Military History and New Social Media

Besides making history as the first service chief to be a guest on last month’s much discussed DOD Blogger’s Roundtable, Admiral Allen also became the first service chief to discuss the important relationship between military history and new social media. Here’s my question and Adm. Allen’s response:

Q: What role do you see new social media having in preserving, analyzing and interpreting coast guard history for both the Coast Guard and the American people?

ADM. ALLEN: Well, Jim, I think it’s got great, great application to make visible to a lot of people who don’t have access to Coast Guard history the very rich and cultural traditions of the Coast Guard. I’m a lifelong member ofthe Foundation for Coast Guard History. And I myself feel that there probably is not enough appreciation for our history nor ways for people to reach out and get it. And we need probably nontraditional ways to expose them to that. I think social media can provide a great way to do that. We have our traditional sites on the .mil domain. I think ultimately we’re going to have to go across the air gap and figure out a way to get more information out there with wider access to the American public. And we’re actively talking about how we can shift a lot of our content from .mil to .com, and I think that is a way forward.

How have you used or plan to use new social media tools to preserve our great CG history?