New Technologies and Cyber Diplomacy

There is a new specter haunting the planet - the specter of Information Technology and its challenge to traditional institutions.

Almost imperceptively, a host of digital technologies have come on the scene in all countries and are clearly changing the dynamic of commuications and thus of power.

The new communications regime includes: web sites, cell phones, smart phones (devices that are cell phone, mini computer, web surfer, e-mailer, PDA, voice recorder, plus such as the Samsung i730 I just got which is called a "data device"), WiFi, web casting, blogs, podcasts (voice casting-Internet), vods (video casting on the Internet), virtual radio stations, and a host of other communications techniques.

These have removed the monopoly of communications and information from institutional centers - governments, chirches, corporations - and shifted them to an unlimited host of actors.

In this environment, public and official diplomacy, such as the USA delivers through the Department of State, must be prepared to compete in a marketplace that is fluid, agile, dynamic, and in many cases superior in the quantity as well as quality of the product delivered.

We can compete effectively if we understand the following:

1. There are multiple "marketpalces" determined by the user's technology and substantive interests.

2. Text is no longer an acceptable delivery medium - we must create imaginative, interesting, short, compelling sound and sight messages in our communications strategy.

3. We absolutely need to reorganize the "boxes" on our table of organization and redesign the bureucracy for the digital communications age. Our institutions were designed for an analog world. most of us are analog people. the transition to digital institutions and highly mobile, 24-7 operation, pervasive communcations, organizations/people is painful, urgent, and must be driven by new public administration policies and concepts.

4. We are losing the communications competition (war?). The adversaries and detractors of American values and policy have the flexibility and incentive for "guerrilla communications" and, like roadside and suicide bombers, operate in an environment that is largely anti-bureaucratic, risk-taking, decentralized, and "swarming." Traditional government institutions are centralized, hierarchical, routinized, and risk-adverse.

We can win this race or battle but we must recognize that Congress, the President, and most of the top management in the federal government are analog people. Many are not very comfortable with the fast-moving, high end of Information and Communications technologies. We need to delegate to those who are tecchies and we need to educate those who are not. Otherwise we will arrive at virtual diplomacy after the train has left the station (or, the packet has left the router!).

Writing Your International Resume!

How to write your resume

Make it clear and to the point. Keep it at one or two pages. List your strengths throughout the document. Put your objectives, personal information, and education first. Then list classes taken, activities, and awards. References last (list names with titles, or say "upon request").

Be especially careful when you write letters of application for jobs or Internships. Do not make it seem like you would only be using this job to "get experience""for yourself before you find out what you "really want to do in life in a year or so". Most people do not want to hire someone and serve as a training place to give people experiences. In fact, they prefer to hire someone with experience!

When you write a letter or resume be very positive! Tell people why they need to hire you to help them do the job at hand. Make them feel that YOU are the right person to do this job -actually, convince them that you are the only person that can do the job - don't oversell yourself but give them a sense that you will hit the ground running with your sleeves pulled up!

Many of my students write on their CV

Objectives: "to live abroad, learn a foreign language, get some experience, and strengthen my resume before going to graduate school".

I always ask them - "Put yourself in the position of the Human Resources (HR) person or Director of an NGO or organization that has a bunch of complex projects to complete and not enough staff. Do they want to hire you so you can have a personal opportunity to learn a language and improve yourself?"

"NO!"

"That's what colleges or internships are for. They want someone who will work hard and passionately for their organization and stay for several years at least so they can recover the training time and investment they will have made in you."

Remember, they are not there to do you a favor or, like your college professor or counselors help YOU succeed. All of a sudden you are plunged into a place where you have to serve the organization not (as in college) the other way around!

The Islamic Challenge In Europe Continues.

Now it's Belgium!

A right wing, anti-immigration, nationalist party has emerged in the Dutch part of Beligium - Flanders - as the biggest voting block now getting about 25% of the vote.

The reason for this surge of the right in Holland, Germany, France, Austria, and even some of the Scandinavian countries is Islaminc immigration. Europeans have seen a steady stream of immigrants, many from moslem countries including former colonies like Algeria and Morocco. Easy political asylum for "persecuted" moslems and the need to have workers in a continent where the "old Europeans" aren't having any kids anymore.

This was all great until September 11, 2001. On that day the Europeans could no longer ingnore the growing presence of radical, violent, organized, and heavily financed islamic extremists in their midst. Europe was the planning center and stategic "barracks" for the conduct of terrorist acts all over the world.

Having hoped for (not prayed for because the old europeans don't believe in God anymore!) dispensation from becoming the principal target of these terrorists, the Europeans kept a weary eye on the comings and goings, the plannings and executioons of acts, launched from hamburg, Milan, and Amsterdam. But they remained in denial about the threat of radical Islam for themselves.

After 9-11, Afghanistan war, and Iraq the Europeans suddenly realized that the decapitating knives were also aimed at them, as the Dutch discovered with the mureder of van Gogh. The Spanish found to their horror that the suitcase bombs were also aimed at them in the Madrid train massacres. The French began to sweat heavily as they finally faced the reality that the 7,000,000 muslims many living in squalor in the ghettos around Paris were a potential time bomb. The Italians were jolted out of their "Roman nice" when they found massive terror cells in Milan and thwarted the subterranean attack on the US Embassy.

I could continue citing the examples but we can revisit this on an other day.

The point is that the American or "Bushist" position on terrorism and the use of force do have a connection to the European reality. And, the Old Europeans are finally getting it!

Islam and France

Here is food for your thought. France is trying to stay secular. Islamic groups want to express their faith publicly. The fight is on. What's your reaction to this? Who's right? Steffen schmidt

France Won't Meet Demand to Stop Ban on Head Scarves By ELAINE SCIOLINO New York Times

Published: August 30, 2004

PARIS, Aug. 29 - A day after a militant Islamic group holding two French journalists in Iraq demanded that France revoke a law banning Muslim head scarves in public schools, the French government vowed on Sunday not to compromise its national ideals as it pleaded for their release.

"I ask solemnly for the liberation" of the hostages, President Jacques Chirac said in a brief and hastily scheduled televised address. He added, "Everything is being done and everything will be done in the coming hours and days to achieve this."

But Mr. Chirac made it clear that something else was at stake: "the values of our republic."

Without specifically mentioning the new French law that bans all "conspicuous" signs of religion, including head scarves, Mr. Chirac said: "France is a land of tolerance. France ensures the equality, the respect, the protection of the free exercise of all religions in the framework of our communal law. This tradition, anchored in our history, is the glue of our national unity."

The hostage-takers' demand is a sharp departure from those put forward in previous kidnappings in Iraq, which often have been carried out to put pressure on a specific government to withdraw its troops from Iraq in exchange for sparing its citizens' lives.