You Are What You Write?

We’re all aware that hiring managers are checking the Facebook page of prospective employees for any negative or embarrassing information, but it’s growing easier to evaluate existing employees’ intellectual contributions, as social networking expands both on the Web and inside organizations.

Most of us are familiar with the restaurant ratings on sites like www.yelp.com.  As annoying as I find the misspelled words, sloppy grammar and evident poor taste of the customers writing in, I’ve developed the habit of checking Yelp before I book my table.   

A recent Financial Times article by social software expert Paul Pluschell points out that as individuals contribute more on line, astute researchers can search, compile and evaluate their thinking and modes of expression.  Pluschell writes:

“Online reputations are now easier to calculate, and they are being used to improve the distribution and consumption of information online.

“The generation and benefits of online reputations are not limited to social media on the web. Inside large enterprises with thousands of geographically dispersed employees, it can be surprisingly hard to know who provides input of consistently high value.”

Pluschell goes on to quote another expert.

“Gary Hamel, a Visiting Professor at the London Business School, sees this changing. At the recent World Business Forum in New York, he stated: ‘In the next few years, it will be possible to attach a leadership score to any employee.’”

This is not just theory; it’s happening where I work.

·          Online idea forums are running inside both the State Department and CSC  networks (not on the public Web).  On these electronic suggestion boxes, you can see the names of contributors and judge their value for yourself.  Most allow comment and some invite other employees to vote for the best ideas.

·          I recommend and am recommended on LinkedIn.com , where you can see my “official” profile plus comments I make on discussion groups.  Same on GovLoop. 

·          The State Department is considering the establishment of an internal social network that could allow users to build their own profiles and build their own personal groups. This would be on top of its already robust Diplopedia wiki and function-based communities.  CSC already has a beta social networking site running inside its private network.

Over the next few years, active thinkers and people who take time to write down their thoughts will build “corridor reputations” in these places.  Then it will be up to management to determine whether that translates into their next promotion.

 

R-e-s-p-e-c-t

“Is Barack Obama’s diplomacy subtle and strategic, or weak and naive?”  The Economist’s question two weeks ago continues to itch my brain.

You can read the venerable magazine’s leader, which brings together all the instances of perceived disrespect by Israel, China and Iran, as well as the prospective gains espoused by multilateralists, and draw your own conclusion.

The public likes nothing better than to see Uncle Sam kick the posterior of a foreign villain.  But the first four years of the Bush Administration showed the price to pay.  And our economic policies, compounded by the rise of emerging economic powers, made the price unaffordable.

A few developments of the past two weeks have at least offered some positive examples of a modest approach.

• favorable NATO contributions to the new Afghanistan strategy
• Chinese, then Indian commitments to carbon reductions at the Copenhagen conference, which had practically been given up for dead
• condemnations of Iran, at least, by Russia and China over its blantant defiance of nuclear non-proliferation commitments — a step, at least, beyond the support we’ve seen until now

Beyond the intractable and contentious problems above, the Obama record is mixed.  And the major issue outstanding is arms control: preserving existing agreements with Russia and ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. These steps relate to controlling loose nukes as much as policy toward Pakistan, Iran and North Korea.

Looking at the big picture, I’m not sure that wimp versus macho is the most useful paradigm to evaluate our foreign policy.

If anyone out there reads this journal, what do you think?  Should President Obama take more unilateral actions overseas?

 

Management psience?

After so many Dilbert cartoon panels, it was inevitable that thinking people would begin to probe the mystique of management consultants.  Having got near the business, I must take note of recent articles in my two lodestar publications.

The New Yorker published last October 12 a review of the book In the Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting It Wrong.  Critic Jill Lepore goes back to the origins of the industry: Frederick Winslow Taylor, called the “father of scientific management,” who made a career of studying worker efficiency in industrial plants in the early 1900s.  Now fast forward to the era of knowledge workers.   In the company I work for — CSC — we sell computer software to simulate and automate organizational business process, along with many competitors.

According to Lepore, the book makes a pretty good case that the original “Taylor fudged his data, lied to his clients, and inflated the record of his success.”  In the process, the author Matthew Stewart examines and criticizes Taylor’s legacy of business school theories and modern management consulting.

Later in October, The Economist published a clever article called “The Three Habits…” (of “highly irritating management gurus.”)  This takeoff on the popular Stephen Covey book back in 1989 questions the loose methodology of Covey, Tom Peters and other successful business book authors.  “Stale ideas … numbered lists … and false principles” abound among these writers, who take to the lecture circuit with PowerPoint slides.  At a recent webinar, Peters delivered a series of quips and random ideas that were handed out in booklet form.  They reminded me of Chinese food: tasty, but not satisfying.

McKinsey, CSC, Booz-Allen and other companies have provided brilliant advice and made a difference in organizational performance both in the private sector and public sector.  My question is how the true success stories compare in numbers to the failures.  For example, we know the majority of new IT projects fail.  There’s a statistic that could make next year’s best seller among the Top Ten Business Books.

 

Last Tuesday’s vote answered one question.

