(Which I realize is not the most original title for a post about this topic. What can I say. Would "Le Twit" have been better?)
Anyway --
I just read an article about Hillary Clinton's recent acquisition of two aides to be her technology gurus -- her, specifically, and the State Department, generally. I admit, I didn't really get it. (I suppose the way to say that would be with emphasis -- Bill just didn't get it.) Why, exactly, was the State Department doing this? It sounded to me like some elderly (ahem!) person saying Oh yes, I'm hip, I'm with it, I really groove with these young folks. What's the State Department doing using twitter, for heaven's sake? Comments like this, from that article, didn't help - "They are the most visible of a small band of new-media evangelists who are trying to push a pinstriped bureaucracy into the digital age — some on leave from jobs in Silicon Valley, some from nonprofit organizations and some, like Mr. Cohen, barely out of graduate school." Oh, great. The kids are going to save us all.
And then I realized: this is a way for organizations, not just people, to communicate, to do so in ways that get outside of normal channels. Channels that can be controlled by folks who want to limit the messages that their people see. It brought to mind Blank Reg. And then, just a little bit, I thought: I get it.
2 comments:
Having worked for the Feds we were always struggling to get our message out to everyone. We had barely mastered web page development (and the very serious concerns about hacking) when we had to learn RSS and now they have to deal with Tweeting.
Thats a fascinating thought. (No, really. I know that sounds arch, but I mean it.) I would very, very much like to think that there are bright people in the Fed Govt who are thinking about that. And yeah, that they have to think not only about the message but about how easily it can be corrupted is quite dismaying.
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