Rahaf Harfoush

This is the second part of a series I’m working on that is tracking the unfolding Gaza/Israel military conflict from a New Media perspective.  You can see Part 1: Conflict in a Connected Age here.

Twitter was really a major driver for me during this event for several reasons:

1. It helped me stay completely up-to-date on breaking news and follow developing situations
2. It gave me access to people who were actually THERE in both sides, before the press could report.
3. It captured real moments and gave an indication to just what was going on
4. It allowed me to engage in conversation with people from both sides of the conflict from all over the world.

I’m going to talk about these points in detail below, but before we get started just what the heck is Twitter?

1. Staying Updated on Breaking News - Hashtags

Hashtags are words that people can attach to their messages, called tweets, that help aggregate and organize content so that users can quickly search and find messages about a particular topic. During the past four days several hashtags have been used to help the discussion for example:

#gaza

#askisrael

#israel

2. People who where there:

I met people like @gazanews who was updating on Israeli target strikes, while @Qassamcount shared where rockets were landing in Israel. (Part three will have a more comprehensive list of people to follow)

3. Moments captured from all over:

Users were sending in mobile pics from everywhere including this one from a hospital:

4. Conversations Back at Home

Thanks to the Hashtags, I met a lot of people who had wide and varied opinions on what was going on. Some of us started on completely opposite sides of the issue:

And then all of a sudden, we became two people having a conversation, and wouldn’t you know it a friendship was born:

Even MORE interesting, was that the Israel Consulate, in a Twitter First, held a “citizen” press conference where it answered people’s questions between 1 and 3pm EST. I for one, was full of them, and I did get one answer about their definition of terrorism:

Users were asked to tag their questions with #askisrael and the conversation can be seen below:

They were a little overwhelmed with questions and so wisely decided to answer all questions on a blog post that will be released in a few days. I thought this made a lot more sense because the overflow made the thread hard to follow, and people were getting a bit frustrated that their questions weren’t being answered or that the consulate was picking and choosing questions. I think the blog post will alleviate those feelings since everyone’s question (the reasonable ones) will hopefully get answered. We can also see the foundation of social media in official roles within government. Eventually, there will probably have to be a dedicated person whose job it is to engage and answer questions. Awesome.

This conversation is great to see on Twitter, it shows the potential of what can happen when government engages with people, ushering in a new era of transparency and accountability. All in all, great first steps were made today.

UPDATE: First round of the Q&A are up and can be found here.

With everything that has been going on with the situation in Gaza, I thought this would be a good conversation starter because it deals with the responsibilities that come with having a superior military force. With all of our innovations, it is sad to see how far we have advanced in the art of destroying each other, it’s like we just keep getting better at it.

Why You Should Watch:

In his book The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century, Barnett draws on a fascinating combination of economic, political and cultural factors to predict and explain the nature of modern warfare. He presents concrete, world-changing strategies for transforming the US military — adrift in the aftermath of the Cold War and 9/11 — into a two-tiered power capable not only of winning battles, but of promoting and preserving international peace.

Thomas has been a senior adviser to military and civilian leaders in a range of offices, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, Central Command and Special Operations Command. During the tumultuous period from November 2001 to June 2003, he advised the Pentagon on transforming military capabilities to meet future threats. He led the five-year NewRuleSet.Project, which studied how globalization is transforming warfare. The study found, among other things, that when a country’s per-capita income rises above ~$3,000, war becomes much less likely.

My Favorite Part:

I have to say that I love that he is talking about war, and using the most girly transition noise for his slides. It took me aback the first time I heard it and I wondered if it was another gadget in my house making that little tinkle noise, lol.

My Take:

I am intrigued by his idea of reforming into two groups:a Leviathan force, a small group of young and fierce soldiers capable of swift and immediate victories; and an internationally supported network of System Administrators, an older, wiser, more diverse organization that actually has the diplomacy and power it takes to build and maintain peace.

I also think it’s really informative to see his perspective on the limitations on the existing bodies such as the UN.

I would love to see the world’s resources pitted towards peace.

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday! This is just a quick post in between the longer ones that I’m drafting for the New Year. I wanted make sure you had seen the CommandN Holiday Special produced by my good friends from MGI Media, AmberMac , Chris Dick, Jeff MacArthur and the CommandN team, Will Pate and Mikey!

This special episode also features cameos by Mark Kuzniki, Leila Boujnane and other friendly faces from the Toronto Tech Community.

I had a great time working on some episodes of CommandN this past year and am looking forward to the trouble I’m sure we’ll get into in 2009.

Hi all!
As 2008 draws to a close, I wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a warm and happy Holiday Season. I’m taking a few days off to spend time with family and friends, and so the posts will be a little lighter then usual.

Ted Tuesdays will resume next Tuesday, December 30th. I’ve got some great posts in the works about some of my favorite iPhone applications, some great twitter tools and some cool new sites that I’ve come across. I’ve also got news- lots of big, wonderful, amazing news that I just can’t wait to share!

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this incredible video that I’ve found of someone who can capture the holiday spirit far better than me!

There will be new content as of December 27th! Which is really only a few days away.

Come back and visit me soon!

xo

Foushy

ps: Regarding the video, I think it’s amazing, see if you can watch it without smiling! I see stuff like that and think to myself THIS is why I do what I do. Love it. Just love it.