Mapping the Great Beyond: Identifying Meaningful Networks in

32 MAPPING THE GREAT BEYOND
This need for coordination and a holistic approach to engaging
across departments, and with stakeholders outside government, was
also reemphasized by the White Oak Recommendations, which called
for greater coordination and a “quarterback” for PD to enforce and
facilitate this coordination. 47 These attempts at fostering coordination,
including the Carter Review in the U.K., focus predominantly on
bureaucratic responses to overcoming the silos, “organizational
stovepipes” or “departmental rivalry.” 48 An alternative, in line with
a holistic approach to stake-holder engagement, would be to take a
network based approach to understanding the use of resources and
the communities with which government engages. Information is one
of the keys to coordination with both government agencies and the
private sector. The ability to visualize this information and rapidly
identify opportunities for coordination provided by network analysis
has potential to multiply the impact of Public Diplomacy initiatives.
For years now the importance for an individual to engage in
networking to get ahead has been understood; the network is equally
important for organizations in their strategic decision making. The
alternative is that impact will continue to leak away through gaps in
an organization’s knowledge.
Humans huddle: The benefit of a networked approach
Knowing which groups you work with and with which
communities you engage is essential when preparing for an
information based future and when facing the challenges of the
21 st Century. 49 Mapping the network of communities with which
an organization has contact should form a central part of the wider
planning for Public Diplomacy and related communications. This
is ultimately because network mapping allows an organization to
easily see what resources, broadly conceived, it has available.
Humans huddle; we all live in networks and any data we receive,
from orders through a chain of command, to gossip, emails and social