by Charlie Edwards | Oct 9, 2008 | Conflict and security, Influence and networks, Off topic
I’ve just spent a day and half at a RUSI conference on resilience. Most of the sessions included some discussion about communication; either there still wasn’t much of it going on between key organisations or institutions were not making enough of new social media services in their effort to share information, collaborate and provide up-to-date briefs on unfolding emergencies. Twitter, is one of those new social media services – in a nutshell it’s a social networking and micro-blogging services. As far as I could tell David and I were the only people using Twitter during the conference (unlike the recent ODNI conference David went to, for example).
For those interested, here’s a short video explaining the power of twitter.
by Charlie Edwards | Oct 3, 2008 | UK
As news of Hutton’s new role as Defence Secretary travels across Politics Home, Twitter and email a few quick thoughts:
Next week John Hutton will face his first test as Defence Secretary when he walks down Whitehall to Parliament for a debate on Defence in the World. Given his new brief, politicians from across the floor may be gentle in their questions and speeches. Some people may even advise him that he should stay away and let Bob Ainsworth do the job. But this would be bad idea.
The MoD is not in a great place right now, morale is low, there is no strategic direction and people are exhausted. Unlike Browne, Hutton has to show commitment right from the start. On Sunday, having spoken to senior officials he should board a plane and visit Iraq and Afghanistan. There he should listen to senior commanders, FCO and DFID personnel, get up to speed with what’s happening on the ground and give a short pep talk to the troops before coming home. When the debate comes around next week he should enter the chamber and let it be known there are three things he cares about in his new brief – people, people, people.
Back in Main Building things won’t be so easy. There are three key things he will need to focus on. First: Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As has been reported in the French press – not all is well in Helmand – and while the people on the ground are the one’s who will stabilise the situation, getting a grip on Whitehall is as just as important.
Second: Strategy – Main Building is rudderless, that said there is hope in the shape of a new Director of Strategy, and a new head of policy & planning is also on the way. Coupled to this political consensus on a strategic review is close to reaching a tipping point – all parties publicly and privately now agree that a a review must happen, but when? With limited time until a General Election it may not be in the best interests politically and organisationally to kick a big review off now, instead it would be better to prepare the ground work. Laying the foundations is crucial and should never be underestimated. It may be a thankless task but Hutton will get kudos for doing it.
Third: Strategic Communications. Forget we are staring into an economic abyss for a moment and the other important issue the British Government is dealing with today are the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the fragile peace in Iraq and general instability in East Africa and elsewhere. And yet no one is entirely sure what we are doing and why these places are important. For reasons best known to the MoD senior commanders and officials don’t seem to be able to get their message out – this may be down to personal, bureaucratic and organisational interests but this needs to be corrected in days not weeks – the British public need to know what their armed forces are doing abroad and how it connects to issues like terrorism at home. Newspaper features on our men and women [insert country/ operation here] isn’t a sustainable policy. If Hutton is feeling bold he should copy No.10 and the FCO and overhaul the entire of MoD’s communications – website and all.
And what about procurement? This may prove, in time, to be Hutton’s Achilles heel. His constituency is home to a major defence contractor (BAE Systems) so it may be advisable to steer clear of procurement issues to begin with. He will have enough on his plate with savings that still need to be found, projects and platforms given the chop – a bit more transparency around the MoD budget wouldn’t go a miss either (but perhaps save this for another day). He should learn from US SecDef Bob Gates who has been weaving a completely new approach in the Pentagon and set the context and narrative first before doing anything major on procurement. After all – the question that has been buzzing around Main Building for the last couple of years is relatively straight forward: what is defence for?
by David Steven | Sep 11, 2008 | Influence and networks
At today’s DNI Open Source conference here in Washington, we kicked off with a keynote speech from Glenn Gaffney.
Gaffney’s job is to co-ordinate the intelligence collection efforts of the US’s patchwork of 16 agencies and he was fulsome in his endorsement of the use of open source intelligence.
“We don’t own the technological playing field in the way we once did,” he argued. Information is cheaper and barriers to entry are lower. The challenge is to ‘leverage’ new technologies to deliver strategic advantage for the US.
In other words, the US government needs to go open source – or it will miss out on the growing wealth of information offered by a multi-connected, always on world.
Gaffney’s talk went down well – at least on Twitter, with reviews positive in the back channel. “He gets it,” was the geek consensus, as Gaffney urged an older generation to embrace the new approach or give way to the mash-up generation.
But Gaffney only took me so far. As you’d expect from an intelligence gatherer, his approach was very information-centric. For him, open source means more data to sort through, which should (if all goes right) produce a greater chance of “discovering and discerning truth and using it for the safety and security of our citizenry.”
In Gaffney’s talk, I heard echoes of an old command and control paradigm (which I discussed in a recent talk at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Services). At the heart of this paradigm is the assumption that if leaders can be given the right information, they will be able to manage away the instabilities of our globalised societies.
But there’s another way of looking at open source – as a novel form of distributed organisation and production enabled by cheaper, faster and more pervasive communication.
This poses a much more substantial challenge to the status quo. It’s not simply about a quantitative shift in the availability of information – but about qualitative changes in social organisation.
Understanding those qualitative changes is – or should be – the fundamental task of open source intelligence gathering.
by Charlie Edwards | Aug 30, 2008 | Conflict and security, Off topic
Hurricane Gustav has already swept through Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. After Cuba, its projected path will take it over the Gulf of Mexico, before arriving on US shores. New Orleans has already begun a mandatory evacuation for coastal districts and parishes.
You can follow preparations for Gustav on the the Red Cross’ Twitter feed.
A wikipedia page for Gustav (2008) was created today and is being regularly updated.
The Eye on the storm blog is also offering a running commentay.
Update 1: The Gustav Information Center has been created for coordinating volunteer knowledge-sharing related to Hurricane Gustav.
Update 2: Predicted route of Gustav has been updated.
Update 3: New predicted route.
by Charlie Edwards | Aug 19, 2008 | Conflict and security, Influence and networks
A couple of weeks ago a propane factory exploded in Toronto. Within seconds the explosion was being reported via twitter. When Jeremiah Owyang tweeted that pictures and video were available at photojunkie he was quickly followed by reporters and the LA Times Blog, a Canadian journalist then picked up the story.
As Jeremiah suggests this evolution in media reporting comes with risks attached but these can be mitigated with due diligence and common sense:
1) Sources may panic, and over or under state the situation. 2) Determining who is a credible source is a challenge, 3) Echos from the online network may over pump or mis state very important facts that could impact people’s safety. How did I know that Photojunkie wasn’t lying? I don’t. I did however first review his site, his history on Twitter, and saw his pictures and videos before pointing to them.
Some of his ideas to contemplate over lunch (I particularly like 1,5, and 7):
- The new News Wire is now Twitter, the “Twire”?
- News continues to break from first hand sources, in the past, the press would break the stories.
- The jobs of the press are both easier and harder: They’ve improved access to sources in real time, but the level of noise has increased.
- Press and Media must monitor Twitter: we’ve never seen information break as fast as this.
- Press still have a very important role: vetting out what’s true and false to the best of their ability.
- The media community must be mindful of what’s real and what’s not, over hyping or spreading false information could impact lives.
- Emergency response teams and local municipalities should monitor the online chatter, just as they do emergency short wave channels.
