By Andi

Troop supporting rockers Saving Abel will be in town during the Milblog Conference and have volunteered to stop by the Friday evening Cocktail Reception for a brief, acoustic performance. Saving Abel is currently on a week-long USO tour in the Persian Gulf.

Click here to see the making of the music video for 18 Days, which took place on the deck of an aircraft carrier. I think you can count on the band performing this song Friday evening. Saving Abel are strong supporters of our troops and their families and we're thrilled to have them drop by for a little entertainment, and to meet and greet the milbloggers. Don't miss this!

We've had no less than three bands offer to perform at The MilBlog Conference, and we're grateful for the interest in our conference and the willingness of these bands to donate their time to entertain us.

(The Gazette)  The Canadian military in Afghanistan emphatically denied yesterday a claim by a United States blogger that Canada's commander, Brig.-Gen. Daniel Ménard, should be fired for not having prevented an attack on a bridge near Kandahar Airfield where a U.S. soldier and four Afghan civilians died Monday.

Michael Yon, a former U.S. Special Forces soldier who has sometimes had strained relations with the U.S. and British military bureaucracy because of his writing, alleged Canadian troops were not providing security as they should have because they and Ménard were watching the Olympic men's hockey gold medal game on television at the time of the attack.

Read the entire story here.

This is one story that is getting a lot of interest.  After months and months of speculation, the Department of Defense has finally released its official policy on new/social media, ending the debate on the fate of social media within the DoD.  And the policy is encouraging, however for the average new/social media user, there will probably be more questions than answers.  Either way, the policy is a step in the right direction, but it’s not really shocking news considering the DoD has been launching literally hundreds of social media sites over the past year.  The article announcing the news has been online less than a day over at the Social Media Hub and already has over 200 retweets and almost 1,000 Facebook shares.

The policy Directive-Type Memorandum 09-026, which is effective immediately, states that the default for the DoD non-classified network (the NIPRNET) is for open access so that all of DoD can use new media. This is DoD’s first official policy on new media.  Prior to today, the Services and other DoD components developed and implemented their own ad hoc policies — some banning it all together.  Under this new policy, there will be open and consistent access across the board, but prohibited content sites (gambling, pornography, hate-crime activities) will still be blocked.  Also, Commanders at all levels and heads of DoD components will continue to keep networks safe from malicious activity and take actions, as required, to safeguard missions. 

Service members and DoD employees are welcome and encouraged to use new media to communicate with family and friends — at home stations or deployed — but it’s important to do it safely. Keep in mind that everyone has a responsibility to protect themselves and their information online, and existing regulations on ethics, operational security, and privacy still apply.  Be sure never to post any information that could be considered classified, sensitive, or that might put military members or families in danger.

Of course, does this mean millions of DoD personnel are going to sign up for twitter or facebook or start blogs tomorrow?  In my opinion, the numbers won’t be very dramatic, but hopefully for those who had blocked internet access on DoD computers, can now get online.   Then again, some people don’t even bother using new/social media sites like YouTube or even know what they are.  To put things in perspective, my Mom still calls MySpace, MyFace. 

You can download and read the entire policy here in Adobe PDF format.  I recommend you read it.  It’s only 9 pages long and is fairly straightforward.  Of course, it’s not as intriguing as reading the major theories of physics or the Navy CIO’s blog on interoperability within the Enterprise architecture, but still -- pretty good.

It’s been a busy work week, and having a little IT background myself, I thought I’d point out a story by SmartPlanet that discusses the Navy CIO’s blog turning two years old.  It’s an interesting write up by John Dodge who takes a look at the phenomenon of CIO blogging and the Navy.

Definitive stats on CIOs who publicly blog are hard to find, but one impromptu search in 2009 turned up a mere dozen and sure enough, Carey’s CIO Blog was listed among them. Several were academics and one CIO was well-known IT thought leader and gadget freak John Halamka MD with CareGroup Health Systems in Boston.

While the CIO Blog from one of the nation’s top sailors is intended to open a dialog within what has long been considered the most change-resistant branch of the military, the comments to his posts tend to be five here and five there.

Make sure to check out the story by SmartPlanet, then jump over to the Navy CIO’s blog --- that is if you haven’t already added it to your daily reads.  I mean, how can you not get excited about things like “Enterprise Architecture” and “Interoperability”?!

It’s practically a nail biter.

Hat tip to Boston Maggie for sharing the frontline military blog of Rajiv Srinivasan, a Soldier who is currently deployed to Afghanistan.  He also tweets from the frontlines.  You can check out his blog here which is loaded with great photos of Afghanistan.

Just over a year ago I started regularly using Twitter.  It started as an experiment more than anything else, to see if Twitter could be a useful tool for interacting with other people to discuss military topics particularly around the DoD and Social Media.  I also tweet about personal things too, but usually conversations around my likes on movies or just things I’m doing from day to day.  My first mobile tweeting experience occurred last February when I got an invite to the National Press club in D.C. for a pre-screening of Brothers at War.  I didn't even know what a retweet was at the time.

