Information Operations – Public Intelligence Blog

2004/12/182009/12/04

Review: Building a Knowledge-Driven Organization

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Public)

Superb book, my choice for gift to colleagues,

December 18, 2004

Robert H Buckman

Every once in a while airport bookstores carry something truly extraordinary. This is such a book. It is so utterly perfect, sensible, readable, and on target that Monday I am buying copies to give to colleagues I know are interested in making more of our global information accessible and actionable.

I am sure this book will alter the perceptions of any management team in any domain. At a larger level of international information sharing, what the Swedes are calling M4 IS (multi-national, multi-agency, multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional (or multi-domain) information sharing), this book is the single best and most practical book for turning Industrial era organizations into Information era organizations.

There have been other great books that captured some of these ideas early on, from the popular (Alvin and Heidi Toffler's POWERSHIFT, Paul Strassmann's Information PayOff) to the inspired (Thomas Stewart's Wealth of Knowledge, Barry Carter's Infinite Wealth : A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era), but this is the one that I think absolutely must be read by every flag officer and every colonel aspiring to be a flag officer, and their counterparts across all industries.

Heavily marked up, this book is already a classic. The author is brilliant in an elegant understandable manner in making several key points in an action-oriented implementation-facilitating fashion:

1) Technology is the easy part–changing the culture is the hard part (from information hoarding to information sharing)

2) Command and control stovepipes are a big part of the problem–we have to nurture trust and responsibility in all levels by giving all levels access to all information (within reason).

3) Communications, computers, and library services as well as external business intelligence services all have to be rolled together under one executive that has “direct report” relationship with the CEO–it is the networking of humans and their knowledge that has value, not the hardware and software and hard-wired comms lines

4) If you are not rolling over half your software and hardware each year, with nothing in your C4I system more than two years old at any one time, then you are losing capacity, productivity, and profit

5) 85% of what you know cannot be captured in structured knowledge archives–only a living network can allow employees to provide just enough, just in time articulation of answers that can be created in real time–this allows a *dramatic* shortening of the business information answer cycle, from months to hours.

6) If the CEO does not get it, live it, and enforce it, it will not happen.

The author shares with us practical real-world experience that makes this book a real-world manifestor rather than just a visionary proposal. His practical suggestions lead directly to the possibilities of global issue networks such as J.F. Rischard recommends in his HIGH NOON: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them, but this book by Robert Buckman is the real deal, a true “revolution in business affairs.”

We've reached a tipping point. The day this book reached airport bookstores, the world changed. From this point forward, we are either implementing this author's wisdom and gaining value, or not.

2004/12/122009/12/04

Review: Public Information Campaigns in Peacekeeping : The UN Experience in Haiti

4 Star, Civil Affairs, Diplomacy, Information Operations, United Nations & NGOs

Best available overview, narrow focus,

December 12, 2004

Ingrid Lehmann

This is a fine monograph, the best available overview in this area that I could find, and well worth the price. It is also included, in a different form, in the author's book, “Peacekeeping and Public Information,” itself a seminal work, and therefore if you buy the latter, you need not buy this one. If you are focused largely on Haiti, this is priceless.

The author's primary focus is on what some would call “public diplomacy” or “public affairs” information, that is, the message that goes out from the United Nations force (civil, military, police) to all concerned–the world at large, the participating governments, the Member governments not participating, all other NGOs and organizational participants, the host government, and the indigenous belligerents and bystanders (many of them refugees).

The author's two core points are that information operations must be in the UN mandate or it will be unlikely to be addressed as a coherent unified program by the leaders on the ground; and that the information program *must* be unified–there cannot be separate SGSR, force commander, and police commander messages and programs.

Although the author makes passing reference to intelligence and the value of information collected overtly by elements of the total force, both this work and the book specifically avoid any discussion of intelligence in the form of decision support, as the Brahimi Report has stated so forcefully is needed by the UN at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels.

The author makes very good points with respect to the need for continuity of operations (too many personnel on short tours make it impossible to succeed), for substantial numbers of language-qualified interpreters and translators, and for an educational program to teach all concerned within the force, the message, and their role in getting the message out.

The author touches very lightly on the fact that no amount of message is going to save a completely screwed up mission with the wrong mandate, insufficient forces, insufficient aid, and lousy tactical leadership.

In my view, in the age of information, the concepts of peacekeeping intelligence and information peacekeeping, two different concepts, are going to comprise the heart of stabilization operations world-wide. Emerging technologies including application oriented intelligence networks, semantic web and synthetic information architecture, super-sized federated data systems, and fully funded commercial information support operations, will dramatically alter what we do, when we do it, and how we do it, as we all seek to avoid war and foster prosperity within the lesser developed regions of the world.

The author is, in my view, one of the intellectual pioneers whose voice must be heard, and it is my hope that we will see more from her on this topic in the very near future.

2004/12/122009/12/04

Review: Peacekeeping and Public Information: Caught in the Crossfire

4 Star, Civil Affairs, Diplomacy, Information Operations, United Nations & NGOs

Seminal work, focused on message out, not information in,

December 12, 2004

Ingrid Lehmann

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

This book is a first class piece of work, a seminal work with ideas not readily available elsewhere. Building on her earlier monograph about the UN experience in Haiti with respect to public information–a monograph that is included in this book as a chapter–the author has gone on to look at several other UN operations.

The author's conclusions are consistent with but expand upon her findings from the Haiti mission.

1) Information Operations must be in the mandate and must be a major focus of effort from day one. Although the author has a limited focus, on information as public affairs or public diplomacy, her points are all relevant to the larger appreciation of Information Operations as inclusive of decision-support and tactical-operational Peacekeeping Intelligence, as well as the larger concept of Information Peacekeeping.

2) Secretary General's Special Representative (SGSR), the military force commander, and the police force commander must agree on unified public information operations and an integrated staff with a single coherent message.

3) Standing staffs and normal tour lengths are essential to success. The somewhat common practice of Member states rotating people in and out in 30-90 day cycles is simply not professional and ultimately undermines the mission.

4) Considerable numbers of language-qualified translators and interpreters are required.

5) In illiterate societies (such as Haiti), radio and music rule. Strong radio programs can be extremely helpful, but only if hundreds of thousands of portable radios, and the batteries to power them, are given out. When confronting violence on the street, or seeking to break up gathering mobs, music has extraordinary power to diffuse anger.

While the author is most diplomatic in addressing the facts, it is clear from this book that the Department of Public Information (DPI) at the UN has still not matured, and is still a major obstacle to the implementation of the Brahimi Report recommendations on creating strategic, operational, and tactical decision support or intelligence capabilities for all UN operations. In my personal view, the next head of the DPI needs to be given one simple order: “turn DPI into a global grid for information collection and information sharing, or find a new job.” DPI today is 77 one-way streets, and generally immature one-way streets with potholes. DPI has no understanding of peacekeeping intelligence, information peacekeeping, information metrics, or information as a substitute for money and guns. In the context of what the Brahimi Report seeks to accomplish–all of it good and urgently needed–DPI appears to be a huge cancer within the UN, one that must be operated on before the larger UN information environment can become effective.

The author adds to the literature in articulating six principles for outward communications of message in a peacekeeping operation; in brief, 1) public perceptions are a strategic factor; 2) international and local public opinion impact on the political influence that impacts on tactical effectiveness; 3) external information campaign must be a strategic focus from day one; 4) education campaigns, e.g. on the rule of law, are vital aspects of peacekeeping campaigns; 5) culturally-sensitive messaging is a must; and 6) transparency of policy and objectives is a pre-condition for message success.

The notes and references in this book are quite professional. One wonders if the Brazilians and the Americans are reading the DPKO Mid and Post Mission Assessment Reports from Haiti in 1996, or simply making the same mistakes anew.

2004/10/212009/12/04

Review: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised–Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything

4 Star, Civil Society, Communications, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Media

Great personal story, important national message,

October 21, 2004

Joe Trippi

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

Joe Trippi has produced a very fine personal story that clearly presents Trippi, Dean, and the Internet as the people's tool, in the context of “early days.” His big point is in the title: this is about the overthrow of “everything.”

I took off one star for two reasons: his very limited “tie in” to the broad literature on the relationship between the Internet and a *potentially but not necessarily* revitalized democracy; and his relative lack of attention to the enormous obstacles to electronic democracy getting traction, including the corruption of the entire system from schoolhouse to boardroom to White House.

There is a broad data point that Trippi missed that adds great power to his personal appreciation of the future: the inexpensive DoKoMo cell phone and network approach from Japan, when combined with Sony's new playstation that is connected to the Internet and opens up terabytes on online storage to anyone with $300, and to this I would add […]semantic web and synthetic intelligence architectures–these all combine into finally making possible the electronic connectivity of poor and working class voters, not just the declining middle class and the wealthy. 2008 is the earliest that we might see this, but I suspect it won't be until after two more 9-11's, closer to 2012.

There are a number of gems throughout the book, and I will just list a few phrases here:

— politics of concentric circles–find the pebble in every town

— polling substitute's conviction for bullshit (his word)

— citing Robert Putnam in “Bowling Alone,” every hour of television watching translates to a 10% drop in civic involvement

— what gets destroyed in scorched earth politics is democracy

— McCain led the way for Dean in using the Internet and being an insurgent (“the Republican branch of the Republican Party”)

— the dirty secret of US politics is that fund-raising (and I would add, gerrymandering) take the election decision out of the hands of voters

— the existing party machines are dinosaurs, focused on control rather than empowerment–like government bureaucracies, they cannot accept nor leverage disruptive innovation (see my review of “The Innovator's Solution”)

— Open Source Rules–boy, do I agree with him here. He describes Dean's campaign as the first really committed “open source” campaign, and this is at the heart of the book (pages 98-99). One reason I have come to believe in open source software, open source intelligence, and open spectrum is that I see all three as essential to the dismantling of the Maginot line of politics, institutional dominance of money and votes on the Hill.

