Strategic communication

The latest Principles of War seminar series featured John Rendon of the Rendon Group who spoke on the topic of strategic communication. This is an issue dear to my heart as a former PR man with a technology bent familiar with the monolithic industrial-age government department system and its lack of timely communication capability.

Rendon hits all the buzzwords mentioning tipping points, communities of interest, long tails, social networks, user-generated content, Blink, etc. Without getting bogged down in all the jargon the presentation remains interesting for an audience wider than just MountainRunner and yours truly. Rendon gives insight into the problems a modern-day government faces in an unpredictable news cycle, and highlights the dangers of not knowing how a diverse and asymmetric audience will receive your message. His speech is wide of scope and blasts through a slew a topics. His scenario of a cyber attack perpetrated on a sovereign country by a community of interest geographically located in America raises an interesting legal point related to the legality of the US invasion of Afghanistan: can a country claim the right of self defence if attacked by a group within a sovereign country? Rendon brings up a number of diverse issues, connecting them in interesting ways that will give you a new appreciation of the problems in “official” communication in the 21st century.