The Pentagon last week issued a new "open door" policy on social media last week. So how did an Air Force network administrator find out about the change? Not through their chain of command, but by reading about it on Danger Room.
"I found out how the policy changed through Danger Room, not through a DoD website," the source said. "When I inquired through our chain of command, they hadn't heard anything about it."
What's more, the source added, access to many web tools had become more, not less, restricted since the policy was put in place. "Any other browser other than Internet Explorer has been blocked over past 96 hours," the source said. "The only Google tools we can access now are Google Reader and Google Voice."
Part of it may be a top-down management style that creates information bottlenecks. The source said they found out about Pentagon's recently lifted ban on USB drives through Danger Room, not through official channels: "This is very peculiar, given the position I have and the level of connectivity I have, that this is how I find out it's official policy."
Others have written in to complain that they are still being blocked from accessing social media like Facebook and Twitter. "No SNS (Social Networking Services) here yet," wrote an NCO stationed in Europe. "In fact, USAREUR [U.S. Army Europe] just published a huge list of requirements for subordinate units to satisfy before even considering the request to open the pipes."
It's getting to the point, multiple sources tell Danger Room, where unofficial sites -- which don't necessarily reflect official policy -- have become a faster way to get information about what's going on in military communities.
Those are just a few examples of the yawning gap between theory and practice when it comes to the military's use of Web 2.0. Earlier this week, Janson Communications, a public relations firm that works for government and defense industry clients, released an interesting survey of the military's use of Facebook pages. (.pdf) Among the study's findings:
* Most of the military pages -- a full 84 percent -- had no interaction with their fans at all during the study period.
* Some of the pages studied had no content, or hadn't been updated for several months (what the study cleverly describes as "zombie" pages).
* Many military Facebook pages were not clearly marked as "official," meaning they could be easily confused with "clone" pages made to look like official, government-sponsored pages that may have inaccurate information.
Why is that important? It's not just about morale, or creating a web-savvy image: When something happens like yesterday's shooting at the Pentagon metro entrance, people need to find out as quickly as possible. They shouldn't have to wait several hours for a commanding officer to give a briefing, as happened at Fort Hood. Web 2.0 isn't a cure-all, but if used effectively and correctly, it can solve communications problems and eliminate information bottlenecks.
Photo: U.S. Department of Defense
