Twitter Diplomacy: State Department 2.0

Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, is part of a new generation of diplomats using online tools such as Facebook and Twitter to get their message out.

In fact, these days, U.S. diplomats take a course in what one State Department official calls "21st century statecraft" before they head out to their assignments. "I tell all our ambassadors, remember, you only have one mouth but you have two ears, so use this as a way not just of communicating with the citizens of the country where you are serving, but also understanding the point of view of people who may not be sitting at a mahogany table inside the embassy," says Alec Ross, the State Department's senior adviser on innovation.