Gen. James Cartwright

General James Cartwright, the man in charge of America's nuclear arms, has a blog, according to a defense industry publication that summarized reports and commentary from military blogs. And he wants his sprawling command to read it and react directly to him, regardless of the chain of command. Few MarketingVOX readers can access it, but a big portion of Strategic Command can, a mixture of nuclear warhead wielding service branches including boomer sub crews, missile silo baby sitters and Air Force personnel charged with delivering their own little part of the end of the world.

The chief of StratCom told his senior non-commissioned officers, "When I post a question on my blog, I expect the person with the answer to post back. I do not expect the person with the answer to run it through you, your [officer in charge], the branch chief, the exec, the division chief and then get the garbled answer back before he or she posts it for me." Where most blogs in business and government have been geared around public relations, more and more are designed to help flatten management structures internally. As Cartwright, a four-star general, noted to his senior NCOs, "The Napoleonic Code and Netcentric Collaboration cannot exist in the same space and time."