Month: August 2010

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Who’s Who in Earth Intelligence: Dr. Kent C. Myers

Alpha M-P, Earth Intelligence

KENT C. MYERS is a strategic management consultant to the U.S. government.

He has worked with many intelligence, military, and other
federal clients. He has a Ph.D. in Social Systems Sciences, Wharton School. Research interests include resilience strategy, inter-organizational networks and alignment, and environmental scanning.

Since 2006 he has conducted varied strategy and research tasks for the Office of Director of National Intelligence.

See his book:

Review (Preliminary): Reflexive Practice–Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World

See Also:

Review: Evolutionary Activism by Tom Atlee

Review: Corruption and Anti-Corruption–An Applied Philosophical Approach

Review: Threshold–The Crisis of Western Culture

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive)

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Negative)

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NIGHTWATCH Extracts: China-Fiji, China Carriers, Venezuela-Colombia Re-Set

02 China, 08 Wild Cards

Below the line:

Full Extract on China-Fiji, Fiji as Potential Base of China in South Pacific

Full Extract on China Carrier Force and Implications in Region

Full Extract on Venezuela-Colombia Reconciliation

Phi Beta Iota:  It's a shame no one will fund NIGHTWATCH to do Global Coverage, because it is consistently more intelligent than all the other “open source” offerings.  Fiji is a failure, primarily an Australian failure but also a US failure; China's carriers are a natural progression, they advance while the US Navy retards–absent Whole of Government, a long-haul Air Force, and a 450-ship expeditionary Navy, US influence in Asia and the Southern Hemisphere is destined to whither.  Our esteemed colleague is too hard on Venezuela.  Read Open Veins of Latin America, understand Savage Capitalism and Sorrows of Empire as well as Killing Hope, and push the reset button–the US has screwed over Latin America for going on two centuries and throws a hissy-fit when Castro first, and now Chavez seek their own declaration of independence.  America desperately needs someone with gravitas devising a sustainable strategy aimed at a Non-Zero solution: a prosperous world at peace.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH Extracts: China-Fiji, China Carriers, Venezuela-Colombia Re-Set”

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Review (Preliminary): Reflexive Practice–Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Best Practices in Management, Budget Process & Politics, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Information Operations, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Leadership, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Officers Call, Public Administration, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
Amazon Page

6 Star Plus, a Foundation Work

11 August 2010

Dr. Kent C. Myers et al

In combination with the other books that I am reading this week, the first by David Perkins, Making Learning Whole, the second by Curtis Bonk, The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education, this book I have read in galley form, by Dr. Kent C. Myers [strategist and process historian, a disciple of Russell L. Ackoff] with contributed chapters from a number of other  individuals, gives me hope.  This is an extraordinarily diplomatic and measured book, a book that can nudge even the most recalcitrant of know-it-all stake-holders toward the “aha” experience that what they are doing [doing the wrong things righter] is NOT WORKING  and maybe, just maybe, they should try Reflexive Practice (or at least begin to hire people that think this way).  This is *the* book that could-should lead to the first-ever Secretary General of Education, Intelligence, & Research….IMHO.  The Smart Nation Act: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest, done with Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02) was a proponency book.  This book by Dr. Myers et al is a praxis book absolutely up there with the other 6 Star and beyond books that I recommend.  As soon as I receive a printed copy, I will publish a detailed review.

AMAZON HAS THE BOOK ON SALE, $30 off from the list price of $95.  As opposed as I am to the doubling of book prices, this is one book that is easily worth $65, and it is the one book I will be interested in discussing with all comers when I return to NCA in September.

Blurbs at Amazon

“An important book which illuminates, with practical and readable lessons, the path to top performance.”—Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California and author of Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership

“A quiet but powerful critique of professions and professional education, with a glimpse of how experts could participate in open and engaged dialogue and actually help us adapt our way through today's crisis.” —Carol R. Hunter, Associate University Librarian, University of Virginia

Publisher's Product Description

Continue reading “Review (Preliminary): Reflexive Practice–Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World”

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Poligraft: See the Corruption Behind the News

Corruption, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
GOOD magazine article about Poligraft.com

(From GOOD magazine)

Poligraft: See the Corruption Behind the News

Andrew Price on August 10, 2010

We all know politicians take money from companies and other interest groups, but it's sometimes hard to connect those contributions to what happens (or doesn't happen) in Congress. Now, thanks to a brilliant online tool called Poligraft, you can see the webs of influence behind the news.

