Tag: public affairs

If a survey tells me that more Brazilians have a favorable view of the U.S. on the day that I am done here than they did on the day I arrived, I don’t care. I won’t take credit for that. Conversely, if we find that opinions have declined, don’t blame me. In either case, my effort is like tossing a bucket of water into the Pacific Ocean and expecting to be credited or blamed with next year’s weather conditions. Let me say plainly that I don’t think that our public affairs efforts can have a substantial and sustained effect on which country is most popular or favorability ratings, the kinds of things measured by surveys. Furthermore, I think measuring such things is nothing more than an expensive game, with results that are often not statistically valid and usually not substantively valid either.  

So, what good are we and why don’t I just go home?  I think we are very effective at improving things that really matter. We do lots of useful things that build specific relationships and create long-term cooperation and – yes – in the long-term more favorable attitudes generally. But the road to this bright happy region is poorly blazed and full of curves. If I am honest, I can almost never be sure that our efforts produced the good result and the bigger the result, the more uncertain.  

This makes perfect sense if you think about it for more than a minute. Our success almost always stems from effective partnerships. We attract partners by identifying mutual interests, shared values and common goals.  If we are good at partnership building, we will attract lots of helpers, all pulling in our direction, but doing so autonomously, using their own imagination, innovation and intelligence to get the job done. And if we are doing our jobs right, we cannot closely control this process.  If we try, to micromanage things we will lose the benefits of our partners’ innovation and imagination, and we often lose the partners too. Nobody likes people who boss them around. 

How do you measure who did what when the favorable outcome results from the synergy of so many partners, some of whom are not working directly with us, not to mention the effects of good luck (which you really cannot control) or good timing (which is a kind of luck you can influence)?  The further permutation is that the effort itself is complex. 

I make a big deal about drawing the distinction between something that is complicated and something that is complex. An old fashioned watch is complicated.  It has lots of parts that need to fit together and work together.  If one part stops working, the whole system stops working, but as long as you keep things working according to the plan and in good repair, you can expect precise results. Complexity adds that variable that the components change, evolve and adapt in relationship to each other. An ecosystem is complex. Complex systems are both more robust than complicated ones and less predictable. If you remove a key part in a complicated system, it stops working and if you add a new part, it is probably simply redundant. If you remove a key part in a complex system, the other parts adapt to the change. It may weaken the system OR it may strengthen it.  Sometimes subtracting effort is better than adding it. In a complex system, a new component will be integrated in and will not long remain redundant, as it would in a complicated system. 

All human systems are complex. Public affairs is more complex than many because of the dominance of people and forces outside the direct control of the public affairs professionals. In easy conditions, we could say we help manage an “external staff;” in most cases we are dealing with the ambiguity of not knowing who we are “managing.”  Measuring complicated systems is simple in theory if not always easy in practice.  If you identify the parts, they either work as they should or not. Complexity is harder because you cannot properly identify all the parts and they are in states of constant change and adaptation. 

Figuring out where our influence starts and ends is hard. I don’t want us to brag like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise, but I also don’t want to ignore our significant influence on events. 

In many things, our input is necessary but not sufficient. For example, I am morally certain that the 1080 secondary school teachers of English in the CAPL program would not be going had it not been for our active intervention.   But our Brazilian friends are paying for them, the State Secretaries of Education are choosing them, RELO identified schools,  Fulbright did much of the logistics, WHA did the paperwork for visas, our Consular sections actually did the visas quickly, IIE did the placements  and, of course, the teachers are going.  Speaking of complexity, all of us above have influenced each other and our program is very different – and better – than originally envisioned. 

Falling back on my habitual agricultural/forestry metaphors, who is responsible for the apple harvest?  Is it the person who picks the fruit, the one who sprays the flowers, the one who cares for the trees, the one who plants the trees, the one who identified the field for planting or maybe even the long gone beaver whose dam created the rich soil of the meadow?  Not all contributed equally, however, and some would be interchangeable, i.e. somebody else would or could have easily done it.  

Anyway, regarding credit taking and giving, I was thinking of a kind of reverse Bayesian approach, with conditional probabilities used for influence. For example, in the CAPL program, we (USG controlled people and resources) perhaps contributed 45% to the probability of success. As those teachers come back to Brazil and influence thousands or millions of Brazilians, our relative share of the credit will diminish as other factors play a bigger role, but as the total size of the influence is so much greater, ours will remain a growing contribution. We are in relation to the results what the guys who planted the apple trees are to the subsequent harvests. 

I am not really that fond of the Bayesian analysis in these cases, but it produces nice looking charts and graphs and it has numerical aspects that satisfy bean counters.  IMO,  we really are back to the ancient art of telling the story and making subjective judgments about our own role in success (or failure) and that of others.

My travel budget is cut. Luckily, I had already been taking steps to save money. We try hard to get the least expensive tickets, sometimes saving hundreds of dollars by going earlier or later and/or avoiding peak periods. On my last trip to São Paulo, I used Marriott points to pay for the hotel and I how have enough points on TAM to get a free trip next time I travel. But these can only count for so much. You have to stay about five times before you can get a free night, for example. Nobody can live off of this. We have to make serious cuts, consolidating trips and sometimes just not going.  It will impact our staffs around Brazil and I expect to sometimes be less popular than I otherwise would be when I have to say no. But I will still say yes most of the time, maybe with modifications.

