Jerome Gary led a brainstorming session on some of the issues for the 2010 iDiplomacy conference to discuss items such as who should sponsor it, who will attend, the agenda, location, etc. The conference will be held in Washington D.C., next year with exact date and venue still to be determined. Attendees later split up into four groups to discuss different elements of the larger conference, such as the legislative agenda, what mediums should be used, and who should be attending.

Some of the issues discussed included:
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Films can serve as a powerful medium to engage audiences, both U.S. and foreign. Jerome Gary and Leon Shahabian showed trailers for a couple of the film/television projects they have been working on through Visionaire Media and Layalina Productions.
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To prevent semantics from monopolizing the discussion today, Jerome Gary presented the working definition of public diplomacy:

“iDiplomacy seeks to empower citizens and the private sector to participate in public diplomacy through direct communication and engagement with foreign publics. iDiplomacy supports American ideals, and often but not necessarily American foreign policy goals.”

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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 bios have been added under “about iDiplomacy.” They include individuals from the entertainment industry, journalism, State Department, a Palestinian refugee and a political theorist. They are: Joseph Assi, Lenny Brown, Bruce Feirstein, Glenn Fogg, Julie Germany, Catherine A. Holland, Mary Lambert, Bill May and Tim White.

The bio for moderator Jerome Gary is available under “conference information.”