On PD and Communication

It's not whether you win or lose... Source

Today is World Press Freedom Day and National Teacher Day -- two events that encourage us to honor two professions that influence communication flows and shape our understanding of the world.

With that in mind, I've been thinking about my last unofficial class in graduate school. Last Thursday, Chayden arranged a role-playing exercise for the last meeting of our Public Diplomacy class. Given his interest in LARPing, we were a little nervous about how the class would unfold, but we needed have worried.

With the assistance of PD blogger Chris Dufour, Chayden divided the class (or the meager portion that actually showed up -- the rest were presumably finishing the final paper) into four groups: public affairs, public diplomacy, traditional media and angry public/interest groups. Then they presented us with a scenario: Hours before the royal wedding, U.S. security forces apprehend a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent in London, in connecting with a bomb threat. They gave us a few details about his contacts (in Virginia, Guantanamo and Yemen) and set us to work to prepare our communication strategy.

We'd spent the semester studying public diplomacy, not crisis management, so there were a few stumbles. But for the most part, the students instantly adopted the communication personalities of their groups--with considerable creativity and humor. In the aftermath of the weekend's big news stories, a few of us have been talking about the exercise. Most of us were impressed by the prescience of the exercise. And to some extent we were impressed by our own ability to anticipate the official and unofficial responses of the public to a major development on the U.S. security battle--a success that might reflect as much on the predictability of those groups as on our own genius.

It was a fun class. People got really involved in their roles and came up with some very clever and very funny messages. I think the take-away Chayden wanted us to leave with was a greater appreciation for the complexity of the information environment. Public affairs and public diplomacy professionals can't control the narrative any more than they can control the news, not completely at any rate, because the world is constantly changing and new crises and victories and opinions and issues are constantly arising. To some extent, that's half the fun.

I'm starting to think PD isn't really a field for people who are focused on Winning, because it's so difficult to measure success and there's no easy rubric for gauging progress. I'm not saying that success is unattainable or that the end goal doesn't matter. I'm saying that the process is the most important thing. That's why it's essential to have confidence not just in the end product, but in the act itself -- the constant process of communicating and building relationships.

Ta-da!

Ta-da! Source

As many of you are already aware, I completed the final requirement of my Master's program on Friday by dazzling Craig Hayden (professor of Public Diplomacy and International Communication) with my command of the International Communication field.

The aforementioned requirement was not to dazzle per se, but rather to demonstrate competency in discussing trends and thoughts in International Communication over the course of an hour-long conversation with one of the program's core faculty members--a process known as the oral comprehensive exam, or the "oral comp." I assume my conversation was dazzling because Chayden signed the form and I am now set to graduate and have already begun encouraging my friends to address me as "Master."

As a soon-to-be-graduate, I am currently residing in the harrowing halfworld between student and professional, so if your organization is in the market for a dazzling public diplomacy enthusiast, do give me a call. In the meantime, I'm celebrating my freedom by helping others celebrate theirs. Specifically, I'm volunteering at World Press Freedom Day this week.

After a day spent stuffing stylish totes with free press swag, I headed home to rest before an early morning shift tomorrow. Tragically, this means I departed before hearing PD maven Judith McHale address the masses during the opening ceremony. I'd hoped to follow from home, but didn't realize until I arrived that the livestream isn't operating until tomorrow morning, so I was reduced to re-tweeting choice nuggets from the State Department, such as "RT @WPFD2011 Under Secretary McHale: protecting the rights of a free press is the responsibility of every citizen. #wpfd #pressfreedom." Try not to envy my rock star lifestyle.


I'm thrilled, of course, to see public diplomacy front and center at the conference. As McHale herself says:

"Compelling ideas are infectious. They always have been. Today, immediate and widespread access to information allows ideas to circulate virally. It empowers people to participate in the public lives of their countries. It equalizes voices. The Internet has made it possible to reach more people in more places. But it has also shifted power and influence to such an extent that it is necessary to engage with a much wider spectrum of public voices worldwide. So we, at the Department of State, are doing everything we can to connect with people — all 6.8 billion of them — to create a new environment that will better ensure the stability and security of our country, our region, and our world. We take this mission very seriously. We recognize that government-to-government diplomacy by itself is no longer enough."

From the sound of it, McHale could have done pretty well on the oral comp herself.

For those of you who are curious, May 3 is WPFD proper, a day "to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession."