Guerrilla Diplomacy

In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is deeply conservative and actively hostile to the concept of nation branding because the concept of nation branding does not fit with the traditional professional training of career diplomats. It is obviously extremely difficult to develop a coherent and comprehensive nation branding strategy if a country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has no interest in it. This situation will probably change as a new generation of more communication-minded diplomats assumes responsibility within their respective Ministries of Foreign Affairs, but that process could take several years. One person that is helping to innovate and pioneer the ways of foreign ministries is Daryl Copeland. I believe he is very different from other diplomats because he is an outside the box thinker that knows what time it is. He has backpacked across the world where he got to intimately mingle with cultures and gain a potent international IQ which many diplomats lack. I personally believe that diplomats need to fathom the concept of nation branding as soon as possible because nation branding is here to stay and like it or not, many nations will be practitioners of it. Another thing I believe Diplomats need to be is more rugged. Far too many of them are ineffective because they don't get out there and experience the world first hand. They stay in their cars, hotels, conferences, and their offices. But rarely do they go out and experience the essence of the place where their posted. They need to have a higher sense of adventure, interest in cultures and unafraid to take risk. They can learn alot from journalists stationed in dangerous parts of the world, these people are in the heart of the danger and get to see first hand whats really going on, and as a result have the best insights. Perhaps they should take hostile environment training to ruggedify themselves instead of being softies stuck in their cars surrounded by a convoy of security that intimidates the public, hence, creating no meaningful engagement.
I had the pleasure to attend the book launch of guerrilla diplomacy by Daryl Copeland at the Munk Centre for International Studies in Toronto. Daryl talks about many issues relating to diplomacy and how foreign ministries are in a diar need to upgrade their way of thinking and operating on international relations. I highly recommend reading his book for a fresh and up to par perspective on international relations and plus he has a chapter on nation branding, Below is the link to the video of the book launch I attended.http://hosting.epresence.tv/MUNK/1/watch/124.aspx