Tweeting Public Diplomacy

I've written quite a bit about a push by State Department employees, diplomacy non-profits, and some legislators to increase the size of the Foreign Service, and especially to ramp up staffing of public diplomacy officers, the people who are tasked with getting out there in other countries and actually talking to folks there about who the U.S. is. And so I was pleased to see today via the always classy-looking State Department blog DipNote, that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Colleen Graffy, is Twittering a public diplomacy mission to Bucharest.

This is neat for a couple of reasons. First, it's transparency. We get a sense of who Graffy is meeting with, how long she spends with them, etc., as she tweets where she's going, when she's going. Second, it's a good way to communicate what a diplomatic trip overseas looks like. I think most Americans have very little sense of what happens when a diplomat goes abroad. It's true that Graffy isn't actually stationed overseas full time, so her schedule isn't exactly representative of a full-time public diplomacy officer. But it does open up the process a bit, and that's important in both directions.

So follow Colleen, and while you're at it, check us out on Twitter, too.