Ask the Secretary!

The State Department website, www.state.gov, has just launched a new feature where you can send in questions to Secretary Clinton and as she travels she will select various questions to answer and they will be posted to the website.

You can submit questions now about her trip to Asia now February, 15-22, 2009 here!

Similarly, the internal State Department website has launched a suggestion box called "The Sounding Board," which is a message board where ideas can be raised and commented on. Ideas can also be emailed privately to the "Secretary's Suggestion Box." ABC News claims that employees who open up the State Dept's intranet homepage are greeted with a graphic declaring "The Sounding Board, The Secretary is Listening."

"The Sounding Board is a place where I hope we can all engage in sharing creative and collaborative ideas to make our agency smarter, more efficient, and more effective. This is your space to start this conversation. Secretary Clinton is listening and wants to hear from you," Clinton wrote yesterday in an opening post.

This ideas comes after Secretary Clinton pledged to run a department that is open to new ideas during her remarks to employees when she first entered the department's Foggy Bottom headquarters as Secretary of State; An idea that was met with "whoops of approval."

Clinton hinted at the site's creation during a Town Hall meeting with employees last week. "I want and need to hear from you, and that is not an idle invitation but an urgent request. We want to continue the dialogue we’re beginning today, and in fact, we’re creating a space on the Intranet website for you to generate your own ideas and engage in conversations with the whole Department."