Focus: Strategic Communications leverages Army Story
Army News Service
Release Date: 3/3/2004
By Spc. Lorie Jewell
[Editor's note: This is the eighth in a series of weekly articles on the 17 Army focus areas.]WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 3, 2004) - A Soldier tucks a plastic card displaying the Soldier's Creed and the Army values into his wallet.
At a school career fair, students pick up a brochure that describes our Army at war, and how it remains relevant and ready while moving from the current to future force. An action-filled video plays on a television screen, showing the Army's new Stryker infantry carriers on the move.
A senior leader tells the Army story to an audience of executives at a corporate function; a young sergeant shares his take on force stabilization at the family dinner table.
A grandmother surfing the web clicks on the Army's web site to learn more about her granddaughter's new duty station.
From small, ordinary gestures and everyday conversations to eye-catching promotional materials and tactical speeches, strategic communications is the method by which the Army delivers its messages to those in and out of uniform. It's one of 17 focus areas Army leaders have developed as a means for strengthening efforts to win the Global War on Terrorism.
"It's about communicating to our audience what's going on in the Army, and explaining it terms or concepts people can understand, so that they can be a part of achieving the goal," said Col. Nelson McCouch, who heads the strategic communications division in Office of the Chief of Public Affairs. "They can't support something if they don't know anything about it."
For example, a Soldier may hear the term "force stabilization" and, having read about it in a post newspaper, may understand it in more simple terms as "my family and I will stay in one place for longer periods of time."
"Expeditionary mindset" could translate into "I'm ready to go anywhere you need me to go, at any time, because I know I am well trained and my family is well taken care of."
The role of OCPA's strategic communications is to develop and implement plans for getting internal and external media to support the Army's campaign plan with articles that explain what's going on, McCouch said.
There are two other 'legs' that support the effort to disseminate information - the Office of Congressional Legislative Liaison and the Office of Strategic Communications. OCLL's strategic communications team is responsible for making sure the Army's messages are delivered to legislators on the hill in a timely fashion, said Col. Wayne Sauer, who heads that office.
"The Army wants Congress to know what's going on so they can do something about it during the congressional cycle,'' Sauer said.
That involves working closely with congressional staffers. If legislators have questions on the Army budget, for example, OCLL makes sure they get answers. When newsworthy events happen - the Army's Comanche program being canceled, for instance - OCLL makes sure Congress knows about it before reading it in the newspaper, Sauer added.
"If they read something in the newspaper and the information doesn't match up, they already have our data on it," Sauer said.
In the Office of Strategic Communications, the mission to deliver the Army story is similar to OCPA. Whereas OCPA focuses informing Soldiers, family members and the public at large through the media, STRATCOM's audience is expanded to target senior Army leaders - active and retired - business and social executives, and academic and think-tank representatives.
"We are trying to instill a culture of engagement so that everyone at all levels tells the Army story the same way,'' said Patti Benner, STRATCOM director.
Benner's department works to develop long-term themes and messages, and how to deliver them over time periods that range from months to five years. OCPA focuses more on getting information out according to daily and weekly news cycles, McCouch said.
How messages are delivered by OSC falls to its outreach program, headed by Kay Stephenson. The program is tasked with building and strengthening relationships with national security decision makers or those with influence; the private sector and not-for-profit organizations; and academic institutions and communities. Its mission also involves providing information to the Army family.
Anyone who gets the Army message, understands it, supports it and passes it along, in essence becomes a partner with the Army, Benner and Stephenson said.
"We are arming our Army ambassadors,'' Benner said.
As technology continues to drive everyday life, the Internet proves to be a reliable tool for giving Soldiers, their families and friends, and the general public anything they could possibly want or need to know about the Army, where it's heading and how it plans on getting there, said Lt. Col. Mark Wiggins, director of the Army's Web page (www.army.mil) and senior leaders' page, accessible to select personnel through Army Knowledge Online. The web site operates under the STRATCOM umbrella.
"Whatever has been released to the public, it's on the Web site,'' Wiggins said. "It's the place all of our audiences come to read about the Army.''
Careful thought goes into how all of that information is presented. This is a nation at war, so the main stories and photos will reflect that, Wiggins said. The lead photo will have a Soldier in it. Every effort is made to portray the joint effort of the war. Wiggins is proud of the fact that there are links to each of the other service branches on the home page of the Web site.
The Army has had a presence on the Internet since 1995. The site was last overhauled in 2001, around the same time the "Army of One" brand was introduced. It averages just over 4 million hits a month from more than 140 countries, he said.
"We pay close attention to third-party evaluations and we are routinely ranked in the top 1,000 Web sites in the world,'' Wiggins said. "When you have a global audience, you can't help but be strategic.''
The ultimate success of strategic communications relies on all three departments working together to synchronize their efforts, officials said.
"The good news story in all of this is that with strategic communications, we have the methodology and plans to communicate to Army leaders, the Hill and the public what their Army is doing for America,'' Sauer said. "And that we're doing it in a very succinct and timely fashion."
(Editor's note: The Army's 17 immediate areas of focus include: The Soldier; The Bench; Combat Training Centers/Battle Command Training Program; Leader Development and Education; Army Aviation; Current to Future Force; The Network; Modularity; Active Component/Reserve Component Balance; Force Stabilization; Actionable Intelligence; Installations as Flagships; Authorities, Responsibilities, and Accountability; Resource Processes; Strategic Communications; Joint Expeditionary Army with a Campaign-quality Capability; and Logistics. To view a brief synopsis of each area, visit The Way Ahead.)
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