By: Kristen Trojan

The United States Army is opening up the communication lines with the world with unfiltered solider blogs, Twitter, interactive web experiences and many more.  Army Strong also has an iPhone app. Their website, Army Strong, features blogs and stories about their everyday life experiences. It is an open platform, so anyone can blog – any solider, family member or friend. They just have to sign up, and 24 hours later, can begin blogging on Army Strong . Soldiers have blogged from 25 countries, more than 60 occupations and more than 20 ranks, which provides readers a wide variety of information and perspectives.  The goals of Army Strong is to help keep soldiers connected to one another as well as to their family friends and to give potential recruits access to serving military members.

“Social media is all about the conversations. The conversation has to be authentic. It doesn’t get more authentic than a solider sitting in his hooch in Iraq or Afghanistan telling you what he’s doing that day,” said Major Benjamin Grimes in an interview with C.C. Chapman.

The members on the panel, feature military personnel and a civilian, will discuss how this program was established. Depending on March deployments, there may also be a live stream from Afghanistan/Iraq. Questions that will be answered include:

1.    How does the Army deal with restrictions and security guidelines as it implements social media?
2.    How does the shift in user behavior among high school students impact military recruiting in the year 2012?
3.    When deployed, how do Soldiers use social media to connect with family and friends?
4.    In a time of war, how can the military use social media to connect with the American public?
5.    Which emerging technologies and interactive innovations will shape the Army of 2012? 2022?