In the past year, the number of followers to my Twitter account has skyrocketed, reaching over 80,000 followers as of last week, which puts @Milblogging near the top 1,000 twitter accounts online according to Twitterholic.com (a website that tracks twitter statistics and rankings). 

For what seemed like months, I had regularly tweeted on a daily basis.  #MilitaryMon on Mondays to #FollowFriday on Fridays.  It’s been a lot of fun, and rewarding.  I’ve met new people, discovered a whole new community of military supporters, and it’s even helped drive traffic back to the Milblogging.com website. 

Like any of the popular social networking tools, tweeting just like blogging takes time.  And over the last several weeks I’ve been staying very busy with family, work and blogging in case you’ve noticed a drop in my tweeting activity.  For those of you who have written me personally and asked about my whereabouts, I have plans to get back on Twitter very soon.  I dig it and have had some great conversations over the last year – and yes, I miss it. 

If you still don’t believe that Twitter is that big of a deal, you should give it a shot. 

For those of you interested in driving traffic back to your main website, or if you’re just looking to have conversations with like-minded folks, it’s a great social networking tool.  And while I don’t run any ads on my Twitter account, Twitter advertising is also getting big, with companies like Ad.ly and Sponsored Tweets growing in use.   It’s so clever.   I set up an account with these companies as a test, and even had companies willing to pay me well over $100 for me to send a single tweet.  That’s right: one tweet under 140 characters for over $100.  While I have no plans of ever running sponsored tweets on @Milblogging, if you run a Twitter account, there’s even money to be made with companies looking to advertise.

On a side note, what’s up with Ashton Kutcher and his 4 million followers?  This guy is killing it on Twitter.  I just can’t believe millions people find tweets about beer bong and tattoos of his face that interesting. 

Damn, really makes me think I need to step up my game a bit.

The DoD announced the latest developments of the military in the social media world, with the January launch of a blog that highlights the importance of science and technology to military operations.  The blog’s name:  Armed with Science. Here’s what the DoD had to say about their newest adventure in the blogosphere:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18, 2010 – Science has seized the popular imagination. There are magazines, popular books, Web sites, webcasts, blogs, documentary films, and even television channels devoted to science and technology.

The practical applications of science and technology also can be found in almost every aspect of military operations, a topic that is discussed in great detail in the award-winning weekly webcast "Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military," produced by the Defense Media Activity.

The popularity of the Armed with Science webcast in its first year has prompted the Defense Media Activity to expand its on-line presence. A new Armed with Science blog, http://science.dodlive.mil, premiered in late January. The new blog includes articles, archived webcast episodes, transcripts, images, and videos.

"Expanding into the blogosphere will allow us to develop a dialogue between our listeners and the scientists, engineers, operators and administrators who are involved in DoD science," said Brian Natwick, general manager of The Pentagon Channel and acting director of DoD’s Emerging Media Directorate. The new blog will provide a better forum to highlight the critical role of science and technology in military operations, Natwick said, while demonstrating how research conducted to meet military requirements often benefits society as a whole.

According to the story, science isn’t just for scientists anymore.   I’m actually pretty excited about this site so I can finally get answers to some of my unanswered questions like, “What really goes in to MREs?”  And I mean, honestly, how is it that road marches in the Army are uphill, both ways?

Science, folks.  Science.

Read the entire DoD story here.

My good Military.com pal Andi gave me a tip on a story today that ran on Army.mil about the Commanding General of Fort Irwin/NTC, Brig. Gen. Robert Abrams who used Twitter and Facebook during a radio broadcast to take questions from listeners.  The use of Twitter and other popular social networking tools by the different branches of the military is fast-growing and this story is another good example of how the Army is using it. 

FORT IRWIN, Calif.- Fort Irwin/National Training Center Commanding General Brig. Gen. Robert "Abe" Abrams is a regular on 88.3FM KNTC, Fort Irwin and the National Training Center's post radio station, but his Wednesday morning appearance wasn't his usual show.

Instead of just fielding questions from callers, Brig. Gen. Abrams, who has a Twitter page himself, took questions from the Fort Irwin/National Training Center Facebook page and Twitter page, demonstrating yet another way the installation is using Social Media.

As he spoke about a wide variety of topics ranging from the value of Social Media to the current Canadian rotation and the installation's DUI prevention and awareness efforts, Brig. Gen. Abrams fielded a question from the Fort Irwin/NTC Facebook page about one of the many on-going construction projects on the installation.

A Brigadier General who fields questions using Twitter and Facebook? Seriously, what could be more convincing than this, that officers in the upper ranks support social media?? Nothing that’s what! 

Unless of course during his next broadcast he tweets messages on his Twitter page like: OMG I LUV TWITTER, TTYL TWEEPS J B4N BG ABRAMS
 
Read the entire story here on Army.mil.

