I served 8 years in the Marines. Well, more like 6 and then I spent 2 years in IRR (Inactive Ready Reserve) which basically means that if all hell broke loose somewhere on the globe and my presence was needed to “kick butt and take names”, I’d have to go, contractually. With that said, I have always had a soft spot for my brothers/sisters who have served or serving now to keep our country free; and allow me to do what I do best.

A big thank you to Major Dan Ward of the United Stated Air Force for kindly answering my questions; and putting some deep thought on how the Air Force can/should use social media for more than just a recruiting tool. His insights are quite amazing and I want to quickly highlight one of his quotes below about social media and how it can create “ambient intimacy” and “that persistent, real-time connection between people.” Right on Major. Hat tip and salute to you sir.

How long have you served in the USAF?

I’ve been on active duty for 15 years now – it’s been a great ride so far.

What different types of jobs have you done while serving?  What do you do now?

I’m an engineer and program manager by training, so mostly what I do is help shepherd technology projects through the development process. My assignments range from research laboratories, program offices and an intelligence agency. I also had the amazing opportunity to be a full-time student for 18 months, which was a blast. I recently got reassigned to the Pentagon, in the Acquisition Chief Process Office, where we’re trying to improve the outcome of the Air Force’s technology development efforts.

Should the US Military have an active presence in social media? If so, in what capacity?

Yes yes yes! We should use things like twitter to collaborate, to discover and develop technology solutions and, most of all, to build communities. So many of the problems with DoD system development projects could be improved if we could just make it easier for people to connect, in real time and with fewer filters and barriers.

How important is it to build community in social media versus just using it as a recruiting tool?

Yeah, right now the military primarily uses social media for broadcast purposes, which is only half of what social media can do (and it’s the less interesting half, frankly). Actually, we’re trying to use it better, but we’ve got a ways to go. If you want to hear about what the DoD is doing with SM, check out this article on OhMyGov.

What’s more interesting, though, is what we’re NOT doing with social media. Specifically, the military is not letting me use social media from the computer on my desk. The network I’m on at work blocks Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and a huge percentage of blogs.
 
Of course, I can get around some of the blockages easily enough, without violating any policies. I sometimes tweet via Twittermail – nothing wrong with that. If I had a cool enough cellphone, I could use it to watch YouTube videos from my desk. I can leave my office and go home or go to the base library to get access to blogs and Facebook during the day. But that sort of misses the point, doesn’t it? Part of the key to social media is the “ambient intimacy” it creates, that persistent, real-time connection between people. And that’s the special sauce that’s missing from the way the military uses social media right now. I’m confident we’ll get there eventually – it’s just a question of how long it’ll take.

Now, I know a lot of this stuff is migrating to the cellphone, which makes all the network restrictions less of an issue. Ironically, I’m a bit of a late adopter when it comes to shiny new techno gadgets. I don’t do much texting on my phone. I don’t surf the web on my phone. That’s partially a financial decision (iPhones are expensive, man!), but it’s partly a philosophical position too. I really try to make sure I’m aware of what the latest & greatest gadgets can do, but I also want to be in tune with the limitations and capabilities of ordinary folks. I try not to assume that we all have iPhones. That’s because it’s not enough to focus on what the early adopters can do – in order to get a critical mass of people involved, we need to focus on what’s available to late adopters like me (i.e. the cheapskates).

What challenges have you had trying to activate social media in the AF?

Well, like I said, the computer networks on most bases block a lot of the social media sites, like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Blogs. I can understand doing that for classified systems or forward deployed locations where bandwidth is limited and expensive. But for an unclassified network on a big stateside base – really, there’s no good reason for blocking social media sites. There are concerns about network vulnerabilities or about people wasting time watching silly YouTube videos, but none of those concerns really stand to to close inspection, in my opinion. The challenge, then, has two parts. First, to address the concerns and explain that accessing Twitter, for example, doesn’t make the network more vulnerable than it already is. Second is to explain the benefit. All too often, the people who write network security policy think the only thing you can tweet about is “I’m eating a sandwich now.” But it can do so much more than that!

I’m working on a “social media manifesto” right now, and I’ve titled it Twitter Is Mission Critical. The basic idea is that blocking my access to social media is limiting my ability to do my job. Not sure when or where we’ll publish it, but I’ll keep you posted.

Are you on twitter? What is your handle? If so, what can people expect to learn by following you?

I totally am – my handle is TheDanWard, and I’m sad to say people probably won’t learn a whole lot by following me just yet, because my access to Twitter is so limited that I don’t use it as much as I’d like to. I occasionally use twittermail to post things during the day, but it ends up being a one-way broadcast at this point. I’m missing out on the dynamic, real-time interaction that Twitter provides to people who can actually get to the website directly. So, people can follow me on twitter if they’d like, but for now the most interesting stuff is happening on my new blog. That’s where I’m posting information about innovative approaches to technology development. Stop on by!

END OF INTERVIEW

Thank you again Major. Please do give us an update about your current technical challenges of accessing the social web; and also when you publish your manifesto.