Strategic communication

I am your host, Christopher Conway, Chief Philanthropy Officer and Executive Vice President

for Strategic Communications.

My guest on this episode of Life Science Lab is Dr. Victoria Cogger.

Vic is the founding executive director of the Sydney Biomedical Accelerator.

[swoosh] Each of us has our own unique communication signature.

What is your signature saying about you? My name's Matt Abrahams, and I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

[upbeat music] Today, I am excited to talk with Oliver Aust.

Consumers are getting a taste of what could come next in the form of already higher prices at the gas pump.

"What is driving up gas prices right now isn't just the price of oil," says David-- or Jeff Leonard, Vice President of Media and Strategic Communications at the National Association of Convenience Stores.

"It's the price of diesel.

The cost to get gas to the gas station is the driving factor behind the steady increase at the pump.

And that puts us in a position to provide a range of services to federal government clients.

Primarily, grounded around things that involve strategic communications.

And using that approach has really put us in a great position to branch out and to provide a full range of services for clients.

For those who don't know, what is strategic communications? What are we talking about there?

So strategic communications really allows an agency to tell its story to its audiences.

And I use the example of U.S. Central Command.

You know, within U.S. Central Command, we provide strategic communications that helps them with stakeholder engagement in the Mideast.

That engagement allows them to better communicate with Central Command's vital partners.

[swoosh] Arguing with yourself may be the best way to flourish.

My name's Matt Abrahams, and I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

[upbeat music] Today, I'm excited to speak with Martin Seligman.

Let's continue.

The following year, in 2011, DARPA funded a project called Social Media in Strategic Communication, SMISC, which ran until 2015.

The purpose of SMISC was to develop automated and semi-automated tools and techniques for the use of social media data.

One of the program's goals was to develop tools and techniques for detecting, classifying, measuring and tracking the formation and spread of memes, defined as ideas and concepts, and purposeful and deceptive messaging and misinformation.

The SMISC ran for four years, cost $50 million and published over 200 papers.

Subsequent DARPA projects that are not explicitly framed as memetic warfare but continue on the theme of online information and influence war include the 2021 Influence Campaign Awareness and Sensemaking Program in 2021 and various projects sponsored by the DARPA Information Innovation Office which are ongoing in 2024.

In 2016, meme warfare was brought back into the foreground of so-inclined military circles by Jeff Jazia, who authored a paper in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATO publication, Defence Strategic Communications, titled, It's Time to Embrace Mimetic Warfare.

Jazia wrote the paper in response to the extremely effective online strategies deployed by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS.

[swoosh] One of the benefits of communication is it allows us to demonstrate that we truly see other people.

[upbeat music] My name is Matt Abrahams, and I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

Today, I look forward to speaking with Claude Steele.