Chuck Norris, and Other Perfectly Reasonable Suggestions

Judith McHale. Source

Judith McHale is stepping down as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and returning to the private sector, the Washington Post reports. No official announcement yet, but the Post expects one to surface in the coming days, and as for her successor: "No word yet on a replacement."

Finding a replacement to lead U.S. public diplomacy and public affairs is a challenging task--one to which bloggers everywhere will no doubt feel themselves called.

Allow me to start the ball rolling here:

Robert Redford

Redford has experience in government, and we know he thinks outside the box and won't stand for government corruption. Plus, he's already got experience with cultural diplomacy, as evidenced by the Film Forward: Advancing Cultural Dialogue initiative, in which his Sundance Institute partners with the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and other federal cultural organizations to promote cross-cultural dialogue via independent film.

Oprah Winfrey

She inspires near cultish devotion and encourages people to live their best lives. She's big on dialogue and collaboration, but has no patience for those who stretch the truth to their own advantage. Plus, as I understand it, she'll have more time on her hands soon.

Chuck Norris

He speaks softly and carries a roundhouse kick. And the U.S. recognizes the need to balance public and traditional diplomacy with realist geopolitics, or "diplomacy with a punch." Norris is no stranger to politics, as his 2008 endorsement of presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee demonstrates. And he could rival Oprah for fan devotion. Plus, he's pretty sure he did two tours in Iraq.

Tai Shan

Yes, I realize I have a problem. Source

OK, I know he's Chinese, but ... oh, who am I kidding? I'll use the flimsiest pretext to put a panda picture on this blog.

Ashton Kutcher

If you read this blog regularly, you'll know I'm not a Kutcher fan. But he is adept at the Twitter, and the State Department is making a major effort to embrace new media in its public diplomacy outreach. As he recently tweeted with great sagacity: "A follower a day keeps the haters away." Isn't that just the twenty-first century redux of "telling America's story"?

Betty White

Why not? She seems to be everywhere these days, demonstrating an admirable talent for both innovation and branding.

 Got more suggestions for celebrity PD leaders? Throw 'em down in the comments section.

How Tweet It Is

This week in public diplomacy: North Korea starts tweeting! Which is fascinating, except, of course, that North Korea denies tweeting.

Which means that in terms of accurately representing the views of the DPRK, Twitter source @uriminzok may not be any more authentic than parodic spin-off Fake_Uriminzok (whose recent posts include "the dear leader has decided to challenge US devil-leader #Barack Obama to a game of 1-1 basketball at his palace in Pyongyang," and "when asked 'who blew their torpedo in the #cheonan's hull?,' the dear leader affirmed the multilateral findings that 'that's what she said.'")

Just more confirmation that nations that fail to capitalize on social media to spread their messages will generally find themselves cleaning up after those who assume the responsibility for them.

Oh, what a tangled Interwebs we weave...

Cracks in Dubai Brand's Facade -- and Shark Tank

A recent report from Al Jazeera English describes Dubai's attempts to rejuvenate its brand in the wake of negative headlines. Mark Ritson, an Academic and Brand Consultant interviewed for the report, notes that Dubai "stands for modern; it stands for safe; it stands for luxury. Anything it does which is contradictory to that ... runs counter to that perception and therefore does damage to the perception of Dubai." Unfortunate, then, that Dubai's had a rash of bad press lately related to its murky economic prospects and some high-profile tourist destination snafus.

His recommendations for brand refurbishing: monitor brand perception and employ a crisis-management team. It's a short report, but well worth watching, if only to see the blurry havoc wreaked by a leaking shark tank in one of the world's largest shopping centers.

So what steps has the emirate's Brand Dubai office taken to mitigate the damage? Despite the fact that it was established to interact with international media and promote Dubai's image abroad (as reported in the Huffington Post and Arabian Business, among other sources, in June 2009), Brand Dubai declined to comment for the al Jazeera report. But don't imagine that BD is resting on its laurels! Here's a sampling of tweets the office has released over the past week:

• #Dubai Womens College students participate in a recycling campaign http://bit.ly/9XKBBD
• #Dubai Horse Fair to showcase equestrian safety http://bit.ly/9zaOVu
• #Dubai Fashion 2010 has audience mesmerized http://bit.ly/aGgeRD

Brand Dubai's tweets are short, sweet and steady, but the news that female students are recycling is unlikely to wrest the attention of the international press (or their readers) away from the news that Dubai's stock continues to plummet--or even from soft news topics with as much glamour as last week's marine mall mayhem. Rebuilding Dubai's brand is going to require an emphasis on the values on which it was originally founded. Safety, modernity and luxury are a good place to start.