Paul is a former career diplomat & member of the Senior Executive Service. He previously was the State Department's COO for Public Diplomacy, overseeing 5000 people and a $1.5B budget.
Tradecraft
The Cynefin framework offers a diagnostic tool that helps leaders and teams recognize which type of challenge they face and select appropriate strategies for each context.
change management
The SCARF framework identifies five key domains that trigger either threat or reward responses in the brain during periods of change and transition.
First-hand review of Spain’s pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka—design, audience, programming, partnerships, and takeaways, with photos from the visit.
public diplomacy
The 28 core competencies for public diplomacy across five elements—policy, audiences, planning, management, and learning—to guide practitioner growth.
Tradecraft
What is a media tetrad or a McLuhan Tetrad?
Tradecraft
How developing PD Foundations at the State Department created a systematized diplomatic tradecraft and gave practitioners a unified framework for excellence.
Analysis
This post focuses on what makes a good Expo pavilion, introducing a simple analysis framework and then diving in with a favorite example from Expo Dubai 2020.
Technology
What are the best ways for modern diplomats to shape LLM prompts in ChatGPT, Claude, and other tools?
Tradecraft
Audience segmentation is the practice of dividing broad stakeholder groups into smaller, more homogeneous segments that can be engaged more effectively through targeted approaches.
Expo
Browse an index of Expo 2025 Osaka pavilion reviews—with a simple evaluation framework and links to detailed write-ups like Spain.
Technology
When should you use Claude projects, ChatGPT customGPTs, and ChatGPT projects? Differentiating is a key to your success.
Analysis
Making AI work for diplomats at the State Department requires challenging the culture that underlies the department’s siloed structure.