Neat Idea: Navyformoms.com

Visit Navy For Moms


In the last week, after walking off the 7 into Grand Central, I've seen a series of terriffic billboards touting www.NavyForMoms.com (I'll see if I can get some pictures). Later in the week, there were volunteers handing out postcards highlighting the site. While I don't think that this initiative is going to drive Navy recruiting through the roof, I realy like the concept and think it can only help.

As a former Ops Officer at the Albuquerque MEPS, I saw firsthand how hard recruiters work and the challenges the military faces in pitching the service to civilians (and by extension, parents of civilians). To help bridge this knowledge gap, the site has message boards to share information--there are common challenges that all military parents face--and room for blogs and online groups.

I enjoy the Navyformoms.com feature that provides some neat widgets (see above and below) you can download for Facebook or even your blog (like www.morganobrien.com !) and in that vein, I love how the Armed Forces are venturing into Web 2.0 and taking some chances with the Web.

(Although the Air Force's half-hearted, dip-the-toe-in-the-water ventures with their youtube.com/Airforcebluetube and official blog fall unfortunately fall way short of 'excellence in all we do'. The AF let's 22-year-olds fly F-15s, they shouldn't worry about Airmen use the Web.)

I know my parents didn't have any military experience before we joined and I've met my fair share of parents that are hesitant about sending their kids into a war-time military without fully understanding the warrior culture. Kudos to the Navy for scratching this itch. I'll be interested to see if it takes off--they're at 5,000 and counting--it was certainly worth trying.


Find more photos like this on Navy For Moms