Social Media dawn at the Department of Defense
27. Feb, 2010 
241 Comments
The Department of Defense has published a ground-breaking new directive on social media that I hope to see have a real impact government wide. A lot of focus has been on the fact that soldiers, sailors, and Marines can now finally have access to their friends and family online, which I imagine will be a huge improvement in their lives. And that itself is a great step forward for the government.
But another interesting aspect is the definition and recognition of “external official presences”. The directive defines these and lays out some specific requirements for safeguards around those official presences. This is where there will be a lot of interesting innovation in the next couple of years:
From the directive:
“External official presences shall:
a. Receive approval from the responsible OSD or DoD Component Head. Approval signifies that the Component Head concurs with the planned use and has assessed risks to be at an acceptable level for using Internet-based capabilities.
b. Be registered on the external official presences list, maintained by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (ASD(PA)), on www.Defense.gov.
c. Comply DoD 5200.1-R, and with References (a) and (b) as well as DoD Directive (DoDD) 8500.01E, DoDI 8500.2, DoDD 5230.09, DoDD 5015.2, DoD 5240.1-R (References (c) through (j), respectively).
d. Use official DoD and command seals and logos as well as other official command identifying material per ASD(PA) guidance.
e. Clearly indicate the role and scope of the external official presence.
f. Provide links to the organization’s official public website.
g. Be actively monitored and evaluated by DoD Components for compliance with security requirements and for fraudulent or objectionable use (References (d), (g), and (i)).”
The directive goes on to discuss the records management requirement, which I’ve always felt is very important. Government agencies have invested a lot in policy and tools around records management of all sorts of communications, social interactions should be no different.
There are some early tools out there in the commercial world to help implement and even automatically comply with policies like this. But I think there is room for a lot more innovation in both tools and strategy here. I look forward to seeing that unfold over the next year.
Good discussion of this happening now at GovLoop: http://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/dod-publishes-a-common-sense
I read about it some days ago in another blog and the main things that you mention here are very similar
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This blog is very interesting
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A thoughtful opinion and ideas I will use on my blog. You’ve obviously spent some time on this. Thank you!