I wrote last week about Colleen Graffy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, and her penchant for Twitter. She's using Twitter exactly how I think professionals should be using it: she mixes her message with personality. I praised her for trying a new form of communication, but when it comes to whether it is actually effective, I could only speculate.

Graffy's editorial in today's Washington Post provides actual evidence that Twittering makes her a better diplomat (emphasis added):

Communicating in this peppy, informal medium helped to personalize my visit and enhance my impact as a U.S. official. When I met with students at the University of Bucharest, and later with Moldovan bloggers, we were connected before I even arrived. One young Romanian student said: "We feel like we already know you -- you are not some intimidating government official. We feel comfortable talking with you."

For another opinion on Graffy, see this post by Ilan Berman, Vice President of The American Foreign Policy Council. Berman was initially skeptical but gave in after a flood of comments. It's completely fair and necessary for him to question the efficacy of Twitter as a diplomatic tool. But the only way we can answer that question is by trying it out. It sounds like Graffy's experiment is yielding some positive anecdotal evidence, which is reason enough to keep on experimenting.