— Media will miss the message. He has bitter words for the media spin and aggression that helped bring Dean down, but his more thoughtful remarks really emphasize the mediocrity of the entertainment media and its inability to think for itself.

— TIRED: transactional politics. WIRED: transformational politics

— Democratic fratricide killed Dean–Gephardt on his own, and Clark with backing from Clinton, killed the insurgency

— Cumulative Intelligence is a term that Trippi uses, and he puts in a strong advertisement for Google's gmail that I found off-putting. Googling on the term “collective intelligence” will get one to the real revolutionaries. When he quotes Google as saying it will “harness the cumulative intelligence of its customers” this reminds me of my own phrase from the early 1990's, one Mike Nelson put in one of Al Gore's speeches, about the need to harness the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth. My point: we don't need Google to get there–collective intelligence is already happening, and Google is a side show.

Tripi's final chapter has “seven rules”: 1) Be first; 2) Keep it moving; 3) Use an authentic voice; 4) Tell the truth; 5) Build a community; 6) Cede control; 7) Believe again.

There are a rather lame few pages at the end on Change for America. Forget it. Change for America is going to be bottom-up, from the county level.

I want to end by noting that at one point, on page 156, I wrote in the margin, “this is a moving book,” but also express my frustration at how unwilling Dean and Trippi were to listening to those of us (Jock Gill, Michael Cudahay, myself), who tried very hard to propose a 24/7 team of retired Marine Corps watchstanders with structured staff processes; a massive outreach to non-Democratic voters including the 20$ of the moderate Republican wing ready to switch. On page 161 Trippi writes “The truth is that we never really fixed the inherent problems in the organization that I saw that first day….” I could not help but write in the margin, “We told them so.”

The problem with Dean and Trippi is they became enchanted with the blogs and the newness of its all–as well as the fund-raising–and lost sight of the fundamentals. The winner in 2008 or 2012 will have to strike a better balance. One other note: the revolution that Trippi talks about is sweeping through Latin America, with active Chinese, Korean, and Japanese interest. It is just possible that electronic populism will triumph in Latin America before public intelligence becomes commonplace in America.

2004/07/282009/12/04

Review: Stealing the Network–How to Own a Continent

5 Star, Information Operations, Information Technology

A Real Hoot, Way Better than Spy Stories–Be Afraid…,

July 28, 2004

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links and a comment.

I picked this book up at Hackers on Planet Earth, and got Kevin Mitnick to sign a poster at the same time. The book is a hoot. I've done the spy stuff, it's boring compared to the persistent intelligence shown by these cyber-spooks, a couple of whom I am pleased to know.

I suppose the disclaimer is necessary: this is a novel, for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you want to be cyber-spy, this book strikes me as a great way to start getting hooked. If you are a security manager, be afraid, very afraid…you need to read this book.

20 Dec 07 Comment: The US Government does not want you to know that all of the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems are totally open to the Internet. These are the computers that control power, natural gas, water and fuel pipelines and storage tansk.

For a great idea of exactly what this book talks about, watch:
Live Free or Die Hard (Full Screen Edition)

2004/04/292009/12/04

Review: Soft Selling in a Hard World–Plain Talk on the Art of Persuasion (2nd Edition-Revised & Updated)

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Communications, Information Operations

Distillation of Course Worth Thousands, a Real Gem,

April 29, 2004

Jerry Vass

I just took the executive sales training course that this book summarizes, essentially a “CEO to CEO” sales course but applicable at any level of direct sales, and I cannot say enough good things about the author, the book, or the training–my last twenty years literally passed before my eyes as I understood his key points: purchase decisions are made by individuals on an emotional “what's in it for me” basis, and then justified on a rational “what's in it for the organization” basis. Any sales effort that attempts to stress features and capabilities, as 99% of all of us have been doing, is destined to be lethargic and hit or miss.The author and his team have a formula and it is a formula that is already working for me: listen instead of talk, solve instead of sell, and a few others that are only offered in the course not the book.

The author is devastating in critiquing what he calls “puffery”, all those now meaningless phrases about “best in class” and so on.

Finally, the author is extremely effective in helping truly good executive sales people do a cost analysis that at its most brutal, makes it clear to the client that what they are buying or not buying now is costing them a great deal more than what you are offering as a solution to *their* problem, which in turn justifies your getting top dollar because the return on investment in your more expensive capability, with no hidden costs, is greater than the return on the cheaper or partial solutions.

I strongly recommend the book for a taste of how to do soft selling in a client-friendly manner, and I strongly recommend the three-day course which is where they walk you through the entire process of creating mission statements, benefits to the client, listening probes, and closing statements that pull it all together.

It will take more than one course to overcome 20 years of coming at it the wrong way, but if you are seriously interested in dramatically changing your tone, your approach, and your relationship with your best clients, start with this book and then go on to one of the courses.

This was, incidentally, as an executive, my first formal training since 1986–20 years ago, and as I finished it up, I could only wish someone had shown me this path ten years ago or before.