Interactive Field Manuals: A Reality!!

Wow! The Army has made a giant leap into making use of new media. We had a discussion on this blog a while ago about the concept of interactive field manuals - electronic manuals in which Soldiers could leave comments, ideas, videos, etc. It's becoming a reality, according to a recent news report.

According to this story, the Army has opened a number of manuals up to wiki-style editing. And, any Soldier can do the editing. Interesting! The story also states that there are a number of manuals that will not be opened to editing - our capstone doctrine. That makes perfect sense. There are some foundational pieces of our doctrine that need to be developed in a more organized fashion. But for those more tactical level manuals having interaction with Soldiers is an incredible step for the Army.

There is a permanent team identified for each manual that is responsible to review all edit. Also, Soldiers must post edits under their own name, and since we have to log in with an ID card, there's not a way to be anonymous.

I haven't played around with the manuals yet since I just heard about it this morning. Once I experiment a bit and see what the use has been like so far, I'll put some more thoughts together and share them here.

What do you think? Is this a good idea? Being executed well? Share your ideas.

**QUICK UPDATE, 4 Sep 09: seems like the Army's pilot project is getting a pretty decent response although there are still several significant concerns to work through. See this Stars and Stripes story for more details.

Are unit blogs a good idea?

There are a growing number of them out there: blogs created by military organizations (or businesses, for that matter) that serve to provide command information to the public or enable internal communication. These are often seen as outputs of propaganda at worst and, at best, providing no new insightful information. It seems to me that we are just barely scratching the surface of what could be and have some ground to make up in the perception arena.

One idea that has recently come to mind (partly inspired by Prof. Lawson's article) was for a unit-level blog. This blog would be:

• maintained by a responsible and effective writer within the organization (whether that's a company, battalion, or brigade - higher than brigade and we lose some of the "muddy boots" perspective)
• provide information similar to what is often provided to families through family readiness channels but would be tailored for the broader potential audience
• maintain a blogroll of all blogs of Soldiers in the organization. This would provide one way for the Army to keep up with many blogs and could provide interested readers with a broad perspective on the activities of the particular unit

By maintaining such a blog at the unit level, readers would be presented with a broader perspective than they currently can get by looking at somewhat random individual blogs, it could significantly assist in the distribution of stories that otherwise don't get told or are buried in other press outlets, and potentially could serve as a link between official statements through traditional PA channels and the very unofficial stories told by milbloggers.

Is this idea way off mark or is there merit to it? I'm interested in your thoughts.

Encourage Soldiers to blog?

Blogging is a subject that's kicked around in military discussion with some emotion. Some fear the danger of Soldier's blogging - it could result in security violations that would put Soldiers at risk. Others suggest that it's a potentially effective outreach - citizens can get a personal viewpoint of what being a Soldier at war is really like. Still others tout blogs as just another way to stay in touch with family and friends.

The motivation for this blog is to discuss how we could tap into the power of blogs to help get the Army's story out - how blogs may be used to help round out traditional media. I'm an Army Major and currently a student at the Air Command and Staff College. As a graduation requirement, we each must complete a research project and I've chosen to examine the potential benefits (and inherent challenges) of not just allowing Soldiers to blog, but actually encouraging blogging among our troops.

So here's what I see this blog doing:

• get me bloggin'. I'm new to blogging and want to experience it firsthand as I complete this research project.
• get your ideas. You (Soldiers and citizens alike) surely have opinions and ideas about encouraging Soldier blogging - I want to hear them!
• share good/bad examples. Over the years I've seen some examples of how milblogs can help the "Army story" and others that ... not so much. I'm interested in your opinions about some blogs you create, read, or are familiar with. Share the links.

So here goes ... I'm in the blogosphere! Looking forward to this journey!