Recently, on 3rd December 2015*,  the Twitter handle of Australian Navy Captain Mona Shindy was shutdown as Defence work towards a “synchronised social media communications strategy”. Clearly from her Twitter profile she had positioned herself an “official advisor” on Islamic issues.

Bernard Gaynor has been campaigning for @navyislamic op by Captain Mona Shindy-to be shut down. I 💜 seeing diversity in Navy. 😢 #auspol

— lydia_shelly (@lydia_shelly) December 23, 2015

The Navy official handle Tweeted her handle as recently as 1st December 2015* as reflected in the image below.

Below are the most Re-Tweeted Tweets off her handle.

..and the last month’s Tweets from her handle

MyPOV

As we stated yesterday, unfortunately, you can’t just turn the “publisher” switch on and expect operations and culture to change overnight. You must deploy a social business strategy to make this change successful and scalable – one that encompasses people, process and technology.

Defence needs to move from merely supporting agents and community building to supporting the development of a social media strategy. A key part is examining how social media links to the overall strategy, as well as the overall “technology architecture” of the Defence. In this way a formal “social architecture” becomes a piece of an overall digital architecture and “digital transformation” program rather than something hanging off the side. So ultimately this is no failing by Mona Shindy, but rather the failing of Defence to put in place the correct strategy [inclusive of systems, processes, skills & technology] to support the Defence digital and cultural transformation.

Perhaps it is time to bring the traditional skills of Defence digital transformation espoused by Peter Lawrence to the Social Media strategy and execution?