360DigitalInfluence

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is headed to Trinidad and Tobago later this week to participate in the Summit of the Americas - a somewhat annual gathering of the 34 democratically elected leaders from the Western Hemisphere. In preparation for the meeting, the State Department has launched a Digital Town Hall microsite, allowing users to submit questions to be answered by Secretary Clinton live from the Dominican Republic on April 17th.

There’s kind of quirky thing about the Summit of Americas site: it uses Howcast to power much of the content. From the URL (townhall.howcast.com) to the “How Tos” section on the top nav, it’s clear the State Dept adopted the instructional video sharing site’s format for presenting much of the content.

Howcast is best known for its simple, informative style for how-to videos - from How to Paint a Portrait to How to Hang Hooks in Your Closet.  (I admit to using the site myself; remembering how to tie a necktie is not, as it turns out, like riding a bike.)

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I’m attending the Advanced Learning Institute’s Social Media and Government Conference and am listening to a great presentation from Stephen Miller from the U.S. Department of State. He’s been focusing alot on many of the internal and external communities that facilitate discussion from employees stationed around the world.

He recently gave an inside peek into the volume of the conversation going on inside the state department’s online communities. continue reading