Slick but no connection
by Charlie Edwards
Me: Can I blog when I'm there?
Media Ops Officer: No.
Me: Can I twitter?
Media Ops Officer: Can you what?*
Over dinner with Senior Commanders in the COB (Contingency Operating Base, Basra Airport), the discussion soon came round to the media and what we, as visitors, thought of the public mood and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and whether 'they' (MoD and armed forces) were meeting the objectives of the defence strategic communications strategy. We were asked how we thought we would do things differently. I've been mulling over some ideas since I got back, but it only clicked last night when I went to see a Royal Navy presentation onboard HMS Illustrious.
If I was being a little unfair I would argue that defence communications can be summed up as the following: Slick but no connection. The presentation we received last night was great. Videos, great soundtrack, etc. The First Sea Lord was in ebullient form. But the narrative didn't connect. In the Q&A session afterwards someone even referred to some of the material as being 'a bit defensive'. Why this should be I don't know - the Navy, like the other two services, have a great story to tell - it just didn't really come across.
Meanwhile back in Basra, the military have been quite good in harnessing the power of Web 2.0: using You Tube, Flickr, etc but the '2.0' still seems to stop officials and senior commanders in their tracks (no pun intended). I think this might be for two reasons.
First - there is a perception that information needs to be controlled. This tends to mean that much of it is either held back and/or squirreled away, and/or sometimes lost. The culture in some areas still seems to be one of 'need to know'. But Web 2.0 has brought about a revolution in communications, strategic or otherwise and it has to be leveraged.
The second reason is how MoD and the armed forces play as a team in HMG. A perception by observers in other departments is that 'the MOD does not attempt to do more to influence common purpose and priority and play in more of its own undoubted strategic and intellectual assets.' (MoD Capability Review) and there is a 'wide variety of external stakeholders perceive insularity and reluctance to consult and
work with others in the formulation of strategy and policy.' (MoD capability review). This clearly must change (and in some areas like CT policy it is).
In Basra there is some really good stuff being produced. The Basra blog is run by the Multi National Division (South East) media ops team in Basra, Iraq. It's good if not a tad official. Simon is the DFID representative in Basra and runs an excellent blog - if he had more time I'm sure he would write more (but as he told me last week - he's quite busy...). The RAF's Afghan Diaries recently won an award. The MoD has even got its own Newsblog - but the less said about that the better.
RAF video
The fundamental question though is do all of these initiatives add up? Is there a Defence Strategy for Web 2.0 - my guess is no and that the individuals services have forged ahead themselves for a variety of reasons (like recruitment for instance). And we are nowhere near the US - look at the DOD website for example, or read one of hundreds of US milibloggers (who now hold an annual conference to discuss the latest in miliblogging). We are a world away from this kind of communications revolution in defence. And it is badly needed.
Finally a quick note on newspapers and their role given that this was the subject of paragraph one. The Financial Times' current ciruclation is 429,381. But it's website unique users per month are 7.4 million. A huge difference - in short its about being online all of the time.
Tradtional media will remain important but they are no longer the gatekeepers to the British public for news and comment. With Web 2.0 you can now bypass them completely. We're all prosocial now.
The 'Computer room' @ the COB. Soldier and officers alike can keep up todate with family, friends using Facebook and MSN.