DIPLOMAT 2.0. TRADITION AND INNOVATION
Presented
at TEDx Trento (Italy) on “The Pulse
of Innovation” April 20th, 2013
You
may well ask yourself what innovation has to do with diplomats and why?
In
fact I am convinced that innovation is
at the heart of Diplomacy.
Many
believe that diplomats are more closely
associated with tradition than with innovation.
As
a career diplomat for many years I discovered that what a diplomat really is
and does are not well understood
It
is likely that for many of you the image of a diplomat has been formed from
novels, films or advertisements. Besides, you may have come across some of the
many quotations about diplomats and diplomacy that are not always flattering:
“A
diplomat is a man who thinks twice before he says nothing” (Edward Heath)
Or
“An
Ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth” (Henry
Wotton)
These
are just two of many sayings that try (and fail) to summarize a complex and
multi-faceted profession.
Maybe
the best way to explain what a diplomat does today is to briefly mention how it
all started.
By
the way you know that when somebody says briefly referred to history, you run
the risk to start from prehistoric times
In
fact diplomats started as a profession when the enemy understood that it was better to hear the messenger than to
eat it!
The
profession had evolved since then and continues to do so…
But
some diplomatic activities remains related to negotiations and this is part of
the image people have of diplomats. In addition there is the concept of
protocol (you know … official visits, receptions, cocktails).
But do diplomats spend all of
their time negotiating or going to official receptions?
Fortunately
not. I can tell you, from experience, that attending cocktails can be fun at
first and then when they become too frequent, they can be harmful to your feet
…. And your health! Ask also a diplomat’s spouse what they think of this aspect
of the profession where they are often also engaged…..
Anyway
there are many other activities and tasks that a modern diplomat has to perform
to represent his or her country, which constitutes the fundamental task of a
diplomat.
For
example, on top of negotiations and protocol, diplomats have to manage resources and manage information.
Managing information is not new but is one diplomatic activity that has greatly
changed in the last 20 years and the one most subject to innovation
Let
me give you a personal example about
this. In the early nineties I was posted to the Italian Embassy in Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania. It was my first diplomatic posting, the one that you never
forget over a lifetime you have to change city, house, habits every three or
four years….
During
my stay in Tanzania there was no Internet.
Therefore
in order to read the Italian newspapers I had to wait for the weekly diplomatic
pouch (a nice package with a diplomatic seal) bringing the previous week’s
newspapers … The only Radio programmes in Italian I could listen to were 3
minutes per day of Italian broadcasting for eastern Africa on short wave. And
no satellite TV was at that time available in Tanzania.
The
result was that it was not easy to be fully and promptly updated on what was
going on back home!
At
the same time at the Ministry, our headquarters, they were relying mostly on
our reports from Dar es Salaam, to know and understand what was going on in
Tanzania.
This
was the situation only 20 not 200 years ago!
Today
all of this has completely changed. There are large numbers of sources and the
information spreads at such speed that diplomats have had to completely change
the way they work.
Let
me give you another example to illustrate this changes and how we got to diplomat 2.0.
30-20
years ago – Diplomatic documents were usually transmitted using the
diplomatic pouch. For rapid messaging, but not documents, we used telexes.
Depending on the country it could take from days to weeks before the document
could reach headquarters.
20
- 10 years ago. We used faxes and you could hear strange noises when
transmitting documents. The distance was not anymore an element affecting
delivery time. Only the quality of telephone lines and the length of the
document could affect the transmission time. Still you needed five or 10
minutes for some documents to reach headquarters.
Today.
E-mail with attachments has become the main system to send documents. In few
seconds you can send dozens of pages. Few seconds, no excuse!
The
result is that expected reaction time has been being reduced to seconds. This is difficult and sometimes
dangerous because there is too little time to think. But that's the way it is
in all businesses and there is no difference for diplomats.
There
is no doubt that technological changes
are reshaping the nature of diplomatic work.
Since
the time available to react to an international crisis has been greatly reduced
and diplomats remain a prime point of
reference, they are always among the first who must be able to react also
in communication terms, when such a crisis (being it natural, political or
else) erupts.
