DUBAI --- Take a look at Barack Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo. It was beautifully written and radiated good intentions. The U.S. government relied heavily on new media tools to disseminate it throughout the Arab world and beyond. Arab opinion of Obama improved significantly; and then it dropped like a rock.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately on what influences us. Day to day we each have our routines and along the way are bombarded by images, messages, and endless information. But what breaks through the information overload and influences us? What captures our attention, our imagination and ultimately lodges itself in our memory? Maybe I’m paying closer attention to the details of everyday more acutely after reading Joe Nye’s latest book The Future of Power.

APDS Blogger: Carolina Sheinfeld

As part of my duties of outreach coordinator, since 2004 I participate at local forums hosted by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). In Los Angeles, USCIS conducts two regular monthly meetings: the Adjudications Information Forum (AIF) and the Naturalization Advisory Committee (NAC). Advocates attending these meetings are members of community-based, faith-based and ethnic-based organizations; ESL teachers; volunteers; members of expats associations and NGO employees like myself.

APDS Blogger: Emina Vukic

APDS Blogger: Emina Vukic

Apart from the Embassy in Hanoi, in Vietnam, Canada has been represented by the Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City since 1997. In light of the economic crisis facing the world, Public Affairs efforts have suffered significant budget cuts in most countries’ diplomatic offices, and Canada is no exception. Thus, Canada decided to focus on trade and education as the priorities in its official presence and efforts in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

I recently came across an article found in PDiN (Public Diplomacy in the News) with the headline “Public Diplomacy Done Right with School Meals” by writer William Lambers, author of Ending World Hunger: School Lunches for Kids Around the World. The article argues that the U.S. should look back to a successful era of U.S.

APDS Blogger: Zhaleh Boyd

Education and exchange have long been staples of U.S. public diplomacy efforts—longer even than the term ‘public diplomacy’ has been in use. Loyola University--Chicago (Loyola) has taken education and exchange diplomacy where no other foreign university has gone before: Vietnam.

As our attentions are increasingly focused on the Middle East, deficit reduction, spending and job creation…one issue that receives little attention but is inextricably linked to each of these critical issues is the mass privatization of American power. We are exploring this theme in my Corporate Diplomacy II course this spring, the inspiration of which came from the work of international relations scholar Allison Stanger, Director of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs at Middlebury.