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Hillary Clinton Launches E-Suggestion Box..'The Secretary is Listening'

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February 10, 2009 6:46 PM

ABC News' Kirit Radia reports:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has started a suggestion box on the State Department's internal intranet site called "The Sounding Board," which appears to be a message board where ideas can be raised and commented on. Ideas can also be emailed privately to the "Secretary's Suggestion Box."

Employees who open up the State Dept's intranet homepage are greeted with a graphic declaring "The Sounding Board, The Secretary is Listening." A similar space is in the works for USAID.

Oddly, the site, which appears to have been launched Monday, has not yet been announced internally and it seems very few employees here know it is up and running.

"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," Clinton wrote yesterday in an opening post, a screen shot of which was provided to ABC News.

"Ideas will be reviewed to determine their potential and will be presented to Department management for consideration and formal response. Secretary Clinton and other senior Department officials will consider both the initial proposal and the management response to determine if additional action is necessary," the site says.

"This is your space to start this conversation. Secretary Clinton is listening and wants to hear from you," it adds.

Secretary Clinton pledged to run a department that is open to new ideas during 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," she told the assembled.

Employees are encouraged to submit ideas (which can be done anonymously) about how to improve the department. "The Sounding Board is designed to solicit your ideas and suggestion for Department innovations and reform. The goal is to provide clear and well-defined proposals for review and action by Department management," according to the "Guidelines" section of the site, which is maintained by the Bureau of Information and Resource Management's Office of eDiplomacy.

What are they looking for? Ideas that have "enterprise-wide application," according to the same section. "Who will benefit? How will it improve overall performance? What savings with the Department or posts realize?"

Just before telling employees to avoid "gratuitous acronyms, jargon, and inside references" in posts to the site, it offers this clunky warning: "During this exciting time of change and innovation there are still existing challenges and obstacles. Remember -- it's good to think outside the box. But in a world composed of multiple boxes, one nestled inside another, it is important to check around and see why the box you want to bust out of is already re-taped on one side or another. This is the challenge."

"The Sounding Board is not a chat room, venting forum, or advice column," it continues. "It is a place to begin discussing solutions."

UPDATE: The State Department said on Wednesday that employees were in fact notified of The Sounding Board's launch on Saturday and again by email on Monday. "The secretary has already received a significant number of submissions," said spokesman Richard Aker.

February 10, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (25)

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Hillary should of turned down any appointment offered by that flea bag Obama.

Posted by: gar | Feb 10, 2009 7:06:30 PM

Hillary quit this job that Obama the dog has given you so you can have a chance to run for president next term. Obama is going to drag you along with America down with him then throw you under his bus

Posted by: hamlet | Feb 10, 2009 7:10:05 PM

Hooray! At least one competent person in the Obama administration. Hooray for Hillary!

Posted by: leighmcv | Feb 10, 2009 7:43:16 PM

Here's a comment...you're a bitch. Resign.

Posted by: Mike | Feb 10, 2009 7:56:57 PM

She could start by finding a way to let other countries know that Americans are not what they see in the more violent, sexually explicit movies made by Hollyweird.

Movies are often the only thing foreigners know about Americans and it's understandable they think we're immoral and violent.

Posted by: Peach | Feb 10, 2009 7:58:03 PM

Mike, that's not a way to treat a lady. Take it easy, brother.

Posted by: mtr2311 | Feb 10, 2009 9:15:00 PM

Hello Mrs. Clinton,
I wanted to offer my assistance to the American people suffering on losing their home. I did my own loan modification without having to go through scams that's going on out there taking advantage of people and family in distress. I feel their pain especially the families in the L.A area. Please direct me to whom I can contact or where to start to offer my assistance.
Thank you.

Posted by: Jecel Maniscalco | Feb 10, 2009 9:22:53 PM

So where is the link to the "E-Suggestion Box"?

I would love to make some suggestions.

Posted by: Dyna Chrome | Feb 10, 2009 9:30:21 PM

I love you Hillary. You should be our President!!!

Please run in 2012.....we NEED YOU!!

Posted by: Shawna | Feb 10, 2009 10:33:11 PM

Hillary, well at least any head of state will know that they are dealing with a liar.

Any snipers recently? Have they found the Justice Douglas impeachment files that she hid so that she could ignore the precedent of the candidate for impeachment having counsel? For which she was fired by her boss for her disregard of ethics?

