Adjutant General holds e-town hall

The Wisconsin National Guard's latest method to communicate with family members of deployed soldiers and airmen really clicked.

Brig. Gen. Donald Dunbar led what was dubbed an "e-town hall for families" Thursday, June 25 from the offices of the Joint Force Headquarters in Madison. As many as 60 family members took part in the roughly hour-long online chat, which ran the gamut from questions about equipment and redeployment to operational security concerns and care package ideas.

Dunbar was surrounded by five laptops and several other service members, who helped moderate the session and provide answers to questions. The tempo was quick as questions were posted and answers composed in real time.

"How are you holding up with the deployment?" Dunbar asked early in the session. "I know it can be very tough when your soldier/airman is deployed." One family member replied that technology allowed for greater opportunities to communicate, which was making this deployment easier to deal with.

The online town hall session is one of the methods the Wisconsin National Guard is using to communicate with internal and external audiences. The organization has also launched a new website, http://dma.wi.gov, that includes news and deployment updates as well as job postings and flag lowering announcements, and offers visitors the ability to subscribe to receive email or text messages when information is updated. The public affairs office also recently launched a Flickr photo sharing site, http://www.flickr.com/wiguardpics, and the Wisconsin Family Program hosts a private Flickr site, accessible by invitation only, that gives family members a safe place to share photos with other families and their soldier or airman.

According to Maj. Jackie Guthrie, public affairs director for the Wisconsin National Guard, social media tools such as online chats and Flickr are the methods by which many soldiers and airmen communicate today, and meeting them where they are talking is one way to ensure they are getting important information. "We continue to explore other social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and may launch sites in the future. Our goal is to maximize the use of technology to get messages to our audiences wherever they are and in the format that they prefer. These mediums also increase two-way communications so it's a win-win for everyone."