slaughter in Foreign Affairs
Digital Diplomacy The New York Times Magazine profiles two State Department employees leading digital initiatives in diplomacy.
The Political Power of Social Media In this 2011 Foreign Affairs article, Clay Shirky examines how social media can affect national interests and political change.
#Unfollow: The Case for Kicking Terrorists Off Twitter This recent Foreign Policy essay makes the case for kicking terrorists off the Internet and social media.

I’ve been back in the United States (relatively steadily) for more than five years now, and during that time blogging has fallen off my radar. Grad school and then work took up most of my time, and things didn’t seem exciting or interesting enough to write about.

But I somehow find time to tweet, tumble, send mountains of email, and gchat, so why not start blogging again? Instead of writing about my adventures, I’ll use this space to write about foreign affairs, current events, policy, the Asia-Pacific region, as well as other work-related issues like communications and technology. Once in a while I might post something about one of my other interests — books, photography, film, and travel — but most that will probably end up on my Tumblr blog.

Now that Flickr is finally unblocked in China, I’ve posted a bunch of photos I took on a walk with my friend Marco (visiting from Shanghai en route to Italy) from our hotel to the Dandelion School. Every day the students and I take the bus to school because the walk is long, the weather is hot and the sidewalk-less road is dusty. People were curious but friendly as I walked around like a tourist with my camera. The walk is not what I would call pleasant, but it was a fascinating tour through a predominantly migrant neighborhood. This is where the people that build Beijing’s skyscrapers and sweep its streets live.

NPR broadcast a story about the nutrition program at the Dandelion School about a week and a half ago. (It's amazing that I work at the school, but found the NPR story a week and a half after it was broadcast!) I'm not sure how much the added nutrients actually increase standardized test scores — that could also be due to the school's better teacher recruitment and retention in the last one or two years — but I'm sure it's helping out the students who arrive at the school malnourished or the students who, like the story points out, ate a steady diet of instant noodles.

One of my favorite things about the Dandelion School is that it’s covered in murals and mosaics designed by students. Without the artwork, the school would be a drab collection of cement buildings surrounding a cement courtyard.

This week, artist Lily Yeh was at the school continuing her work with the Dandelion students on tile and mirror mosaics in a narrow path that leads to the library and more classrooms at the back of the school. She has helped the students transform the school into a work of art and has worked with them to write about their journeys through China and about their hometowns.

The students work on the mosaic in groups of 10 or so, and then rotate with their classmates. When I walk to the library, I dodge 13-year-olds smashing mirror and tile on the ground to attach to the wall. (The boys enjoy smashing the mirrors so much that I’ve started to wear closed-toe shoes to protect my feet from flying glass.)

More photos soon…

Blogging is going to be difficult thanks to the great firewall and the anniversary of Tiananmen, which has apparently inspired the government to block everything, including flickr, where I post all of my photos. But I'm going to try to post semi-regularly about life at the school and in Beijing, where we will spend the next eight weeks.

Every house and business in Bangkok sports a spirit house, a miniature house that looks like a temple — built to provide shelter for moody spirits. Here are just a few of my favorites in my neighborhood, Ari.