The Foreign Service Journal, September 2008

Believe it or not, we are still fight- ing battles to use CD/DVD burners in some embassies, or WiFi at remote locations, such as some of our cultural centers. In Central Asia some inform- ation management officers try to restrict the use of anything that is external — even drives that IRM calls standard for OpenNet, such as CD/DVD drives and USB ports. At some posts, restrictions for loading photos from digital cameras or flash drives to Web pages are so rigid as to seriously impede the basic business practice of providing information about in-country events, such as the ambassador’s press conferences. Ever get hooked on the “infoseek toolbar”? Many of our webmasters began using them when USIA per- mitted that. Yet here we are in 2008, and we’re still not allowed to use a Google search bar in the Internet Explorer browser on OpenNet. Not to mention the 20 to 30 plug-ins many professionals would like to use to enhance their Firefox browsing experience. We are also routinely blocked from viewing video news- casts, because the OpenNet band- width just won’t support it. Getting the Information Systems Center to install approved software on OpenNet, if it’s just a matter of preference (i.e., Firefox over Inter- net Explorer), is often quite difficult and a major disincentive to trying anything new at all. Content (Mis)Management The second major misstep was the decision to create the Content Man- agement System, beginning in early 2004. Its initial goal of providing some standardized content to all embassy Web pages seemed useful enough, and the option for techno- logically strapped posts to have their web pages run entirely on CMS made sense, as well. But the concept was relentlessly hyped and quickly mushroomed out of control, so that in September 2007 posts were informed (in State 132990) that the Content Manage- ment System was now mandatory for all public Web sites. This move, more reminiscent of Soviet central planning than management reform, spells the end for the 58 remaining independent Web pages at posts worldwide. It was shocking to see this happen, particularly given the fact that in the few instances when input on CMS from public diplomacy professionals in the field has been solicited, the reaction has been resoundingly nega- tive. One discussion that took place in European Bureau circles in late 2006 saw public affairs officers and webmasters across Europe calling for a complete rethinking of CMS, claiming for example: • CMS is at best a primitive tool that can be helpful to posts with lim- ited bandwidth and/or technical staff. For far too many other posts, CMS is an inconvenient and unnecessary straitjacket that puts severe con- straints on creativity and requires far too much time to make even simple updates to Web pages. • The size and placement of “local” stories are far too limited. This is a serious drawback, as those items are often the attraction that will draw Internet users to the page and get them to look at other foreign pol- icy topics from Washington. When we have a truly important story, it would be far better to have the flexi- bility to change the relative sizes of the photos and text. • The amount of time required to update pages is much too long. It takes our talented staff here in Kabul longer to post updates than it did at the three previous non-CMS posts I served at, all located in developing countries with much more limited bandwidth. • The provisions for using photos — one of the best ways to grab the attention of Internet users — are completely inadequate. We should not have arbitrary limits placed on either the size or quantity of pictures posted, and ought to be able to use a variety of different methods to post photos and attract the interest of potential readers. The latter point is particularly important. As Karl Rove noted in a recent commentary in Newsweek , “We live in a culture of the visual. And be sure to provide fresh content all the time. In the era of cable TV, talk radio, the blogosphere and YouTube, someone is watching and talking all the time. If you’re not pressing content into all available channels, someone else will.” Someone else like jihadis. As re- ported recently in the press, Western experts who monitor Islamist Web sites say the technical quality of al- Qaida postings — including those from Iraq and Afghanistan — has dramatically increased from amateur- ish images that were the hallmark only a few years ago. In addition, their postings are now often in three languages: Arabic, English and Urdu. Videos look like 14 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 8 S P E A K I N G O U T u Here we are in 2008, and we’re still not allowed to use a Google search bar in the Internet Explorer browser on OpenNet.