I consider being places, boots on the ground, to be the essence of our work. Diplomats have to see and be seen. It has always been thus. Sometimes this is the whole task. When I was in Iraq, one of my most important jobs was to walk around in the villages and be seen. I worried a little when a police chief I had not yet met told me that he already knew who I was because my Anbar village walks were locally famous. I figured that if he knew it, so did the bad guys and it could be dangerous, but I trusted the Marines to keep me safe and they did. I think my walks did some good to calm the situation.  And they did help me develop and use my banana index.

Of course, you can learn a lot from secondary sources, i.e. books, internet, TV. Most of what anybody knows if from secondary sources, but I learned the hard way that you learn things by being places that you cannot easily measure and may discount. The mistake has to do with a persistent bias.  Once we learn something and integrate it into our knowledge base, we often think we knew it already.  That is why it is sometimes so hard to convince people that an idea is good but just as hard a short time later to convince them that they didn’t always believe this.

I was putting it in this context with my recent visit to São Paulo. I went there because I thought it was important for me personally to meet a delegation from NEA-F, get their perspective and give them ours.  Could I have done this at a distance?  Maybe.  But I think I have a much better feel for their perspective and they understand ours.  When I made related decisions later, I will be better informed. But there is more.

Besides the NEA-F meetings, I got a chance to have a long talk with some of my São Paulo Brazilian and American colleagues. They told me about some of their problems and aspirations. I am in daily contact with them via email etc. but I still learned some things AND showed my own personal commitment. They can tell when I am serious and what I might just let go and I get the same back.

Beyond that, I had some good meetings with people and institutions I would not have known.  For example, at Fernand Braudel Institute I learned about reading circles, which use the classics to bring marginalized kids into the mainstream.  I am not sure what I will do with that information and of course I could have read about it, but it is not the same. I also went to an environmental organization called Instituto Socio-Ambiental.  We used to have good relations with them, but we kind of drifted away.  My visit was a good pretext to come back.  And this visit shows the usefulness of connections.

I listened to them talk about their projects with indigenous people, quilombos and environmental restoration.  (A quilombo is a settlement originally of escaped slaves.  The 1988 Brazilian constitution granted such communities communal property rights similar to those of indigenous people.)  I thought of connections they might make with the U.S. Smithsonian came to mind, maybe because Smithsonian was so recently down in Brazil to set up connections. They saw what a great place Brazil really was.  People hear about this, but when they actually see it, it makes a big difference.  And I knew just who to call. I got an answer the same day.  It might be the start of a sustained institutional linkage that happened only because of boots on the ground.

Finally, I had a chance to meet with alumni of our youth programs and our youth council. They like to talk to us and it gives me a chance to hear what young Brazilians have to say.  Not surprisingly, they are interested in their future careers, but they also gave me something concrete to think about.  We talked a little about social media. They said that they and their friends were getting sick of Facebook because it was too uncontrolled. They use twitter more to communicate more precisely.  Facebook is a central part of our social media strategy; if it is going into decline we need to move to other platforms.  But that is another story. 

I have to figure out how to do more with less.  I think the way to do that is to go after the little things and the big ones, i.e. work those discounts I mentioned above but also identify the bigger money sinks.  I have found a few already.  It is the old 80/20 Pareto principle rule of thumb.  It is good to try to save the taxpayer money.  I have always tried to do that.  But I do also believe in the mission I am sent to accomplish and I don’t want to save my way into ineffectiveness.

I truly believe that this is a time of great leverage in U.S.-Brazil relationships, a golden opportunity, when Brazilian development has taken off to the extent that we really have a great field for cooperation but before conditions have stabilized. The connections I help foster today will link our great nations for a generation.  It is good work and it is important that I do it well. Brazil is an important country.  We have a lot of common interests, lots of areas of big win-win for everybody. I won’t lose sight of this in an effort to save a few dollars … but I will save a few dollars.  

My top picture is Ferdand Braudel Insitute. Below is ISA. They are both in nice areas of São Paulo called Higienopolis, the old Jewish section of the city. 

The thing that made the Brasília election night 2012 celebration different from previous ones was the large number of youth participants and their use of social media to reach beyond the physical limits of our event.  We made a special effort to reach out to young people, including bringing thirty-six members of our newly formed Ambassador’s Youth Council to Brasília to participate actively in the event.  The Youth Council includes representatives from all Brazil’s twenty-six states plus the Federal District. Their tasks included thing like updating the electoral map and mixing with other guests, but they also reached back to their home states all over Brazil via social media. Through them, the election excitement reached every state in this vast country, larger than the continental United States.

