Good Enough for D.O.D.

Staying true to the masthead, a thought discovered while on the way to NLR . . .

In today's Washington Times Prince Floyd writes about his experience trying from the public relations office to help pry open the Department of Defense regarding the coming (in 2009) social media revolution. Now that we regularly ascribe legendary impact to Twitter, Prince writes his column today reflecting backwards on his time and the positive shifts from the uber-security minded to the full exploitation of social media. Perhaps I should title this post "The Weaponization of Twitter."

Floyd has several great nuggets in the read:

The success of social-media engagement in defense is not limited to the public sector; similar success stories abound in the private sector as well, especially for companies with dispersed staff and those with highly “stovepiped” internal organizations. Social media, after all, is a tool for communication, development, collaboration and transparency.

He reminds us at the start that Robert Gates arrived from Texas A&M as the secretary of defense with a firm belief in the value of social media (and we remember, a screen name of his own from the Aggie sports blogs - Ranger77). But Floyd saves his best for last:

The key is to understand that most of your people already have joined the social-media revolution. It’s time for you to suit up and join the battle.

Sounds like he wants us singing from the same hymnal as well.