Rosa Brooks from the Defense Department – but speaking in a personal capacity – spoke Monday about the need to change the narrative lens through which we view the world. Instead of a zero sum game emphasizing containment it should emphasize sustainability. For the Defense Department, that means “security” can’t be synonymous with “defense.”

The different agencies departments also need to work together better, Brooks said. “Those of you who are less-DC oriented – you would be shocked at how badly the executive – even the executive branch agencies – do work together.” That’s because of legislative, cultural and budgetary barriers as well as simply bad habits.

Brooks also spoke of the need to close the “say-do gap”:
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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.”