He’s nearly alone in senior leadership on this quest as his senior officers run for cover. The Admiral started his own blog, using blogger as the platform. It took off with great head speed for the first week, and then died off.

We speculate that he lost steam because he didn’t understand the technology his was using and how most in the world use social media. Right from the start there were complaints about his moderation of comments. It appeared (and appearance is everything) that only comments of praise for him and his efforts were published. Anything controversial was not.

To fill that gap we launched at the request of readers a commercial version of the Coast Guards official site, which we call http://www.iCommandant.com. On the commercial site, moderation is turned off, and free and open speech is turned on.

Jeff has done a great job articulating what he’s getting out of tweeting.

This simple notion, that you don’t keep doing something unless you’re getting something out of it is easy to understand in some cases, such as this one, but in applying it to other cases, for example, “Why do I keep getting in abusive relationships?” it becomes a very interesting query. Sometimes the answer is as frightening as, “I keep getting in them because it gives me the right to complain,” or “I feel loved when people try and help me when I’m in such relationships.”

So the point of that little digression is to say that the thing someone is getting out of continuing to do something might not be at all rational or healthy, but nonetheless, that is what they’re getting out of it. And they may have no inkling of what they’re getting out of something without some deep self-reflection, and when/if they ever find out what it is, they may be in total denial or disbelief over what that thing is.