The actual facts of this debate are well known and have already been established:
· Two Presidential administrations have canceled funding for the alternate engine for several years because they there is simply no military requirement for it.
· An alternate engine will add unnecessary cost to the F-35 the program not only through development, but also due to duplicative production lines, training operations, maintenance lines and much more.
· The Pratt & Whitney F135 Engine has accumulated more than 13,000 test hours, has delivered all but one test engine, will deliver the first production F135 in a few weeks and yesterday powered the F-35 through it first successful in-flight STOVL lift fan engagement.
· Add to all those facts that the F135 is built on the legacy of the proven F119 powering the F-22. The F119 has accumulated more than 125,000 test hours and is the most successful military fighter engine ever fielded.
· Congressionally mandated studies have concluded that an alternate engine will not lower cost or save taxpayer dollars.

But Ludo’s story is not about this debate, it’s about how our industry is using social media to tell our stories and convey our messages. Social media is still a relatively new forum for communications, particularly in the aerospace and defense industry. When we launched our campaign, there was little within the industry for us to benchmark against, but there are many industries outside aerospace and defense that use social media with tremendous success. The key challenge for us is to continue to provide all interested parties and audiences a forum where their voices can be heard in the conversation, This is why having a wide spectrum of tools in our campaign has been important. And you gave us some other great ideas, Ludo, for better interaction. Some people prefer to watch videos on YouTube rather then via the website. Others like to leave comments on Facebook instead of our blog. The more opportunities and outlets we have to educate and engage interested people, taxpayers and key decision makers in Washington D.C. about this issue, the more opportunities we can set the record straight and present the facts.

Thanks again for the great piece, Ludo. Analyses like this helps us to better understand and use these dynamic tools and presents another great forum for discussion.

- Erin Dick, Pratt & Whitney Military Engines Communications Manager

Our team really thought about this from a holistic communications perspective and as a result we considered the GEReports.com, F136.com, F136engine.com, @F136 Twitter feed, @GETech_Infra Twitter feed, and @GE_Reports Twitter feed all as primary channels for the discussion. We consciously skipped some other forms of social media like Facebook (which was largely an echo chamber) and used the @F136 feed as a semi-curator of content vs. Digg.

One thing we were very proud of – and you pointed this out – was that all of GE/RR’s content platforms are run by internal team members. We felt it was important given the very negative tone of the campaign that was launched against us that we wanted to be open and honest about who was posting. So you wouldn’t see a “GEBlogger” post or any fake postings in response to blogs or tweets. It was Jeff DeMarrais (or another named colleague like Rick Kennedy, George McClaren or Matt Benvie) from GE responding.

Last summer we watched the online attacks from pay-to-play watch dogs and our competition ramp up significantly, so we began our response strategy largely with a “fight the smears” approach, pointing out fact from fiction. As we found our audiences not only receptive to our participation in the conversation but looking for more, we engaged our employees and external partners.

The democratized social media forum allowed us to engage in debate (though, you rightly point out we could do more on the Web site), point out the misleading stories and the irony of being called wasteful when it wasn’t our program with a $2B overrun and a $100B monopoly!

We also tried to applaud others who were willing to engage and poke holes at misinformed rhetoric; and provided a broad audience with the government’s recognition (through GAO) that a long-term, annual competition for the JSF engines could save $20 billion based on the F-16 experience.

Great post, thanks for covering the topic.

- Jeff