Has she figured out how the Rose law firm billing records showed up in the Whitehouse residence?

Has she figured out how Vince Foster got shot in the head with his right hand, though he was left handed?

Posted by: Don Meaker | Feb 11, 2009 12:39:11 AM

Oh, it is Bill Clinton who is the dog, not Obama. Obama may be corrupt and may be unable to consider himself bound by anything he says, but he doesn't have a reputation as a philanderer so far as I have heard.

Posted by: Don Meaker | Feb 11, 2009 12:42:07 AM

hamlet, fear not. Hillary most certainly can run in 2012. My guess is she's already planning to -- whether on the lower half of the ticket or the upper depends on how things go over the next four years.

Posted by: arhooley | Feb 11, 2009 1:22:41 AM

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama’s chief Cabinet officer.

Since her designation:

• Vice President Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the Inauguration, could not but send a signal to Hillary that he would conduct foreign policy in the new administration, leaving Hillary in the role of backup.

• Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the Clinton years.

• Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), negotiator of the Irish Peace Accords, was appointed to be the administration’s point man on Arab-Israeli negotiations.

• Samantha Power, Obama’s former campaign aide, who once called Hillary a “MONSTER,” has been appointed to the National Security Council (NSC) as director of “multilateral affairs.”

• Gen. James L. Jones, Obama’s new national security adviser, has announced an expansion of the membership and role of the NSC. He pledges to eliminate “back channels” to the president and wants to grow the NSC’s role to accommodate the “dramatically different” challenges of the current world situation.

• Susan Rice, Obama’s new United Nations ambassador, INSISTED UPON AND GOT Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she will presumably also have the same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy adviser during the campaign.

So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton? Ambassador to Bill??

Posted by: Hillary is a Figurehead | Feb 11, 2009 9:22:59 AM

From the Washington Post:

--The first however-many days of Barack Obama's presidency have been a study in AMATEURISM.

Many suspected that Obama wasn't quite ready, but kept their fingers crossed. Optimistic disappointment is the new holding pattern.

What's missing from Obama's performance isn't the intelligence that voters acknowledged in electing him. It's the experience they tried to pretend didn't really matter. Experienced politicians, after all, got us into this mess.

Absent is maturity, that grown-up quality of leadership that is palpable when the real deal enters a room. There's a reason why elders are respected. They have something the rest of us don't have -- yet -- because we haven't lived long enough. We haven't made the really tough decisions, the ones that are often unpopular.

There's also a reason why it's lonely at the top. The view is better, but the summit isn't so much a mountaintop as a deserted city.

Obama wants too much to be liked. This isn't a character flaw. In fact his winning personality and likability have served him well through the years. Growing up in multiple cultures -- black and white, American and Indonesian -- he had to learn how to get along. By all accounts, he became easy company.—

Posted by: Gosh, Experience Does Matter | Feb 11, 2009 9:48:50 AM

THIS IS FUNNY--the Woman who had ALL the answers and was ready on DAY ONE!

Think this shows she needs to gather others' IDEAS to take them as her own--like she did in the primary--changed her slogan 60 plus times --!!!
Foggy Bottom is isolated but she is really out on a limb there!

Posted by: bink | Feb 11, 2009 12:23:14 PM

Wow! There are some sick people in this world. Go Figure!!

Posted by: Jay | Feb 11, 2009 1:04:51 PM

So in other words, she has no clue as to what she's doing. Hence needs to take "suggestions" on what to work on.

Posted by: Undone | Feb 11, 2009 3:46:12 PM

Go Hillary! Getting valuable input from your employees is a fabulous idea and a monumental state department precedent. Ignore the haters. Damn the torpedo's Hillary, full speed ahead!

Posted by: Sammie | Feb 11, 2009 4:00:49 PM

Hillary, you should have stayed in the Senate. You should have fought for Health Care. It looks like Obama through health care under the bus.
You should be our President. Our country is in a mess. We need you to lead on the domestic issues. We need your voice in the Senate now more than ever.

Posted by: basil | Feb 11, 2009 4:38:56 PM

Hillary, seriously, what are responsibilities as SOS. It just seems to me as though all of the power and authority has been given to others by the one who asked you to be SOS or is this something that YOU really wanted Be careful that you are not thrown "under the bus".

Posted by: Josephine | Feb 11, 2009 5:17:52 PM

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