Alec Ross, the Senior Advisor for Innovation at the Office of Secretary of State was featured last week in a piece over at The Next Web and has, of course, some innovative things to say about social media at the State Department:
“We set up the program overnight, with no meeting no clearances and no budget,” he explains. “We thought it was a good idea that might raise a few hundred thousand dollars but, after using the ‘dark arts’ of social media, we raised $35 million in just two weeks.”
Best of all, no clearances!
Alec Ross Photo by State Department
Then over at The Hill, they had a strange conception that social media is becoming ‘mainstream’ at the State Department.
Wu de tyen aaah!* Whoever gave them that idea?
* Dear God in heaven
Related articles
- Social media becoming ‘mainstream’ at State Department, says aide (thehill.com)
- Hillary Clinton’s ‘tech guru’ on how social networks are forcing “a massive shift in power” (thenextweb.com)
- Conversation with Self About Serial Blog Killers and the 21st Century Statecraft (diplopundit.net)
- State Dept. Official: Governments Can’t Fight Social Media (pcworld.com)
Alec J Ross, Hillary’s 21st century version of Rasputin (I even refer to him as “Rossputin” ), is essentially paid lots of money to take very expensive vacations to tell FSO’s in person (not via the internets, wherein he could save lots of taxpayer money) that, like, ‘the network is the 21st century version of Che Guevara’ and, like, other really cool stuff.
I find him to be non-technical and a very fadish sophist — I suspect he’s trying his very best to turn Angry Birds into a tool of 21st century statecraft even as I type. Angry Birds is a very advanced technology, after all.
I’m very curious as to what the FSO IMOs think of Ross’s concepts of “technology”. I’m very hopeful they’ve seen more positive things from Ross on the inside than I have from the outside. Because, from out here, he looks very much like a political payback appointment…
MM- Now that Angry Birds Space had been launched, I am waiting with bated breath for the Angry Birds 21st Century Statecraft version. That would be a killer app.
You make an excellent point about those training trips. Since this is the 21st century, there’s no reason why training can’t be done on the web, on videoconference or hey, why not beam me up to Uzbeki-beki, Scotty!
Don’t you just want to smack somebody sometimes? I really hate it when purportedly bright people are fawned over for doing half-assed, half-blind sh#$%, and the real innovators are punished because they aren’t somebody’s special darlings.
The golden child syndrome, I hear it’s quite common in the bureaucracy. I laughed at one, once, and got smacked. I was never the same again. So no, smacking is not/not good. But you can sharpen your tongue.
Dark arts, indeed.
They can give me a call sometime. I’d be happy to share just how dark the arts can get when State and social media collide.
Dear K, if they really want to figure it out, they have your number; but I’m afraid they hate looking at collisions … they are so …. so …. messy.
Haha…!