Tuesday, August 3, 2010

The Military’s Expert on Social Media Answers Your Questions on Reddit.com

Sumit Agarwal, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (PA) for Outreach and Social Media, will answer questions on Reddit.com's "Ask Me Anything" series.

As a self-described geek and Internet aficionado, I arrived for my internship at the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Public Affairs office and was promptly placed on their New and Social Media team. I was aware that DoD had created policy on social media technology, but I had no idea there was a whole team dedicated to it, let alone a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Outreach and Social Media.

One of my assignments for the quarter was to find a way for DASD Sumit Agarwal and his team to create direct dialogue with the public and promote openness in government. And as a frequent poster on Reddit.com, I thought their “Ask Me Anything” series would fit the bill.

Reddit.com is an Internet community that is a hybrid between a message board and a social news aggregator. Their “Ask Me Anything” interview series showcases a public figure and has them take questions from the community.

Mr. Agarwal will film responses to the top ten questions on Friday, August 6, at 8am eastern, and we will make sure to post the responses on the Armed with Science blog.

Mr. Agarwal hopes that this interview series will continue his mission of using technology to create direct dialogues between the government and the people. As social media and communication technologies become more engrained in our daily lives, we are becoming keenly aware of how important it is for servicemembers and their families to take advantage of this power.

This is an opportunity for anyone to ask a top government official a question and have a good chance of getting it answered! This opportunity doesn’t come along very often, so I encourage you to go to Reddit.com, register your account, and ask him anything!

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