1. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Diplopedia: Wiki Culture in the U.S. Department of State Presented at Wikimania 2008 Office of eDiplomacy U.S. Department of State July 19, 2008

2. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE A State Department primer Basic roles Make and execute foreign policy Provide consular and passport services Manage official U.S. presence abroad 57,000+ employees worldwide 46,000 unclassified network users Africa (47) Europe (77) International Organizations (7) Western Hemisphere (49) Near East South Asia (36) East Asia & Pacific (43) … plus 30 Geographic, Policy and Management Bureaus and Independent Offices 2

3. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Legacies 18 th Century business model – highly autonomous business units (embassies and bureaus) Mid-20 th Century official communications system (telegraphic cables) Cold War security (need to know) 3

4. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE 1,800,000 cable messages a year 1,500,000,000 e-mail messages a year 500,000 printed volumes in the foreign affairs collection 1,000 public and internal web sites (give or take a few) A knowledge and information factory

5. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Office of eDiplomacy Created in 2002 as a task force, became a regular office in 2003 Promotes knowledge sharing Major projects include: Classified Web publishing from diplomatic posts Enterprise search Community blogs Diplopedia wiki

6. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Authorship within the Department Documents are already created by multiple authors Multiple editors change, or at least approve, documents Roles in cable drafting are defined by the Foreign Affairs Handbook

7. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Classic media: the diplomatic cable Cable (old) Cable (new) 7

8. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Social media and the State Department Social media are useful in State Department for several objectives… Knowledge management Collaboration Expertise location Sharing information Reaching new audiences

9. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE The Diplopedia plan Open it up to all State employees, but no anonymity Oversee, but dont overkill Make sure everything is informative and not ephemeral Wikis are two-thirds planning, and the rest is a leap in the dark. Napoleon Bonaparte

10. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE How it has developed Slow start for first several months, then interest grew Integrated with enterprise search Acceptance increased as Diplopedia grew in size and quality, and wikis seemed less scary No article is locked down (yet) No edit wars (yet) Hard to argue with success

11. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Things we werent expecting Mobile reading Biographies Trivia contests Interagency interest

12. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Diplopedia statistical snapshot 1,000 registered editors 4,400+ articles 650,000+ page views

13. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Ingredients for success Cultural change Marketing & training Governance Gardening

14. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Cultural change Room for collaborative technologies New culture emerging around wikis (and other collaborative technologies) out of the old one Drafting roles Grassroots technologies in a top-down organization

15. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Marketing & training Find the early adopters Provide training where necessary Tell lots of people about the wiki, or they wont use it or contribute to it Repeatedly explain why benefits (large) outweigh risks (small) Integrate with enterprise search

16. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Governance Central initiative and oversight with decentralized contribution of content Key tenets: Informative and deliberative, not authoritative General guidance for conduct and content Anyone can read but contributors must register eDiplomacy office director adjudicates disputes

17. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Gardening Gardeners help provide the right environment for content to grow Gardeners assist the growth of the wiki by organizing content Gardeners also help contributors with their articles, including scope and length

18. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Main Page

19. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Portal example

20. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Article example

21. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Related State Department projects Podcasts Web chats Instant messaging Second Life presence Recruiting through Facebook

22. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Wikis in other U.S. Federal agencies Department of Defense Intelligence community (Intellipedia) Other civilian agencies either creating them, or in the process

23. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Whats next for Diplopedia Classified Diplopedia Expanded use of portals Replacement of traditional web sites LDAP authentication More support from management (we hope)

24. U.S. D EPARTMENT of S TATE Contact Eric M. Johnson Team Lead, Knowledge Management Action Team Office of eDiplomacy, U.S. Department of State johnsonem3 /at symbol/ state.gov More information: eDiplomacy page on the State Department web site http://www.state.gov/m/irm/c23839.htm