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Longtime blogfriend and sometime collaborator Critt Jarvis has a guest post on “branding” and social networks up at Strategis:

Dear Brand Manager

 Here’s the dirty little secret so-called social networking “experts” don’t want you to know: “US consumers are most interested in brands that keep them up to date and improve their knowledge. And they do not want brands to act like their friends.

Critt, who has been involved in a number of edge tech projects is usually ahead of the curve. Critt is best known for convincing Thomas P.M. Barnett to start blogging back at a time when blogging was an emerging “fad” and the idea of a “serious” defense or national security expert blogging was regarded as ridiculous ( and it probably sped Tom’s departure from the Naval War College and into the big leagues of writing and consulting). Today it’s hard to think of an important foreign policy-defense type who doesn’t blog or at least try to promote their articles and op-eds in the blogosphere and sites like SWJ.

Critt’s calling attention to the point that once you get past the novelty of having a twitter account or a facebook page, your institution’s online presence has to actually be delivering value in terms of useful content and substantive interaction on a regular basis.

He’s right, but it is going to take some time for the crowd to catch up to him.

Thanks to the kind invitation of S. Anthony Iannarino, I have been on the much vaunted, often coveted,  Google Wave beta app ( I do not have any invites yet, sorry ) which mashes up email, realtime transparent instant messaging, other embedded web 2.0 apps and a wiki-like functionality. The interface looks like this ( from O’Reilly Radar – who can explain Google Wave far better than I can:

What is it like?

First, for me, it’s a small handful of my blogcircle ( most of who are techies) milling about chatting, trying to figure out the functionality. The champ so far is Sean Meade, who is Tom Barnett’s webmaster and also the web editor for ARES; Sean assembled a tutorial “wave” for the rest of us that I have just begun to plod through. It is not easy to find other googlewavers which is why people are posting calls on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

Secondly, this is a very unfinished symphony of a beta – at least compared to prior beta experiences I’ve had. Sliderocket, by comparison was very smooth and probably 95 % ready when I received a beta account while with Google Wave I’d anticipate significant differences before it becomes generally available. As it is going to be open source, the potential creativity for future apps is vast.

Cool, interesting, not entirely sure how I will eventually use it on a regular basis yet.

At SWJ Blog.

The Army wants your comments on its new Capstone Concept

by Robert Haddick
Brigadier General H.R. McMaster has sent to Small Wars Journal the latest draft of Army Capstone Concept version 2.7. McMaster leads a team at TRADOC that is charged with revising the Capstone Concept, which provides fundamental guidance to the Army’s doctrine and training efforts.

By December, McMaster and his team will complete their work on the Capstone Concept. Between now and then, he wants to hear from you. So please open this file, read it, and provide your comments, either here or at the Capstone Concept comment thread at Small Wars Council. McMaster and his team will read these comments and use them to improve this important document.

(You will note that the Capstone Concept draft we received is marked “For Official Use Only.” I assure you that we received this document openly from the Army and for the purposes explained above. McMaster and his colleagues at TRADOC want Small Wars Journal‘s readers to help them improve the Capstone Concept.)

Ok. Mil/intel/strategy/national security/COIN bloggers. We’ve been blogging on the “future of warfare” for five or six or more years. Some of us have also written books and journal articles, spoken at conferences and done op-eds. Along the way, there has been periodic lamentation (i.e. whining) that the powers that be don’t “get it” and no one pays attention anyway. Well HR McMaster is asking for  input on shaping official military policy. A “put up or shut up” moment for the bloggers.

I’m in! Who else is joining the party?

LTC. Matt Morgan, USMC and Director of Public Affairs at US Marine Corps Forces Command, rolls up his sleeves and takes the highest ranking member of the US Armed Forces to task in a take-down guest post at Mountainrunner:

Guest Post: The Rosetta Stone for Strategic Communication? More like Speak ‘N Spell

….Unfortunately, the reason for this gap can be laid at the feet of a few members of the Chairman’s own personal staff. Over the past few years, Adm. Mullen’s Public Affairs Office has systematically refused to take part in DoD’s various attempts to develop its integration processes or other Joint Staff and DoD efforts to coordinate organizational communication. As such, select members of the office appear ignorant to the efforts of other professionals across the U.S. military. They have failed to be the good listeners they claim to hold in such high esteem, and have consequently produced what reads like a condescending lecture from the Chairman.

Let us all be clear as to what this is really about. This is a turf war, and the authors have committed the ultimate sin of a staff officer: They have used their boss’ visage to advance their agenda, and in the process drawn an unfair portrait of a senior leader blind to the most progressive thinkers in his organization.

The authors are quick to undermine the term Strategic Communication, writing that the Chairman doesn’t care for it because, “We get too hung up on that word, strategic.” I don’t know who the “we” is in this case, but I can assure the Chairman that this is only true among those afflicted by what I call the “Type A” misunderstanding; that is, those who cannot get beyond the most literal comprehension of the word strategic. Oh, yes, a few of these types are out there. But when it comes to military leadership, anyone who has ever used the now-cliché term strategic corporal has at least a basic understanding of the notion that tactical actions can affect communication – for better or worse – at the strategic level.

The stated thesis of the essay, however, is belied by its conclusion:

Strategic communication should be an enabling function that guides and informs our decisions and not an organization unto itself. Rather than trying to capture all communication activity underneath it, we should use it to describe the process by which we integrate and coordinate.

Ah, there it is. The fear of subordination revealed.

Ouch! Read the rest here.

If in fact, CJCS ADM Michael Mullen did not write his editorial, as LTC. Morgan asserts, I will have to retract my earlier praise. “Leadership” is not lending your name out to your staff to play el supremo. It’s fine for a busy man to lay out an outline of positions to an aide and then edit the aide’s draft; Eisenhower and Reagan, both excellent speechwriters, stopped writing their own speeches once they became POTUS. But saying “Here…do my thinking for me”, is not ok. It’s weak.

Assuming that Admiral Mullen did write his editorial, then the exchange with LTC. Morgan is what a healthy, intellectually open, adaptive organization should encourage and reward. Ideas matter, not rank.

Hat tip to Critt Jarvis, social entrepreneur, conversational catalyst.