When President Obama came into office, there was lots of speculation that his Web-based organizing techniques were key to his election.  When David Plouffe used the campaign’s e-mail lists to start up Organizing for America, lots of people asked if that would fundamentally change politics.

One year later, “no” seems the clear answer.

First, look at the results in Virginia.  Pundits will debate whether the elections at state level were a referendum on the President, but I’ve seen no one mention an obvious lesson lesson from the poll results:  online political organizing is not the functional equivalent of magic.  A year ago, many were wondering if new media was more than just a tool for politics.

In January, this writer reflected on how the Administration would use new media to promote its agenda, writing: “The administration may need to separate the government’s online media activity from partisan advocacy.”

And that’s what they did.  Now my electronic inbox fills up with appeals from the national and state Democratic Party and Organizing for America, but not from the Administration.  They just didn’t get me out to canvass — only to vote.

You need emotion to motivate people.  As a motivator of Democrats and independents, Creigh Deeds fell short.  And the high emotion and energy behind Candidate Obama’s “change” movement naturally fell away when President Obama became the chief executive, inheriting an economic crisis and a war not of his own making.

What I learned from last Tuesday?  Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

 

The Web, now more world-wide

Today’s vote by the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is worth a note.  As expected, ICANN has decided to allow Internet addresses’ top-level domains (.us, .it etc) to be expressed in scripts other than Latin.

The results, as reported by the Associated Press, may be less than dramatic for that half of the world that writes in Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Korean and other scripts.  Still, over time the decision will encourage new Internet users and possibly open new business opportunities.  It may preserve international governance of the Web.  And it will certainly open new issues for business and government whether in “the West” or elsewhere.

Vive la difference!

 

A new shopping cart for government CIOs

The Obama Administration’s technology policy took a step forward with the advent of www.apps.gov where government agencies can purchase standard software and “cloud computing services” from the General Services Administration.

Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra has touted this electronic storefront; his agenda is to press agencies to lower costs by accepting standardized software and data stored on the Internet rather than in government-owned centers.  (See my post of July 15.)

One obstacle is data security, where the hard piece is to fashion services that comply with the Federal Information Security Act.  That’s in progress now.

The more difficult barriers have to do with management and culture.  CSC, where I work part-time, just published a paper that lays out the technologies which have made cloud computing possible: cheaper hardware and higher bandwidth.  But it’s the new practices of the cloud providers — the mingling of data in large cyber-warehouses and the  “pay by the drink” charges — that pose challenges to federal CIOs.  Will this really be cheaper?  What are my responsibilities in a new type of contract?

Reader, you should take a look at www.apps.gov and its offerings: business, cloud services, productivity and social media.  Many are free.  Others are “TBD.”  All are standard, and that may be another challenge to State Department decision-makers who think they need to build their own apps because “we’re special.”

 

Public Diplomacy’s Glass Ceiling

The Foreign Service Journal looks at the state of public diplomacy ten years after the disestablishment of the U.S. Information Agency. Those of us who turned in our articles three months ago are surely relieved that no dramatic changes in the interim have made us look foolish.

However, a few teaching assignments sponsored by the Foreign Service Institute (NFATC) the past two months gave me some new insights, and the passing of time allows for a few additional comments.

The new Under Secretary, Judith McHale, has expanded dramatically her staff, which at last count numbers 38 — probably triple that of her predecessors.  The additional help will enable McHale to exercise more authority over operations, including assignments of public affairs officers and budgets.

A lot of work is going into making PD more strategic: notably, the institution of a PD implementation plan (reviving a USIA practice that was abandoned by State) and an emphasis on reporting and accounting for resources.  This is a work in progress that is bound to prompt complaints from field officers, and achieving accountability without killing creativity or slowing the real work will be no mean trick.

Many of my co-writers fret about the importance and status of PD within the Department.  On the one hand, the assistant secretary positions for the Educational and Cultural Affairs  International Information Programs bureaus remain unfilled.  That was unremarkable last summer; less so now.  On the other hand, PD leaders are optimistic about major budget increases that will be targeted to critical areas like reestablishing cultural centers and preparing for an influx of new junior Foreign Service officers.

The Obama Administration treats public diplomacy as a subset of diplomacy, but they’re doing a lot of it starting with Secretary Clinton herself.  There is less evidence that PD has a seat at the policy table.  Note the recent announcement of a new missile defense strategy that caught spokesmen and PAOs off guard and caused the administration unecessary headaches.

McHale’s staff build-out is a do-it-yourself approach to beefing up PD, as opposed to creating an external organization that would provide cover for semi-official cultural and information programs and, perhaps, a sort of  independent PR counsel to the administration.

The Quadrennial Review that is beginning under Deputy Secretary Lew could in theory take up questions of larger administrative reform.  But so far, there is every sign that the new administration sees public diplomacy as a key discipline and practice within the confines of the State Department, and an enabler for wider purposes like engagement and smart diplomacy rather than an enterprise of its own.  A glass ceiling, if you will.

