Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met last week with a handful of high-tech’s titans to talk about how the Internet and gadgets can intersect with the nation’s foreign diplomacy needs, reports Cecilia King at the Washington Post.

But unlike the many from the Obama administration and federal agencies who descended on Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, Clinton’s meeting with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey, Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie and others was over a quiet and exclusive dinner in the State Department’s gilded diplomatic eighth floor dining room that is steeped in American history.

The topic: how technology can be used to meet the nation’s foreign diplomacy goals.

Read the entire article on washingtonpost.com

How the U.S. State Department should enable and encourage social-networking sites in the global fight for freedom. By U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar.

The adroit use of social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and others, coupled with text messages and increasingly widespread mobile-phone technology, can help lend support to existing grassroots movements for freedom and civil rights, connect people to information, and help those in closed societies communicate with the outside world. It also promises to give a strong economic boost to small entrepreneurs and the rural poor. The World Bank estimates that for every 10 percent increase in the number of mobile-phone users in a developing country, there is nearly a 1 percent increase in its economic output.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has championed the use of communications technology in diplomacy and development. In November in Morocco, she announced the "Civil Society 2.0" initiative, which will offer training and advice to local nongovernmental organizations around the world on how to use the Internet and other digital media to organize, communicate, and be more effective.

Read entire article on foreignpolicy.com

Jason Liebman at Huffingtonpost.com talks about a dinner with secretary of State Clinton, discussing Web 2.o tools for diplomacy with a great list of notable guests, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey, Mobile Accord CEO James Eberhard, Microsoft CSO Craig Mundie, Cisco CMO Susan Bostron, NYU Professor Clay Shirky, and Personal Democracy founder Andrew Rasiej, to name a few.

He goes on to say that she (Secretary Clinton) realizes that if U.S. diplomatic policy is going to encourage civil society development, and fight violence and oppression, 21st-century tools like Twitter, Google, and YouTube are going to be key. It's all part of her 21st-century statecraft strategy: harnessing the power of technology tools to promote diplomacy around the globe. Yesterday, Senator Lugar wrote a great piece on these efforts.

Read entire article on Huffingtonpost.com

Speaking Wednesday at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new State Department building, the secretary of state also touched on the new digital environment.

"Public diplomacy is changing so rapidly because of digital media," she said. "You need the tools to communicate constantly in an increasingly interconnected world with 24/7 news feeds, constantly updated blogs, and of course, viral video."

The new website provides front-page links to the State Department's official YouTube channel, Twitter feed, Facebook page and Flickr photo account.

The State Department said in a statement that the revamped State.gov incorporates improved "functionality and an updated design" and aims to "present the Department of State more transparently."

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The ministry, which has previously announced that it would start using social networking tools such as "facebook" and "twitter" for public diplomacy activities, held a tele-conference in December for the first time.

A spokesperson for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that foreign policy issues were on the agenda of the Turkish ambassadors' conference which started in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Monday.

Full article on worldbulletin.com