US embassy cable - 04STATE99654

UNCLAS STATE 099654 
 
SIPDIS 
 
PARIS FOR UNESCO   PARIS FOR USOECD   ROME FOR FODAG 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: AADP, AMGT, ECON, PREL, CMGT 
 
SUBJECT: NEW INITIATIVE OFFERS POSTS ASSISTANCE TO IMPROVE 
CONTENT ON CLASSIFIED HOMEPAGES 
 
FOR POL AND ECON ALSO 
 
DCMs PLEASE ENSURE WIDEST DISTRIBUTION OF THIS MESSAGE 
 
Assistance Program 
 
1. Over the next several months, the Department will 
provide assistance to as many as 30 posts to improve their 
classified web presence. The Department will pay for a 
cleared dependent to load post's hard-copy content; provide 
a scanner for capturing pictures and documents; and provide 
on-site training. This pilot effort aims to make publishing 
content to the embassy's classified homepage quicker and 
easier. Summary End 
 
2. Any post with an active classified homepage on the 
SIPRNet can participate in this program. Detailed 
information and a very brief online questionnaire can 
be found by clicking on the Net-Centric Diplomacy logo at 
 
www.state.sgov.gov/rm/irpcip/ 
 
on ClassNet. To be considered for participation, posts 
should complete the questionnaire by Monday, May 10. 
Please ensure that only one questionnaire is submitted 
per post. 
 
Details 
 
3. As posts maintaining SIPRNet homepages already know, 
the classified web is rapidly becoming an important way to 
share foreign policy information both inside the Department 
and with other U.S. Government agencies. The material that 
posts publish on your SIPRNet homepages is broadly and 
instantly available and can be easily found using Google 
and other search engines. Some embassy classified web 
pages are already well on their way to becoming key 
resources for policy makers. 
 
4. To encourage web-based information sharing across 
systems, the Department of Defense has launched an 
initiative dubbed "Horizontal Fusion." The Department of 
State has been selected to participate in this initiative 
and has been given funding to 1) increase the amount of 
data we publish on the classified web and 2) make that data 
more accessible to DOD knowledge management systems. More 
information on this program can be found on the Internet 
at: www.horizontalfusion.dod.mil. 
 
5. We are using Horizontal Fusion funding to improve web 
publishing of biographic files and reporting telegrams. 
Many posts have a large number of biographic files, but few 
find the time to publish more than a small fraction of them 
to the classified web. We are developing a utility that 
will allow a user at post to scan, tag, and publish the 
entire contents of a paper bio file to post's classified 
embassy homepage. Once the bio files are stored online, 
they will be easier to maintain, use, and search, and posts 
will be able to eliminate/minimize paper bio file holdings. 
 
6. Similarly, most posts have web-published only a small 
fraction of their reporting telegrams since doing so 
requires considerable clicking, cutting, and pasting. We 
are developing a way for a user at post to take a cable 
from CableXpress and publish it on the embassy's classified 
website with something approaching drag-and-drop ease. 
 
7. Both of these web-publishing tools will allow users to 
prepare files offline and then send them to the Washington- 
based server. We hope that this approach will speed up the 
web publishing process, particularly at posts with slow or 
unreliable connections. 
 
8. Minimize considered. 
POWELL