Comments on: The value of social software: More help from unexpected quarters http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/09/09/the-value-of-social-software-more-help-from-unexpected-quarters/ a blog about information Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:42:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: shloky.com » Blog Archive » Ross Mayfield And The Company http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/09/09/the-value-of-social-software-more-help-from-unexpected-quarters/comment-page-1/#comment-9843 shloky.com » Blog Archive » Ross Mayfield And The Company Mon, 02 Oct 2006 17:05:36 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/09/09/the-value-of-social-software-more-help-from-unexpected-quarters/#comment-9843 [...] Mayfield discussed blogs and wikis with the CIA - and has some mildly interesting stuff to say - The agency perhaps has the greatest to gain from adopting social software, but also has the greatest hard coded structural barriers (need to know) and a culture that reprimands against participation.  Nevertheless, an Intellipedia and blogging at all levels in the organization is burgeoning.  There is a shared understanding that these tools, with the right practices and change in culture could transform intelligence from a manufacturing model that delivers reports to a complex adaptive system where intelligence is a conversation with decision makers, an inherently counter spin. …See Calvin Andrus' "The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community." Also see posts by Eugene Kim, David Wienberger, JP and Mark Ohlert and Jay Cross… [...] [...] Mayfield discussed blogs and wikis with the CIA – and has some mildly interesting stuff to say – The agency perhaps has the greatest to gain from adopting social software, but also has the greatest hard coded structural barriers (need to know) and a culture that reprimands against participation.  Nevertheless, an Intellipedia and blogging at all levels in the organization is burgeoning.  There is a shared understanding that these tools, with the right practices and change in culture could transform intelligence from a manufacturing model that delivers reports to a complex adaptive system where intelligence is a conversation with decision makers, an inherently counter spin. …See Calvin Andrus’ “The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community.” Also see posts by Eugene Kim, David Wienberger, JP and Mark Ohlert and Jay Cross… [...]

]]> By: Stephen Smoliar http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/09/09/the-value-of-social-software-more-help-from-unexpected-quarters/comment-page-1/#comment-7281 Stephen Smoliar Sun, 10 Sep 2006 15:47:33 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/09/09/the-value-of-social-software-more-help-from-unexpected-quarters/#comment-7281 I have not met Andrus; but, as a result of a project I was involved with last year (which did not require any of its members having a Security Clearance), I had the opportunity to meet and talk with some very bright people in the CIA. These people are "intelligence analysts;" and their sense of the subtleties of interpretation is probably sharper than any literature professor I know. The first of these analysts I met actually ran into me while I was scanning in a copy of Gibbon for some experiments we were running in an area we were calling "productive reading." After bouncing around between Gibbon and Homer, we moved into the twentieth century and discovered that we both saw great value in the Neustad-May book THINKING IN TIME. Then I gave him a lead to a paper he had never encountered, which was a study of the role of reading in politicial decision-making in Elizabethan England. This is not the sort of conversation you generally have in an IT setting, even in the research division! So much for the good news. In case you have not heard, the intelligence analysts have taken most of the heat from the White House, first for failing to "connect the dots" before 9/11 (a myth that is now blown out of the water but that Bush supporters now are trying to perpetuate with the assistance of Disney) and then for not telling the White House what it wanted to hear about Iraq (connections to weapons of mass destruction and Al-Qaeda). There has even been talk of cutting back on the budget for the analysts and putting more money into field agents (perhaps under the assumption that the best way to win the War on Terror is to hire more James Bonds). This is my way of saying that Andrus is a very smart guy. Even if I am not familiar with him, specifically, I know enough about the company he keeps to know that he covers more ground than that between Adam Smith and Steven Johnson. My guess is that you could tap him on the pre-Socratics and probably has a pretty interesting set of RSS feeds. Unfortunately, his is still a voice in the wilderness; and, even more unfortunately, it is a wilderness that his own employer has made. By the way, if you are interested, there is a whole text on intelligence analysis on the CIA Web site. I met the author, and he is another very smart guy. He does not talk specifically about social software, but it is clear from the text that the best analysis arises from intense engagement with other analysts! I have not met Andrus; but, as a result of a project I was involved with last year (which did not require any of its members having a Security Clearance), I had the opportunity to meet and talk with some very bright people in the CIA. These people are “intelligence analysts;” and their sense of the subtleties of interpretation is probably sharper than any literature professor I know. The first of these analysts I met actually ran into me while I was scanning in a copy of Gibbon for some experiments we were running in an area we were calling “productive reading.” After bouncing around between Gibbon and Homer, we moved into the twentieth century and discovered that we both saw great value in the Neustad-May book THINKING IN TIME. Then I gave him a lead to a paper he had never encountered, which was a study of the role of reading in politicial decision-making in Elizabethan England. This is not the sort of conversation you generally have in an IT setting, even in the research division!

So much for the good news. In case you have not heard, the intelligence analysts have taken most of the heat from the White House, first for failing to “connect the dots” before 9/11 (a myth that is now blown out of the water but that Bush supporters now are trying to perpetuate with the assistance of Disney) and then for not telling the White House what it wanted to hear about Iraq (connections to weapons of mass destruction and Al-Qaeda). There has even been talk of cutting back on the budget for the analysts and putting more money into field agents (perhaps under the assumption that the best way to win the War on Terror is to hire more James Bonds).

This is my way of saying that Andrus is a very smart guy. Even if I am not familiar with him, specifically, I know enough about the company he keeps to know that he covers more ground than that between Adam Smith and Steven Johnson. My guess is that you could tap him on the pre-Socratics and probably has a pretty interesting set of RSS feeds. Unfortunately, his is still a voice in the wilderness; and, even more unfortunately, it is a wilderness that his own employer has made.

By the way, if you are interested, there is a whole text on intelligence analysis on the CIA Web site. I met the author, and he is another very smart guy. He does not talk specifically about social software, but it is clear from the text that the best analysis arises from intense engagement with other analysts!

]]> By: Don Marti http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/09/09/the-value-of-social-software-more-help-from-unexpected-quarters/comment-page-1/#comment-7225 Don Marti Sun, 10 Sep 2006 01:19:48 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/09/09/the-value-of-social-software-more-help-from-unexpected-quarters/#comment-7225 Social software in the Army, introduced by company commanders, later brought into the system: http://companycommand.army.mil/about.htm#4 http://www.fcw.com/article95271-07-17-06-Print&printLayout (Sounds like a social software adoption story from a large company.) The Bad Guys use social software too, and disrupting the adversary's communications is key. Should the DoD be enlisting the Slashdot trolls and sending them to the Defense Language Institute? Social software in the Army, introduced by company commanders, later brought into the system:
http://companycommand.army.mil/about.htm#4
http://www.fcw.com/article95271-07-17-06-Print&printLayout

(Sounds like a social software adoption story from a large company.)

The Bad Guys use social software too, and disrupting the adversary’s communications is key. Should the DoD be enlisting the Slashdot trolls and sending them to the Defense Language Institute?

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