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PUBLIC
DIPLOMACY - Pamela H. Smith
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 CONCLUSION
Conclusion
I will return, in conclusion, to Dr. Fulton, for three summarizing recommendations on
what we all need to mount the effective public diplomacy campaigns and programs of the
future:
Bandwidth. We must persuade our foreign ministries to find and acquire sufficient
bandwidth to exchange information of all kinds between embassies and headquarters and
between embassies and the publics whom we are addressing in foreign countries.
Networking. We must establish complex networks of communication between publics and
officials at home and abroad, and the complexity of these networks must mirror the
complexity of the world in which we operate. There is such a thing as "Ashby’s
Law of Requisite Variety," which asserts - correctly I think - that no institution
can survive in an environment whose complexity exceeds its ability to communicate.
Intellectual capital. We must obtain the growth, training and expansion of knowledge
that diplomacy will need to be effective in an increasingly knowledge-based world. For
this point, I guess I will face no argument, because everyone at this seminar is doing
exactly what I recommend: seeking to expand the barriers of their thinking by bringing
different points of view and sources of information together.
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