Category: References

I will not replicate all that is at www.oss.net and to a much lesser extent, www.earth-intelligence.net, but do want to recognize a handful of extraordinary individuals by isolating their especially meritorious contributiions to the long-running debate about national intelligence reform and re-invention.

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Reference: How to Use Twitter to Build Intelligence

Blog Wisdom, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice
Venessa Miemis

emergent by design

2009 December 21

by Venessa Miemis

1. What is Twitter?

Getting started on Twitter is like walking into a crowded room blindfolded: you know there’s somebody out there, but you’re not quite sure who they are, where they are, or why you should care.

Full Story Online

My initial Twitter experience was kind of like this: The 46 Stages of Twitter (here’s the educator’s version)

After digging deeper, I started to see patterns in the way information was traveling, and in the connections between the people I was following. Based on those observations, this is my current opinion:

Twitter is a massive Idea & Information Exchange.

Granted, there is a TON of noise. I’m not suggesting that Twitter is a utopia where it’s possible to get 100% pure relevant content to what you want to know all the time. BUT, there is a tremendous wealth of information and human capital out there that is certainly worth exploring. Businesses are finding it’s useful for interacting with customers and gauging public opinion, educators are collaborating with one another and integrating it into their “personal learning networks (PLNs),” and individuals are using it to find out more about specific interest areas.

I read a piece recently by Howard Rheingold titled Twitter Literacy, in which he said:

Twitter is not a community, but its an ecology in which communities can emerge.

Phi Beta Iota: Tip of the hat to  Who’s Who in Collective Intelligence: Pierre Levy for the tip-off.  As Haiti demonstrated recently, Twitter was the only intelligence-communications system that worked in the first hours and days, followed by texting.  The US Embassy and CIA fired blanks.  See Journal: Haiti Rolling Directory from 12 January 2010.

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Reference: National Cyber Security Research and Development Challenges Related to Economics, Physical Infrastructure and Human Behavior

IO Sense-Making, Monographs

DOI:  2009 from the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P)

We are developing a commentary on the cyber-scam and cyber-ignorance of most of the US Government.  The National Science Foundation (NSF) is the only element that is doing its job, everyone else, most especially the U.S. Intelligence Community, is completely lost.  There are exactly 66 reputable people working at the code level who are seriously competent, not couinting both a handful or our hacker friends and a handful of talented gnomes inside two specific units.  Everyone else is drinking the kool-aid, running on fumes, and pretending the vapor-ware they are being shown is real so as not to demonstrate their own ignorance.

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Reference: GAO on US State Emergency Preparedness

General Accountability Office

Some journalists are observing that the US response to Haiti is starkly representative of the modest change in US emergency Preparedness since Katrina.  Here are a few lessons from Haiti:

1.   Get eyes on the ground immediately.  Do not rely on the media for situational awareness (or the CIA or the Embassy, they are holed up and have no clue).  Do the wide-area surveillance on day one.

2.  Carpet-bomb the place with water, emergency rations, charcoal, plastic, light rope, and enough light lumber or rods to create shelter in a land without timber.  NOTE:  include enough water to cook the rations, don't assume water is available.

3.  Have Peace Jumpers ready to go–mix of medical, military police, combat engineers, landing zone flight directors.

4.  Have a mix of body registration photographers, body handlers, and deep ditch mass grave diggers with air-droppable equipment.

5.  Do NOT try to micro manage from above instead use the military as a “core force” to assure mobility, communications, and general support to a massive influx of volunteer teams able to bring stabilization & reconstruction to one neighborhood at a time.

6.  Start the flow of helicopters, landing craft, field hospitals, and water units on day one.

7.  From Day One, create a global public understanding, in detail, of the situation on the ground, along with a Global to Local Range of Needs Table that can be updated using UNICEF's Rapid SMS as well as Twitter Support Networks.

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Reference: Indexing & Seaching Information Timeline

White Papers
Full Timeline Online

From Cave Paintings to the Internet

A Chronological and Thematic Database on the History of Information and Media

See source for sort options.

Short Version:

Circa 250 BCE Earliest Surviving Monolingual Dictionary 1938 H. G. Wells and the “World Brain” July 15, 1955 Eugene Garfield  Foundation of Citation Analysis 1973 Henry Small Discovery of Citation Mapping September 7, 1998 Google is Founded January 15, 2001 Wikipedia Begins May 16, 2009 Wolfram/Alpha

Continue reading “Reference: Indexing & Seaching Information Timeline”

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Reference: BGen McMaster at ODNI on Afghanistan

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Government, Memoranda, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

Memo corrected to remove (Ret).  BGen McMaster was promoted to his present rank on 29 June 2009 after being twice passed over (2006, 2007), presumably for having the integrity to be outspoken.  He is the author of the widely-admired book Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam.

Nine key factors are examined by BGen McMaster in his talk to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).  Answers question on why we were so unprepared.  Final paragraph of trip report:

Can’t get much from a database and IT networks, but contractors keep pushing and we keep buying.   But what really need is experts from anywhere, context, and also need to ask the soldiers!  Make Phebe Marr a general!  Also pay attention to: Charles Tripp, R. Kadeiri, Sarah Chayes, Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid, Michael Howard, Frontline piece on Children of the Taliban, Fariad Ali Han on borders.  Educate analysts (and self-educate) on the place, don’t waste time training them on the process.