Alec Ross, the State Department's first senior advisor for innovation, is leaving after nearly four years of spearheading the department's lunge into the twenty-first century...In a conversation with Mashable, Ross reflected upon helping to build what he and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton call "twenty-first century statecraft" and shared some advice for his successors.

While the the outcomes of revolutions across North Africa and the Middle East are far from certain, what is clear is that the world has seen historic changes that can be in part attributed to so-called connection technologies. After Ross announced on Twitter and Facebook that he would be leaving the State Department this month, we connected to discuss about his plans and reflections on his tenure.

Almost a decade after their emergence, Al-Qaeda's password-protected online forums continue to remain popular. Government officials in the U.S and elsewhere have spoken out against the message boards, which are used by jihadis to converse and distribute information, saying they serve as a recruiting tool for terrorists and have been used to incite violence against the West. But some U.S. intelligence officials have argued against their removal, saying they rely on them for intelligence gathering.

Today, e-diplomacy is growing on a huge scale and in many different areas, and the importance for diplomats to employ the tools of e-diplomacy is enormous. Diplomats are able to spread information and receive feedback from both the public and the international community, strengthen connections with foreign partners, as well as make communication within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs easy, practical, rapid and cost-saving.

When John Kerry took to Twitter on his first day as US secretary of state, he joined an army of diplomats using social media to reach out and connect directly with people around the world. “Exhilarating to walk into @StateDept today and get to work with remarkable team. Dad on mind! -JK,” Kerry wrote in his first personal tweet.

When John Kerry took to Twitter on his first day as US secretary of state, he joined an army of diplomats using social media to reach out and connect directly with people around the world. "Exhilarating to walk into @StateDept today and get to work with remarkable team. Dad on mind! -JK," Kerry wrote in his first personal tweet.

At the hub of public diplomacy in the western United States, here at CPD we were very busy last week. We started off with a workshop on Mexican Public Diplomacy and ended with a conference on International Broadcasting in the Social Media Era. Now you may be wondering what is the common thread, aside from public diplomacy, that links these two bookends of a week together.

The book is not a technical manual, or a list of what to do and not to do. It is rather a collection of information, anecdotes, and experiences. It recounts episodes involving foreign ministers and ambassadors, as well as their ways of interacting with the tool and exploring its great potential.