Good Neighbors, Asian Edition

Chinese diplomats are busy–in Singapore, in particular.  Chalk it up to another petit success in public diplomacy and long-term relations.

 

 

World leaders popping in, shaking hands, posing for photos and perhaps even forging some genuine friendships…And although most eyes were focused on this past weekend’s APEC summit, there was another meeting held Nov.12 between Singaporean PM Lee Hsien Loong and Chinese Pres. Hu Jintao that resulted in some interesting ‘cultural’ agreements between their two nations.

via The Diplomat Magazine – 2009.

Diplo Demeanor | Lessons from Job Interviewing

How should a diplomat be seen and behave?  Aside from stuffy protocols–which are certainly part of the job–comportment is key.  Think of a diplomat’s demeanor as something akin to a job interview:  no set rules, but qualities such as punctuality, courtesy, and body language matter a lot.  So does the ability to read people and understand cues.

She says she and her colleagues apply “the airport test” to candidates. They ask themselves: “Would I want to be stuck in the airport for 12 hours with this person if my flight was delayed?” It seems that just being yourself — albeit a formal, polite, alert and attentive version of yourself — is the best way to behave during interviews.

via The Search – The Cues in a Job Interview That Say ‘Hire Me’ – NYTimes.com.

Eight Former Sec States Make the Case for More Diplomacy

Read this–a case for more diplomacy as a useful long-term investment, including training, personnel, and public diplomacy–written by Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice:

A recent report — “Foreign Affairs Budget of the Future,” by the American Academy of Diplomacy, in cooperation with the Stimson Center — has documented the problem and the need.

The report makes the point that sending diplomats abroad without language skills is like deploying soldiers without bullets. Yet nearly 30 percent of positions that require foreign language skills are filled by officers without them. Why? Because State lacks the personnel to send to language training at a time when nearly 20 percent of regular positions in embassies and in the State Department are unfilled.

via U.S. must deploy more foreign diplomacy personnel – Eight former secretaries of state – POLITICO.com.

Anti-Public Diplomacy Campaign | “Tweaking” the Zimbabwean Dictator

The “Trillion Dollar Campaign”–by TBWA/Hunt/Lascaris’s South African office for The Zimbabwean newspaper–was aimed at wrongs committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime. So they plastered billboards with a potent artifact of Mugabe’s corruption and incompetence: The Zimbabwean trillion-dollar bill, whose printing was the result of spiraling inflation.The campaign was a bit more complex than a simple promo of The Zimbabwean. The newspaper is actually based in South Africa, after Mugabe exiled its publishers for exposing the corruption of his government. He then placed a 55% import tax on it, to make it unaffordable to average citizens. So the newspaper responded by trying to build up enough of a readership base in South Africa to subsidize its distribution in its home country.

From FastCompany

New U.S. Public Diplomacy Under Secretary, Judith McHale

Meet the new fact of U.S. public diplomacy:

Ms. McHale and others at Discovery understood something important about communicating with people around the world: It makes more sense to engage people internationally on their own terms, in ways that respect their languages and customs, than it does just to bring them warmed-over versions of American programming. Discovery, nearly alone among American media companies that expanded internationally, put respect for cultural context and local voices at the heart of its business and creative strategies. It modified programming to respect viewers’ regional customs and translated – rather than simply subtitled — into 35 different languages.

Ms. McHale also looked for ways to bring people across the globe together around shared viewing experiences. She led Discovery to launch the highly successful “Watch With The World” specials that provided a primetime television opportunity that could be shared by people everywhere.

Ms. McHale helped forge powerful strategic partnerships, including a landmark alliance in 1998 with the BBC that enabled an innovative marriage of high-quality content and global distribution strength.

via McHale, Judith, U.S. Department of State release.

Not everyone thinks this is a great step.  Take Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy:

But the position of Under-Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs should go to someone with experience in and a vision for public diplomacy, and who will be in a position to effectively integrate public diplomacy concerns into the policy-making process. Appointing someone with no experience in public diplomacy but with a resume which “involves selling a message” has already been tried: the first post-9/11 Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Charlotte Beers, whose tenure lasted only 17 months (October 2001-March 2003), focused on “branding” America through television advertising showing happy Muslim-Americans, and is generally considered to be an utter failure.

Of course, he said that back in January.  On 17 April he clarified his statement–but didn’t back down.

Overlooked Economic Indicator: Goats

Seriously– pretty insightful short story, namely The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble–as noted in FT.

How to Win the Spin Game | For Bankers and Other Leaders in Troubled Times

Some astute advice for Bank of America’s angry white male, Ken Lewis from “Jack Flack,” the pseudonym of Paul Pendergrass, a pr writing professional.  Its aim? “Use the Nightmare to Achieve the Dream,” sort of like a lucky bounce in the game or achieving a little extra leverage in the big negotiation:

So the real question is not whether you will survive. Instead, it’s whether you’ll do so in a way that best positions BAC to accomplish what you originally set out to do — create America’s dominant financial institution.

That question will be answered largely by your ability to lead. And like it or not, leading a financial institution in this era requires an ability to win the spin game, a game that you are currently losing.

1. Anticipate
2. Give ‘Em a Reason to Care
3. Give ‘Em a Reason to Believe
4. Treat Merrill Like Merrill
5. Go Human
6. Get a Ruthless Pseech Coach
7. Enjoy

via How to Win the Spin Game – DealBook Blog – NYTimes.com.

Time to Rename the UN: “Intergalactic Planetary Union”?

Geeks meet wonks, all in the basement of Conference Room 2.  Battlestar Galactica goes to the UN:

A gathering at the United Nations headquarters on Tuesday will address topics familiar to the international body: child soldiers, terrorism, human rights and religious extremism. Attendees will represent several nations, and one abandoned planet: Caprica.

The Sci Fi Channel series “Battlestar Galactica” will be the subject of a panel discussion involving the creators of the show, two of its stars, Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos, and representatives from the United Nations’ offices of the secretary general and high commissioner for human rights.

How a television series about interstellar travel, ancient prophecies and genocidal robots came to join forces with a terrestrial intergovernmental body relates to the Sci Fi Channel’s philanthropic activities and the United Nations’ efforts to become more media savvy.

US Not So Easily Dismissed | “Show Me the Money”

What a country (the US, that is.)  Friedman opines about the challenges in statecraft ahead, and the burden–he squarely places–on friends, allies, and ‘other’ states and citizens of the world:

“If you’re a hard-liner in Tehran, a U.S. president who wants to talk to you presents more of a quandary than a U.S. president who wants to confront you,” remarked Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment. “How are you going to implore crowds to chant ‘Death to Barack Hussein Obama’? That sounds more like the chant of the oppressor, not the victim. Obama just doesn’t fit the radical Islamist narrative of a racist, blood-thirsty America, which is bent on oppressing Muslims worldwide. There’s a cognitive dissonance. It’s like Hollywood casting Sidney Poitier to play Charles Manson. It just doesn’t fit.”

State Dept pokes Ahmadineijad

From Wired’s Danger Room (with a killer graphic mock-up, suitable for dorm room framing, below), insights into what looks like the State Department’s a new tactic in public diplomacy–blogger to blogger.  But don’t miss the original source, DipNote’s announcement of the conference call Undersecretary of State Glassman for PD held to discuss “blogging diplomacy.” Blogger Matt Armstrong breaks it all down even more, but I’d spend time checking out the link to the Iranian President’s blog.

We have heard about PD in Second Life, but this is even more tangible.