 

Foreign assistance in flux

Both houses of Congress are thinking about reform of U.S. foreign assistance.  But so far the Administration is missing a USAID director, which is surely complicating a policy makeover.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has shared a concept paper on reforming U.S. foreign assistance legislation with various organizations and interest groups.  Meanwhile, Sen. Kerry  introduced S. 1524, the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act, on July 28.

 The House concept paper gives compelling reasons to reset the governing legislation.  It says: “The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 – the foundation of our foreign aid system — articulates at least 140 goals and 400 specific directives for foreign assistance, but sets no clear priorities to guide decision-making.”

 The paper goes on to link a depleted USAID organization with the fact that “foreign aid programs have become fragmented across 12 departments, 25 different agencies, and nearly 60 government offices, without a coherent and consistent strategy to unite them.”  Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) called development strategy “a mess” in a July 13 interview with Bloomberg.com.

 The Administration has not yet nominated a USAID director although Dr. Paul Farmer has been rumored as the choice.  Secretary Clinton expressed frustration with the vetting process in mid-July.

 This is now a problem.  Not until a new director comes on board can so many questions regarding assistance be settled.  For example, how much independent control over resources will USAID exercise?  Will the merger of facilities and functions like information technology into the State Department continue?  How much will the Administration push to extend its Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, and how will development fit into that?

 Surely these issues will be examined during a quadrennial review of  diplomacy and development announced by Secretary Clinton on July 10 in a Town Hall meeting in Foggy Bottom.  Such an exercise draws its inspiration from the Pentagon’s quadrennial review of defense.  Since then, no significant details have come to light.  (Congressman Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had introduced legislation mandating such a review on April 28.)

Both Congress and the Administration are making bullish statements about increasing U.S. foreign assistance and revitalizing USAID.  With health care, economic recovery and Afghanistan at the boiling point, perhaps it’s a bit much to expect coordination — much less synchronization — between the White House and Capitol Hill on foreign assistance.  But the apparent disarray of all these good efforts is squelching my natural optimism.

 

“Good, But How Good?”

Assisting news media in other countries has long been a part of the United States’ promotion of democracy.  How effective are media support programs?  It turns out that it’s kind of hard to know.  The National Endowment for Democracy provided an overview of the subject July 28 at its headquarters in Washington in a panel presentation.

NED’s Center for International Media Assistance asked Andy Mosher, an experienced reporter and editor, to research how media assistance programs are being monitored and evaluated.  You can find the report on CIMA’s Web site.

Mosher reported that since the effort “was transformed from a small field to a multimillion-dollar global endeavor” in the early 1990s, program agencies like IREX, Internews and IFCJ have increasingly built monitoring and evaluation into their programs — sometimes at the insistence of funding entities like USAID and NED itself.

Leading the panel, Mosher discussed his review of methods (varied) and standards (emerging.)  He gave the field a sympathetic look, as you might expect from someone who had done training in Zambia as a Knight Fellow.  His report’s title is “Good, But How Good?”

One questioner from the Population Reference Bureau questioned whether the social science behind the evaluation studies was any good at all: he speculated that 10 percent of reports gave reliable data on the effectiveness of programs.  (Mosher hotly contested that claim.)  Discussion of how to ensure the independence of the evaluators ensued, without a conclusion.  Luis Botello of ICFJ noted: “Standards are changing.”

In truth, programs range from targeted training of journalists that proceeds with little host government interference to material support of fragile media in conflict zones.  A NED official told me of his organization’s long-standing efforts in Somalia.  In the latter case, evaluation data may be simple facts on the ground: a radio station continues to broadcast.

Still, the organizations that deliver assistance have been slow to compare methods and standards in Mosher’s judgment.  Mosher says: “The past 20 years offer little evidence of sharing among groups that have the same goals and methods but often compete for the same grants.”

It’s not so hard to define what media assistance organizations should be striving for.  These worthy groups should be the last ones to fear scrutiny.

 

Riding on a smile and a shoeshine

Ten mid-career diplomats are training to represent the United States in large cities where the U.S. presence is minimal or zero.  I just spent three days with them reviewing public diplomacy and communication strategy.

The Foreign Service Officers will lead small consulates and American Presence Posts in places like Wuhan, Mombasa, Winnipeg and Medan.  They will have broad responsibilities — everything short of issuing visas (in most cases) — without the staff and resources available to the average consul general.  In some American Presence Posts, there is not even a residence, much less an office suite.

The State Department is struggling with the American Presence Post notion; providing adequate security, communications and logistical support is a challenge.  Some question whether the leadership has thought in a creative fashion about how to deploy people to the 100 cities of a million or more where the United States has no representative in place.  After observing the issues the officers are dealing with, I think they need better support.

State’s inspector general has asserted that the embassy in Baghdad, with more than 1800 employees, is far too large for the future state of relations, the Washington Post reports.  In the accompanying photo, our new embassy building looks like a maximum-security prison.

I wonder whether the U.S. taxpayer gets more good out of sending a diplomat to one of these edge posts than cramming the umpteenth officer into the Baghdad political section.  What do you think?