Blogs provide a platform for personal introspection and dialogue online, which many organizations and individuals - in business, advocacy organizations, think tanks, news agencies, and commentators - have learned to use with great value. Government entities and government officials are not generally mentioned in that group. In my discussions with government folks about blogging, there is both some fascination, and terror about blogs, as in "oh no, we could never do that..." It's a real loss, because online engagement, whether with blogs or other means, provide governments with an amazing opportunity to reach and connect with their larger populace in a truely democratic manner.

So it's interesting to see the UK's Ambassador to Afganistan, Sherard Cowper-Coles, blogging about his work there. He's providing a very human introspection into this amazing and important country. He's been blogging about two weeks, and his few posts are a mix of information about his travels and meetings, and also interesting tutorials into Afgan history - such as the resistance against the Soviets. He's also mixed in a few video blogs posts which he has put on YouTube, showing him speaking in what I think is a very genuine and a compelling manner, and also the achingly stark and beautiful Afgan countryside.

Foreign Policy magazine's blog comments on this:

Is it just PR? Of course. But Cowper-Coles proves that public diplomacy doesn't have to be limited to boring photo-ops and go-nowhere initiatives.

[ Related - on the topic of commentary about Afganistan, I'd recommend the book "The Places in Between" by Rory Stewart, who walk across Afganistan in winter (!), just months after the fall of the Taliban in 2002. His solo journey is quite an epic, though an unforgiving landscape and oftentimes inhospitable villages. I am not sure why, but his writing of his laser-like focus on completing the journey, and his description of the rather backwards and belligerent villagers he sometimes encountered left me slightly unsettled. But also better informed. ]


I'm going to be doing a survey of other government blogging efforts this Fall, so send me your favorites!