Ladies and Gentlemen,
My name is Joel Harding, I have worked as an Information Operations (IO) professional for more than 15 years. I began my work in IO at the Pentagon and later worked for the US Army doing IO. After 9/11 I supported Special Operations and IO and later retired from the Army in 2003. Later I worked for defense contractors supporting Information Technology and Intelligence programs and IO programmatics. I worked for a not-for-profit trade association and was heavily engaged with IO at the most senior levels. I worked as an editor of a professional trade journal (the IO Journal) and organized conferences on Influence, Fighting Propaganda and all aspects of Information Operations. I now work for myself, and work with some very good people, advising and promoting them. I still promote evolution and change at all levels in the IO community. I help good people do a good job. My job, as I see it, is to make the people I work with, and for, successful.
On this blog I hope to highlight issues impacting the IO, Strategic Communication (SC) and Public Diplomacy (PD) communities, as well as all the supporting, supported and related fields. This is a huge field and I am only human, I hope I can help move this field forward. My ultimate goal is to encourage discussion, identify and enable common sense solutions and help us raise our voices in agreement.
I wish to thank Dr. Dan Kuehl for the use of his pet phrase "To Inform is to Influence". Dan is trusted friend and has done more than anyone I know to promote evolution in the IO community.
My name is Joel Harding, I have worked as an Information Operations (IO) professional for more than 15 years. I began my work in IO at the Pentagon and later worked for the US Army doing IO. After 9/11 I supported Special Operations and IO and later retired from the Army in 2003. Later I worked for defense contractors supporting Information Technology and Intelligence programs and IO programmatics. I worked for a not-for-profit trade association and was heavily engaged with IO at the most senior levels. I worked as an editor of a professional trade journal (the IO Journal) and organized conferences on Influence, Fighting Propaganda and all aspects of Information Operations. I now work for myself, and work with some very good people, advising and promoting them. I still promote evolution and change at all levels in the IO community. I help good people do a good job. My job, as I see it, is to make the people I work with, and for, successful.
On this blog I hope to highlight issues impacting the IO, Strategic Communication (SC) and Public Diplomacy (PD) communities, as well as all the supporting, supported and related fields. This is a huge field and I am only human, I hope I can help move this field forward. My ultimate goal is to encourage discussion, identify and enable common sense solutions and help us raise our voices in agreement.
I wish to thank Dr. Dan Kuehl for the use of his pet phrase "To Inform is to Influence". Dan is trusted friend and has done more than anyone I know to promote evolution in the IO community.
A dear friend of mine, Matt Armstrong, author of the blog MountainRunner.us, has put it on hold while he serves as the Executive Director of the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. His position gives him the incredible responsibility to help fix not only the Public Diplomacy process for the United States Government; hopefully he will also identify and assist other processes and programs meant to share information with people inside and outside the US. In my opinion what he does will also have a profound effect on US Strategic Communication and Information Operations efforts and programs. Matt is the progenitor for this blog, I hope to fill the void left when his blog went silent.
