As a well-regarded ambassador once explained early in my foreign service career, diplomacy is about persuading people to do what you want them to do; it’s not about getting along and mouthing pleasantries. The danger with many “celebrity ambassadors” is that they do not understand the distinction and often arrive on their self-appointed mission with no plan for follow through and little conception of the overall complexity of the situation.

The fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones has long enthralled movie audiences, taking on assorted villains in quests to find mythical treasures, with some limited help from the government. Minus any bullwhips, the real-life U.S. State Department works with other federal departments in a journey to protect important archaeological sites and ancient treasures in the face of conflict, according to professional archaeologists Morag Kersel and Christina Luke in their new book "U.S. Cultural Diplomacy and Archaeology: Soft Power, Hard Heritage" (Routledge, 2012).

In a much anticipated performance, The Spectrum Dance Theatre will be performing in Sri Lanka this week. ‘An Evening of Excerpts from Repertory by Donald Byrd’ is presented by the American Centre in Colombo together with Dance Motion USA and will include a selection of five among the company’s most impressive dance creations. “The pieces provide a broad overview of one aspect of the Donald Byrd/ Spectrum Dance theatre aesthetic, its physicality,” the group’s Artistic Director, Donald Byrd, told the Sunday Times in an email ahead of the performance.

With temperatures in the 70s, over 150 participants, including Ambassador Robert Patterson, toed the starting line of the U.S. Embassy Ashgabat Turkmenistan Dick's Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon First Wave run on Sunday, March 17, 2013.

The United States looks forward to timely, free and fair elections in Pakistan that will mark the country's first civilian-to-civilian democratic transition, the State Department said. "As you know, the Pakistani parliament is planning to complete its term tomorrow (Saturday). We look forward to timely, free and fair elections that'll result in the first civilian, democratic transition in Pakistan's history," Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.

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. In less than 140 characters, the new US top diplomat instantly signaled he intended to carry on and deepen a commitment to using social media begun under his predecessor Hillary Clinton.

Most North Koreans can’t access the Internet, and only foreigners can use the country’s brand-new 3G cellular network. But the country has still developed its own rudimentary social network — which you can now see for yourself, thanks to a SXSW panel the Associated Press’s Jean Lee gave this weekend.

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.