Poligraft lets you paste in a URL to a news story or a chunk of text. Then it digs through the names in the text, finds politicians and organizations, and shows you who's given money to whom in a sidebar. The tool was developed by the Sunlight Labs, using information from the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute for Money in State Politics.

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Search: price cost of humint

Searches

If the search is intended to find Steele's quote on the relative cost of HUMINT in comparison to all other (technical) INTs, the best search is on Google for <pdf steele HUMINT “fraction of the cost”>.  If you are looking for the Joe Markowitz' slide on relative cost versus satisfaction of the various INTs, from CIA/CRES in 1994, as modified by Steele, that is below, immediately following the Steele original on collection short-falls.  In conjunction with this, see the Graphic on Intelligence Maturity.  HUMINT can and should play bigger, but certainly not the way CIA and DoD are fumbling about.

Graphic: Global Intelligence Collection Failure

Graphic: Global Intelligence Processing Failure

Graphic: Intelligence Maturity Scale

Here are Phi Beta Iota hits where you can extract quotes:

The HUMINT Trilogy (all three but especially Fixing White House aznd Intelligence Community)

Information Operations: Putting the “I” Back Into DIME

See Also:

Graphic: Updated Full-Spectrum HUMINT

Graphic: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) J-2 Central

Graphic: OSINT and Full-Spectrum HUMINT (Updated)

Graphic: OSINT, Missions, & Disciplines

Graphic: OSINT, We Went Wrong, Leaping Forward

Key Points:

1.  HUMINT integrates processing and analysis at every step of the cycle

2.  OSINT is HUMINT, not TECHINT

3.  Intelligent intelligence starts with OSINT, then manages HUMINT & TECHINT

4.  Return on Investment (RoI) matters–most TECHINT is relatively worthless in today's environment where commercial monitoring is vastly cheaper in part because of burden-sharing, and the costs of secrecy and stove-piping far outweigh the dubious advantages.

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Reference: Seth Grimes on Public Intelligence

Blog Wisdom

Seth Grimes Profile

Public Intelligence: How It Can Work

Written by Seth Grimes

10/20/2009

I’ve been contemplating the notion of “public intelligence” in the context of government transparency.

Public documents and data play a lead role for both government and non-governmental organizations alike. They create an Internet data space that offers information about public concerns, while at the same time providing this information for public use with added analytical capabilities that transform documents and data into public business intelligence.

See many links and explicit suggestions at Full Article Online.

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Review: The Shadow Factory–The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America

5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Privacy

Amazon Page

Author's Two Points: NSA as Enabler of Tyranny, Channel for Israel, October 19, 2008

James Bamford

10 Aug 10 PBI Edit to add Amazon link and Review link.

The book is a devastating complement to A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies. See also (or at least read reviews) his earlier books about NSA, The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America's Most Secret Agency and Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency.

The author tells us that NSA red flag went up on 21 June. 30 distinct warnings within NSA in June-July; 6 August was the 36th time Bin Laden briefed to President, and blown off; by 21 August FBI and CIA both knew two terrorists were in the USA–FBI assigned to a rookie who ignored it for a week and then mistakenly marked as a witness wanted, not as a terrorist armed and dangerous.

911 Commission did not visit NSA or ask NSA questions–neither the Commissioners nor the staff understood NSA or how it contributed to 911

New insights into the culture of lethargy and inter-agency competition, with details on multiple failures by CIA, NSA, and FBI–NSA had location in California but did not bother to look up area codes; CIA knew two were in US but would not tell FBI; CIA did not inform State, INS issued asylum without checking false name.

Continue reading “Review: The Shadow Factory–The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America”

noble gold