More than 300 guests confirmed and more than 400 actually showed up for the event hosted at Casa Thomas Jefferson, Brasília’s BNC.  Ambassador Thomas Shannon kicked off the event, talking about the stability of our Democracy and expressing the pleasure of being able to celebrate our democracy with people in a thriving democracy like Brazil.   Guests included local leaders, academics and business people, leavened by the large youth component mentioned above.  Our event featured the usual buttons, quizzes about the U.S. at the IRC, big screen TVs and the perennially popular opportunities for guests to get their pictures taken with cutouts of the candidate.  An exciting new feature was the green screen photos, where we photoshopped pictures of guests into action scenes of related to the election.  Lines to have pictures taken and photoshopped persisted throughout the event.  These pictures are uploaded onto our social media sites for participants to download by becoming electronic friends.

The peak time for the celebration was around 11pm Brasília time (8pm EST), when the place was so crowded it was difficult to move.  We were very fortunate that it did not rain (this is the rainy season here in Brasília) and guests were able to spill out into the open patio areas.  A few people stayed until Ohio was called for President Obama.

Media coverage of the election is massive.  Of course, little of that was generated by our event.   However, major local media reported on our celebration and the local TV Globo affiliate kept a TV crew on site throughout, doing live interviews with the Ambassador and guests.  Members of the Youth Council reported live on their social media platforms, uploading commentary and video interviews with guests.

The basics haven’t changed.  You have to get out and meet people. When Emperor of Brazil Dom Pedro II went to the U.S. in 1876, he was doing public diplomacy.  Of course, he was a bigger deal than we are when we travel Brazil, but much was the same.  We were up in Petrópolis, where Dom Pedro had his summer place, to pick up notes and pictures from Dom Pedro’s trip to the U.S. 136 years ago.  It is still paying public diplomacy benefits.

Dom Pedro went for the great Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, celebrating the centennial of the United States.   It was the first world’s fair to be held in the U.S. and Dom Pedro was the only head of state to attend.  He also went all the way across the U.S. and back, in those days more of an adventure than it is today.  He made a good impression on American and you can see why.

BTW – Library of Congress has a really cool system and you can read old books on line. There is a contemporary book about Dom Pedro’s visit.  Check out this link. 

He was nearly a perfect diplomat in temperament, looks and behavior, a patrol of the arts and science.   Brazil has a constitutional monarchy, so Dom Pedro reined but didn’t really rule.  He was on the throne for 58 years and is credited to some extent with keeping Brazil a unified country.  It did not have to work out that way.  Spanish America broke up into many often hostile states.  Portuguese America, i.e. Brazil, could have done the same.  You can think of several possible separate nations and some like Rio Grande do Sul managed to declare and maintain independence for a while.

The Dom Pedro reined until overthrown by a coup d’état on 15 November 1889. It was strange.  Dom Pedro didn’t try to put it down and just left the country, commenting, “If it is so, it will be my retirement. I have worked too hard and I am tired. I will go rest then.”  I suppose after 58 years on the job he was ready for a change.

The picture at top shows the CG and Smithsonian receiving the Dom Pedro papers.  Among them was this concert program in the next picture.  The Emperor sponsored a concert of Brazilian music for American audiences.  Below is something going the other way.  It is a Chickering piano, made in Massachusetts. These were evidently among the best pianos made at the time. This one still works. Chickering was founded in 1823.  It was acquired by the American piano company in 1908 and the name was eventually used by Baldwin piano company which became a subsidiary of Gibson Guitars.  They stopped making pianos in the U.S. in 2008. It is sad when an old craft tradition ends.

Success in public affairs is not easy to measure. The paths of influence are indirect and effect may remain unknown for a long time and obvious never.  That is why I am faith-based.  I have faith that building contacts between the American people and the Brazilian people will result in sustainable understanding and cooperation. We do this with our support of educational exchanges, especially Science w/o Borders.  But man does not live by science alone.  Cultural ties can be long lasting and enriching to the lives of those touched.   But supporting culture seems a luxury and it is harder to justify.  IMO, the relationships count, whether we make them via science or music or anything else.   

Julliard, with the support of Consulate in São Paulo, has been working with Brazilians for several years through exchanges and contacts.  Now Julliard is considering opening a permanent presence in São Paulo, specifically working with a local instruction, Santa Marcelina Cultura that helps underprivileged youth.  It is indeed doing good, changing lives for the better, but that is not why we should support this kind of thing with our time and taxpayer money.  We are interested in the sustained connections and relationships it creates. 

I attended a party last night to support the Julliard connection.  The Consulate’s time and seed money is now bearing fruit.  This party was designed to create relationships of a different but related kind.  This was a fundraising to build support among the business community.  Our part is mostly done. Our job now is to provide what I would call diplomatic cover.  We show up at events which lends our prestige and imprimatur. This still makes a difference. It is very beneficial to us, since we can meet important people, see and be seen. But now the American and Brazilian nations will take up the activities and support. This kind of non-governmental support for the arts is relatively new in Brazil. Certainly there have long been patrons of the arts and other charities, but the spontaneous organization of what amounts to task forces to raise money and commit time is relatively new. 

A couple did the party in their home.  Two Julliard students dis a short performance.  The piano was more than 100 years old.  They played beautifully and obviously their love of music had enriched their lives.  Also obvious was the strength of the connection between the Americans and Brazilians created by the love of music.  This is a lasting and abiding bond.