Looking to hear about the war in Afghanistan?  Check out Capt. Mark Martin’s military blog: 270 Days in Afghanistan.  Capt. Martin started his military blog when he learned of his deployment to Afghanistan in June 2009 which he wrote about in a post titled, “Congratulations...you’re going to Afghanistan!”.  He’s been writing ever since.   Capt. Martin also served as a Company Commander for the Red Bulls in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, but this looks to be his first crack at blogging.   

I learned about his story through the Star Tribune which did a brief write up about his blog:  

For an excellent blog on dealing with the Afghan Army, this National Guard captain's observations are spot on. Capt. Mark Martin is one of a dozen members of the Minnesota National Guard working as part of a training and liaison team to help make the Afghan Army more independent. They are stationed in northern Afghanistan.

Read the entire story here.  Get all the details on Capt. Martin’s blog HERE.

I get asked often by people looking to start a military blog, which program they should use.  There are a lot of options online, from Blogger to MySpace, but if you’re looking for the best platform (in my opinion) you should go with WordPress.  WordPress has tons of free features that you can use, and the best part is, you don’t have to know anything about web development.  WordPress developers offer tons of free themes that you can use to tailor the look-and-feel of your website, just type in “free WordPress themes” into any search engine and take a look.  There are also thousands of plug-ins that make it easy to enhance your blog.  Wanna display your Twitter feed on your blog? Type in “twitter WordPress plug-in” and you’ll get tons of results.

Even the DoD uses WordPress for several of their social media sites.  See the screenshot above?  DoD Live is built on WordPress.  So is there Social Media website and literally hundreds more.

I custom programmed Milblogging.com including the blog section of the website with the help of some developers going back to 2005, and believe me, it’s not easy to make changes or enhancements when you build things from the ground up.  I’m fairly confident if I wanted to add a Retweet button within each of my stories, my laptop would get the blue screen of death.  Or worse, catch fire.

Fair warning, I added a “Follow Us Baby” Twitter graphic on the left sidebar.  It hasn’t been fully tested.  Just saying.

By Andi

Mrs. G, one of the hardest working milbloggers around, has created a fantastic FaceBook hangout for milbloggers. The Fan of Milblogs page is full of great information. You can click here to see a comprehensive list of milbloggers, by category. Also at that link, you'll find a host of video reports from previous MilBlog Conferences. In addition to sharing information of interest to the military community, the page also features an event section designed specifically for The 2010 MilBlog Conference. If you're on FaceBook, and plan to attend the conference, click here to publicly RSVP for the conference. This is a great feature as attendees can see who is planning to come to the big, fifth anniversary bash.

Thanks, Mrs. G!

High school students in Belgium are setting up Facebook pages for nearly 30,000 Allied soldiers who were killed in Belgium while liberating the country during WWII.  The effort to memorialize the soldiers is part of a project called “Live and Remember” that will help to tell the story of each individual soldier.  Students are retracing the lives of each soldier including information about the soldier’s family, life before the war, military record, and more.  It’s a pretty amazing undertaking and one that will help remember the sacrifice of each of these individuals.  The Associated Press covered the story:

The first Facebook page created as part of that project honors Lance Cpl. Thomas Leslie Cartwright of High Wycombe, England. Cartwright was killed in fighting in 1944 and is buried in the Kasterlee War Cemetery in northern Belgium along with 99 comrades of the British Army's Royal Scots.

The plan is to have each soldier documented on Facebook by 2014, when the country will mark the 70th anniversary of Belgium's liberation.

"You are only dead if no one talks about you anymore," said Pol Van Den Driessche, a Belgian senator who launched the project, known as "Live and Remember."

Read more here.  If you’d like to learn more about the project, jump over to the Live and Remember web site.  The site is written in French, so you’ll need to use Google Translate if you don’t speak French.

What is “Stolen Valor” you ask?  Signed into law by President Bush in 2006, the Stolen Valor Act is a law that makes it a federal crime to lie about being a war hero or posing to be a war hero by wearing military medals that were never awarded.  Many bloggers from around the Military Blog community came together to call out the latest imposter, Michael Patrick McManus, who was finally nabbed by the FBI after posing as a war hero (watch video here).  Mrs. Greyhawk over at Mudville Gazette who has a knack for graphic design, even created a WANTED poster that went viral on the internet and in the news media (image above).  I have no idea what to even say about this guy, except: "kids, stay away from drugs".

A little advice: If you wanna fool people into thinking you’re a war hero, make sure to wear dozens of medals on your uniform that you’ve never earned like a Distinguished Service Cross (minimum: 2).  Also make sure to wear something around your neck that says you’re the "Commander of the British Empire". 

And if nothing else, don’t forget to sport a sweet goatee...

On a sidenote, I'm pretty sure the reporter who surprised Michael McManus at the door with a camera was half-expecting Michael to be wearing knight’s armor and speaking in old English.  I know I was.