You can teach anyone to use a social media platform like Twitter, but if she doesn’t connect with real people immediately and at every log in, then I don’t expect her to continue using it for very long. Moses Ma wrote about this for Psychology Today in March 2009: Twitter...

Ambassador Blackwill was featured in Financial Times U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

New social media platforms  emerge every day, so how do you know which ones are right for you? Or if you should use social media at all? Well, ask yourself a few questions: How much time do I have to update the platforms and build the community? How large is...

An op-ed by Ambassador Robert Blackwill was published on Politico.com, in which he explains why the counterinsurgency strategy (COIN) in Afghanistan will likely fail and offers de facto partiton as the best route forward. He thus suggests an option for U.S. Afghanistan policy between bringing the troops home in the...

During Digital Capital Week a panelist discussing social media mentioned a concept he called “scalable engagement,” referring to Twitter and Facebook. According to this panelist, both platforms have enabled communications and engagement that previously occurred on a smaller scale to not only shift easily, but also translate to a larger...

We all do it. We’ve all been asked at one point or another to send out an email solicitation at 5:30 on a Friday afternoon to a huge list of people. But somewhere, lingering in the back of our minds, are questions about the efficacy of those late-week, late-day email...

On May 19, DCI played a part to help some of Washington’s most vulnerable children: kids who are in the family court system and have a foster care placement, by sponsoring the Fostering Hope Awards Luncheon for the CASA for Children of DC held at the Hay Adams Hotel. A...

Every now and then, when we’re not looking, some of life’s most valuable lessons can present themselves in the most meaningful ways. As my wife and I await the arrival of our first child this fall, I’ve been thinking more and more about the kind of man I want my...

I suspect you too have heard someone say “I could never run for public office. I’m too honest. I’d never make it as a politician.” Having now been in and around the political world for 34 years, I believe those are the very people whose time has come. This observation...

By Julie Germany On April 21, I traveled to Madrid, Spain, to deliver a four-hour seminar at Unidad Editorial, which publishes Spain’s second largest paper, El Mundo, its first largest sports magazine, and dozens of other periodicals and television shows. Unidad Editorial also has its own professional graduate degree program...