I’ve gotten invited to the party by accident, I think. Name’s Chap. Nice to meet you all.
I looked through the good Admiral’s call for more professional writing the other day. That was in the August Proceedings issue. He mentions:
Let’s face it, sometimes mentors even advise people against publishing, because it is perceived as a “career risk.” Don’t be afraid—have the moral courage to vet your ideas responsibly and sensibly. In virtually every case of which I am aware, even the most controversial articles (and I’ve written my share) are respected as attempts to contribute and respected as such.
CAPT (ret.) Bill Toti, another sharp guy, responded with a “yes, but” in the same forum a couple of months later.
Having just finished reading Admiral James Stavridis’ article in the August 2008 issue of Proceedings, I felt compelled to follow his advice and write. Admiral Stavridis is a friend and a former mentor, so it won’t be surprising to learn that I agree with him about the merits of publishing. His admonishment to think great thoughts and be bold enough to share them, is right on target.
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However (and this is a big caveat), it is important that any prospective military author understand the very real risks associated with writing. It’s a fact that the prospective author’s military boss is still a human being, subject to the same human foibles as the rest of us.
Both articles have good points and are worth reading. I note that USNI actually has those articles available as links; I would argue that having both articles available on the net is a good thing and different from my experience of their past practice. I’d also note that the first article was published in August and the second in December…and that’s a heck of a long turnaround nowadays.
Blogging’s a lot faster, more visceral, more ephemeral. Its pitfalls are different from ones you may be used to in other venues.
Some Blog-Specific Pitfalls (updated below)
Blogging ain’t professional journal writing, unless you’re Steven den Beste, and even he’s left that gig due to the hassle. Blogging has its own tone, its own etiquette, and its own tolerance–or lack thereof—for foibles of behavior.
Occasionally a blogger can overcome a lapse and still do well. Back in ’03, a blog called the Agonist run by a fellow named Sean Kelley apparently got into trouble because his accurate, timely, exclusive reports on the war looked a lot like those sent out by STRATFOR for a fee (roundup here). The Agonist is still on line and with many more hits in a day than I would get all month. (Come to think of it, so is the New Republic and NYT, both with recent scandals of reportage.) With exceptions like the Agonist, blogging is a reputational enterprise and what you do when writing reflects on you whether you want it to or not. Due to the small pool of people who do what we do, our reputation is made in a much smaller environment than the Agonist’s and harder to repair even if the lapse is merely of politeness or tone rather than ethics. I’m assuming here you already know the common sense basics such as not plagiarizing, linking to sources, and acknowledging error quickly and clearly.
Here are some hints about how to keep yourself out of trouble on blogs. Consider the following an unpaid Professional Note, worth every penny.
- Yeah, It Really Involves A Network. This is a network of people. If you think of this less as NCW and more as “who you know” networking, then you get the idea. Blogs are the visible half of a communications path that also includes a hidden counterpart, email. Emails among bloggers, emailed tips or ideas, and people who email links to an interesting post build communities behind the scenes that support blogs and keep the ideas going. Communities form from good blogs, too. Popular blogs like Neptunus Lex build communities of people in the comments, in Lex’s case so well that a separate blog was spun off from the commenters. The formal and informal networks associated with a blog can make the blog richer and more interesting.(Email lists, by the way, can get sort of exclusive and can rankle. One political example was the Townhouse email list. Another exclusive list is the one mentioned in that August issue, the Warlord Loop. I’m not on either–I’m too small a fish, I guess.)
- Nobody knows who you are on the Internet, but they definitely can tell the back end of a horse. Remember how sending emails can be fraught with danger because the guy reading it doesn’t know your body language, can read the email many times and get madder and madder, and can take something you thought innocuous and get really upset? It’s like that. The immediacy of the medium allows intemperate language; the permanency of the medium makes ‘ohnoseconds‘ much more prevalent. Start by assuming that someone will read your comment or post and think about that horse and then rethink it from there.
- The immediacy and intimacy of the medium will seduce you into being a jerk. On my blog a while back, a guy I knew didn’t realize that his normal method of conversation translated into unpleasantness on screen. It got ugly and took a long time to resolve. In another case I saw, a blogger under the rose of anonymity called another serving writer’s fitness to command into question. That’s not kosher, even rhetorically, without thinking hard about it and making sure this is the right thing to do in public (hint: it isn’t). It’s like Heinlein said about arguments in marriage: if you ever find out you’re right, apologize immediately! If you think you shouldn’t publish it, then at the very least sit on the comment or the post for a day, and then be quick on the “discard” button if that’s more appropriate. Anonymity is fraught with danger–especially if you depend on it. It’s effective to protect your career if you’ve got hard truths that need spoken and have thought through why it’s important to be anonymous. Anonymity can also be really effective for being nasty, as seen the week Navy Times published an anonymous letter about CNO Boorda. Mixed bag, eh?
- Argument from authority doesn’t work so well on a blog. “I’m a big ol’ naval officer and I know more than you” doesn’t work for me on blogs and it shouldn’t. Take a tip from the blueshirts in Maneuvering on boats; respect is earned through knowing what you’re talking about. A closed mouth gathers no feet and all that.
- Nobody knows who you are on the Internet…but they will. There are unhinged people on the Internet with Google. The guy who slagged me on my own blog? Forgot about IP logging and wasn’t as anonymous as he thought he was. For the sinister, there are people with time on their hands to dig through records they shouldn’t–look at the news this last couple of months for plenty of examples–to figure out who you are. Publishing personal information is seen by some as a way to be mean to you. Be ready for it. It’s a network of people; this means people interacting in groups, which is politics. Politics ain’t beanbag.
- You can make a difference. My first Instalanche came by accident when I published an “interview” with a Blackwater contractor. Actually, what really happened is that I was on a flight with some dude and we talked story for a few hours and I posted some points about it that seemed interesting given the focus at the time on the company. Turns out that the information was not just valid but changed some people’s minds, and resulted in a better understanding among folks who might not otherwise have been inclined to understand.Another time, I played hooky from work and went to a meeting that was pretty interesting over at the US Institute of Peace. I typed up my notes from the public meeting (me scribbling furiously while the paid journalists recorded the thing) and published. Emails went around, and all of a sudden I’m getting inquiries and compliments from very senior guys in another service. Turns out that I had information that the service really needed, but they didn’t know, and those journalists didn’t know to focus on the things I did–or thought the meeting wasn’t important. If I can get results from something like that, then you can too.
More importantly, you may come to find that making change in an organization includes changing minds, getting people excited, stopping bad change (the defensive is to the offensive as three to one works pretty well in bureaucratic warfare too), and causing a culture change. Unless you write what change you want to see you may not have thought enough to articulate what it is you want; unless you publish that writing nobody will help you fix the weak spots in your thinking and carry the ball the next few yards. Milblogging had a strategic effect in 2004-2007. If you’re able to write–or able to begin writing–then maybe you should be doing so.
Otherwise, who’s going to guide what change we do get?
Update: How could I have forgotten this little gem? One important caveat for commenters: Don’t try to write things under your name and then under other names. That’s called having sockpuppets and is socially frowned upon. When you get outed, which will happen, people will laugh at you.