But
can innovation completely replace the traditional role of a diplomat accredited
to a country to represent another country?
Twitter,
Facebook, Wikipedia and other have definitely changed working practices, but
cannot replace the value derived from the analysis of a situation and the
knowledge of a country and its people that an experienced diplomat can acquire.
So
information technologies represent an amazing opportunity for innovation by
diplomats, whose work relies so much on information and communication.
But
here is always a big risk round the corner: that of being controlled by technology rather than being in control.
To
avoid this risk learning and training
are vital. The challenge is to be able to determine which of the currently
available tools will be most relevant for the future of the profession.
As
director of the Istituto Diplomatico,
the training structure of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this issue
is particularly important to me and is reflected in current training
programmes.
As
a matter of fact any fast changing profession needs particular attention to
learning.
The
idea of lifelong learning is not new. What is new are the opportunities and the techniques that the Web offers to support
continuous learning. Webinars, video lessons, online modules are only a few
examples of easily available tools.
TED
Talks have become a very valuable tool for learning purposes.
But
the main challenge for exploiting these opportunities is the attitude of adult
learners, such as diplomats, who need continuous learning. Everybody is
convinced that learning is key for personal and professional development but
most people take the so-called NIMBY
attitude [Not In My Back Yard]: “learning is needed by everybody except me.
I do not have time for this.”
Would
you trust a doctor, graduated 20 or 30 years ago, who has not updated his
knowledge since then? The same could apply to diplomats. While the basics stay
the same, all the tools, the techniques, the world keeps moving. Like
medicines, new tools need to be tested, experimented and continuously adapted to
needs. That is why diplomats should continue to learn if they want to be able
to represent their respective countries effectively.
There
is another key issue when talking about teaching and learning in relation to
innovation.
All
diplomatic training institutions are striving
for resources. But this can be seen as an opportunity. In fact in this
context the possibility of sharing online training is a major opportunity to
keep the quality of training at an adequate level. In the case of diplomats
this is even more so. If you consider the fact that diplomats keep changing the
place where they work (and live) every four years, the possibility of sharing
training resources become even more relevant.
The
diplomat 2.0 needs to be familiar with social media tools to stay updated and
properly informed. He has to be smart
enough to reconcile public diplomacy with discretion, transparency and respect
for privacy.
If
we take twitter as an example. The
diplomat 2.0 follows people and institutions on twitter that he considers the
best providers for the information that he needs to process for his or her
analysis and reports. Finding the right and reliable sources is a skill that
needs to be developed.
Twitter diplomacy or
twiplomacy as
it is sometimes known, can hardly be considered as a replacement for
traditional diplomacy. But certainly it can be a valid help for diplomacy to be
more efficient, more engaging and more inclusive.
The
number of heads of State, of Foreign Ministers or Head of International
Organizations who tweet is constantly increasing. Twitter is sometimes used to
provide information to the public or the press replacing or even anticipating
the traditional press communiqué. Many Ambassadors are on twitter.
This
map of AFP shows all the global embassies the US is in touch with on Twitter.
Clicking on any of them it is possible to visualize the latest relevant tweets
between the two countries, and learn more about the mood of the social media
sphere.
Can
we say that twitter or other social media are replacing the traditional
diplomacy? certainly not. But we can definitely say that diplomats cannot ignore (and are not doing so) twitter (and other
social media) for their activities. And they are learning it quickly!
The
diplomat 2.0 will continue to be an extremely versatile professional with good
traditional manners and emotional intelligence to defend national interest
while acting for a peaceful world.
Diplomats
have to be able to mix elements of tradition and of innovation in the proper
way.
It
is like a cook. If you have two cooks who work with the same ingredients. If
the cook is a good one, he will be able to get from those ingredients a very
nice dish. If he is a bad cook, even with the same ingredients, he will not get
a good plate.
It
is the same for diplomats. They should find a way to mix properly the ingredients
of tradition and of innovation.
Diplomats are one of the best
examples of how tradition and innovation can be a winning mix. The more diplomats will be
able to master this mix, the more their work will be effective.
All
original illustrations by Diplofoundation