Duncan MacInnes from the State Department spoke about some of the challenges at the department and the way that they are incorporating new media to augment their programs.  

“Why is iDiplomacy so important? iDiplomacy is actually … more than public diplomacy. We have to look at the new media communications technologies as important for public diplomacy but also important for AID, programs in Africa – so you’re doing AIDS and other kinds of health programs via cell phone – you have marshalling communities such as the ‘No Mas Farc’ movement, and others where whole communities have come together against terrorism, against women; we see possibilities to use it in microfinancing, using cell phones to give loans to Africans and others. Those are not public diplomacy but ways that iDiplomacy can actually use new media to make a difference in the world today.”

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We’re at Gallup headquarters in downtown Washington DC with an hour to go before the start.

It’s going to begin with a welcome from Ben Riley, Principal Deputy, Rapid Fielding, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and chairman of iDiplomacy. Jerome Gary, the moderator of iDiplomacy and chairman of Visionaire Media, is going to be discussing the semantics of public diplomacy.

Warren Wright from Gallup will be discussing perceptions of the United States around the world and Matt Armstrong, blogger of mountainrunner.us, will be presenting the history of public diplomacy. Although there’s good representation from government, not everyone attending has a public diplomacy background — there are screenwriters, (video) gamers, and people from the tech industry in attendance too. 

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Some additional participant bios have been added under “about iDiplomacy.” They include a number of current and former employees of the State Department and defense, security and intelligence agencies. They are: Bert Calland, Emily Goldman, Mark Haselton, Michael A. Lipsner, Duncan MacInnes, Amy Miller Feehery, Pradeep Ramamurthy and Scott Riggs.

You can also see bios for chairman Ben Riley and presenters Rosa Brooks and Warren Wright under “conference information.”