US Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

asked for the creation of an online forum for

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

employees to submit ideas directly to the Secretary. The Sounding Board was an

intranet An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in ...

blog developed and launched in February 2009 by staff from the State Department's Office of eDiplomacy. The platform metrics soon generated 27,000 page views a month and serves as a global water cooler for a workforce spread around the planet. It has served as a platform for brain-storming ideas and

crowd sourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

non-policy solutions. Employee response to the online forum varied from enthusiasm to concern for maintaining confidentiality and decorum. Some contributors to the Sounding Board expressed worry that public airing of internal discussion might embarrass the Department of State; comments that were subsequently published in ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' reporter Al Kamen's column "In The Loop". The Sounding Board was an internal platform (discussion forum) for State Department employees to exchange ideas, while DipNote is the Secretary of State's blog on the internet. The use of

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

was seen as essential for 21st century diplomacy. The Department of State was "integrating social media into the job descriptions of all the foreign service officers", says New Media Director Katie Dowd. The Sounding Board was ended on August 31, 2017.

Other media references

Hillary Clinton Launches E-Suggestion Box

Federal News Radio
How to integrate social media into your agency, August 16, 2011, interview with Sounding Board program manager Kerry O'Connor

Critiques

Everything Is Broken: My Two Years at the U.S. Department of State
An excerpt that discusses the Sounding Board: "As an important side note, before resigning to attend graduate school in the summer of 2010, I had the chance to meet one-on-one with a high-level manager (and now ambassador) involved in oversight of the Sounding Board. He stated that the Sounding Board, which had been sold to us as a bottom-up tool for employee ideas in early 2009, was primarily a "cathartic" outlet for employees. Someone might want to explain that to the mass of State employees who cropped up to suggest specific, often in-depth ideas online—over 1,500 by the summer of last year. Indeed, when I left there was no meaningful process in place to review and take appropriate action to either reject or on some level adopt these employee suggestions."

References

{{reflist United States Department of State

Other media references

Critiques

See also

References