Tag: Education

Navy Strategic Communication Workshop

~ Matt Armstrong

I’m off to the beautiful Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California to give a lecture tomorrow as part of the Navy Strategic Communication Workshop. About the SCW:

The Navy Strategic Communication Workshop (SCW) is a three‐day workshop designed to help commands in the development and implementation of a Strategic Communication planning process. Participants are encouraged to attend as part of a command sponsored team of three to five members, led by a senior executive (Flag Officer or Senior Executive Service member). Ideally, teams include a diverse mix of functional area responsibilities. Teams are asked to bring strategic plans or change initiatives that might require a strategic communication component. Through a combination of classroom presentations and facilitated breakout sessions, teams will be able to apply new skills and techniques to advance their plans.

imageMy talk is titled “The New Information Environment” and will cover the information-centric “now media” environment of borderless news and audiences, dynamic and voluntary “diasporas” (my favorite depiction of this challenge is the image at right), and the organizational and conceptual confusion that abounds across the Government on the requirements, responsibilities and authorities to be effective in this environment. Of course I’ll talk about Wikileaks weave in that The New York Times has more Twitter followers than print subscribers, .

Also, of possible interest is my (draft) syllabus for the public diplomacy class I’m teaching this Spring 2011 at USC.

U.S. market share of foreign students declines, OECD reports

~ Matt Armstrong

From the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) comes another measurement of America’s decline in global stature: a drop in the relative number of university students choosing the U.S. to continue their education. The Chronicle of Higher Education cites the OECD report, Education at a Glance 2010: OECD Indicators:

While the absolute number of students opting to study abroad continues to go up, their destination choices are shifting. The United States has witnessed by far the biggest drop in its market share, which fell more than 7 percentage points, from 26 to 18.7 percent between 2000 and 2008, the report says. Meanwhile, Australia increased its share by 1 percentage point, to reach 6.9 percent in 2008, the latest year for which figures were available, and Russia, a relative newcomer to internationalization, increased its share by 2 percentage points to reach 4.9 percent in 2008. …

The report also takes a broader look at college-enrollment rates, which continue to rise worldwide—with a few exceptions, such as in the United States.

Event: Information Operations, the New Frontier in Full-Spectrum Warfare

~ Matt Armstrong

Information Operations: The New Frontier in Full-Spectrum Warfare is a continuing education course taught by Chris Paul through the Organizational Effectiveness Institute. It will be held September 20-21 in Washington, DC. From the course description:

Information Operations (IO), as currently practiced by the U.S. Military, encompass a broad range of capabilities designed to inform, influence, persuade, or deceive target audiences, and a collection of technical capabilities focused on impacting systems for storing or transmitting information. Formally, IO capabilities include Psychological Operations, Electronic Warfare,Computer Network Operations, Operations Security, and Military Deception. The relationships between the IO capabilities and other activities including conventional military operations, related and supporting capabilities, and strategic communication are not always well understood, nor are they optimally organized for specific undertakings. This class explores these relationships and presents clear definitions for all the elements as they appear in the formal doctrine, and as they function in practice. The implications of the different approaches are discussed in depth.
You will benefit by enhancing your understanding of the:
  • History and evolution of IO and its component capabilities.
  • Practice and the potential of IO capabilities.
  • Ways to organize IO and how these impact relationships between capabilities and operational effectiveness.
  • Power of information for influence in pursuit of campaign objectives.
  • Efforts related to IO, such as public affairs, strategic communication, and public diplomacy.

The course outline and online registration is available here.

Chris Paul is Full Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation, frequent contributor to MountainRunner, colleague, and author of the textbook Information Operations: Doctrine and Practice.

Now Media: engagement based on information not platforms

~ Matt Armstrong

On July 6, 2010, the MountainRunner Institute will, with support from InterMedia, present a one-day training event titled Now Media: engagement based on information not platforms. Whether you call it strategic communication, public diplomacy, public affairs, signals integration, or global engagement, this event is designed to help you gain a better understanding of the capabilities, capacities, and authorities you need to be effective in today’s global environment. While the emphasis is on actors and audiences relevant to national security, knowledge from the course will be readily applied in other areas. More information can be found here.

Topics include:

  • Convergence of “old media” and “new media” into Now Media;
  • Mobilization and even creation of “diasporas” through increasing access to information, ease of travel, fragmentation of social groups and decreasing demands on assimilation;
  • Adversarial use of online media to engage and influence audiences and media;
  • Identifying and understanding relevant audiences and measuring communication impacts;
  • Frank discussions on the organizational, doctrinal, and legal challenges (real and imagined) facing the US today.

Date: July 6, 2010

Time: 8:30a – 5p (light breakfast at 8a, lunch and refreshments will be provided)

Location: National Press Club in the McClendon Room
529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC 20045 (map)

Cost: $300 before June 27, $400 June 28 and after
Group discounts are available for 3 or more; credit cards accepted.

Speakers: Matt Armstrong, President, MountainRunner Institute
  Adam Pearson, White Canvas Group
  + representative from InterMedia
  + former leader of State Department’s public diplomacy operations

To register, send an email to Matt Armstrong at blog@mountainrunner.us.

Additional sponsorship opportunities are available.

Obsolete arguments to keep an obsolete law

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

By all means, let’s keep a law designed for another era on the books because, well, it’s there. That’s the argument many have offered in defense of the restrictive provisions added to the Smith-Mundt Act in 1972 and 1985. My friend Kim Andrew Elliot makes this argument while reviewing the Defense Department paper on strategic communication I posted this week.

"Understand the difference between public diplomacy and strategic communication. For the former, the audience is outside the geographic territory of the United States. For the latter, the audience is global. Science and Technology solutions do not generally discriminate based on geographic location, nor should they. The domains of strategic communication can not be limited to those with public affairs authority – everyone should be viewed as a strategic communicator."
Brilliant. This report has found a way to work around the Smith-Mundt clause prohibiting the domestic dissemination of public diplomacy. Just call it "strategic communication."

Kim’s statement is based on the belief that American public diplomacy is unfit for American audiences because it is a) deceitful, b) illegal influence, or c) damaging to the domestic news market. None of these are valid reasons today. 

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Guest Post: Renewing America’s Global Leadership

~ Matt Armstrong

By Ursula Oaks, NAFSA: Association of International Educators

When President Obama stood before students and service members at the National Defense University in early March and committed the resources of his administration to “renewing diplomacy as a tool of American power” he rightly said that we cannot “leave dormant any aspect of the full arsenal of American capability.” The bold path our president has charted puts the United States on a new footing in its relationships with the world, one that emphasizes listening and mutual respect as cornerstones of responsible and constructive leadership.  This new course requires our country to become much better informed about and engaged in the world. A proven way to accomplish this is to make international education a national priority.

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