More GOs (and Flags) in the Blogosphere

A recent Christian Science Monitor article highlights several GOs and Flag officers who are embracing new media - at least blogs and Facebook. Many of them are not doing just to post their ideas, but are doing so to improve their ability to communicate within their commands. One even hopes that the online discussions will influence his thinking on key issues:

Members of the military operating within a closed network or the public operating in a more open online setting could help shape national security policy in much the same way, creating a product that results from a far more transparent process than exists now.
“I think we need ‘wiki’ security,” says Admiral Stavridis, head of US Southern Command, who’s an avid blogger

The Coast Guard commandant has this to say about new media:

“We need to understand that we are not living in the same social environment that we grew up in,” says Admiral Allen, who announced a new information “revolution” – not in a press release or an “all hands memo” but on YouTube, the popular online video site.
Allen is embracing the medium-is-the-message in hopes of connecting with the very people he hopes to influence as he sets a course to engage the rank and file and the public at large on his wide-ranging ideas.“This is a permanent feature of our environment, and we need to understand how to operate in it, communicate with our people, and put out policies and let them understand what the organizational intent of the Coast Guard is and what we expect of them,” he says.

So add these leaders to the growing list. At the rate that the list of very senior officers are embracing new media, I won't be surprise to find in the very near future some new forward-looking policies for the military to make more effective use of new media (as opposed to the reactive type we've seen so far).