26 November 2011

Robert,

Not surprisingly your feelings about CIA [Robert Steele: Iran Arrests Twelve CIA Agents] have been echoed by Bob Baer whose principal area of operations was the Levant. As in this ABC interview: Former CIA Agent: U.S. Has Lost Its Spy Mojo [includes short video]

“But former senior CIA officer Robert Baer told ABC News this week that the loss of assets was more than a mere setback, and not an isolated incident but part of a disturbing pattern.

“When you lose your entire station, either in Tehran or Beirut, that's a catastrophe,” said Bob Baer, a legendary CIA agent whose Middle East exploits were fictionalized in the George Clooney film “Syriana.” Baer said the disaster was due in part to a new generation of agents that has forgotten, or never learned, the traditional methods of intelligence gathering.

“They don't understand tradecraft,” Baer said. “And we have lost our touch in espionage.”” (Emphasis mine)

Continue reading “Richard Wright: More on CIA's Continuing Implosion”

2011/11/262011/11/26

Howard Rheingold: From ME Consumer to WE Community – The Collaborative Consumption Revolution

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Methods & Process, Movies, Policies, Reform

Lauren Anderson: the “We” of the our collaborative age will replace the “Me” of the industrial age

“Is this shift from the Me to the We as significant as the industrial revolution? And should we welcome this revolution with, so to speak, open arms?”

Lauren Anderson is the Innovation Director for Collaborative Lab, interviewed here by Andrew Keen:

Host Page for Video

As originally posted by Michel Bauwens.

2011/11/172011/11/17

Owl: Visual Analytics – corruption, fraud, waste and abuse

Advanced Cyber/IO, Corruption, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process

Screen-friendly report: Visual analytics; Revealing corruption, fraud, waste and abuse

For entities around the globe, identifying potential fraud and corruption activities in large volumes of data has historically been difficult and quite costly. More often than not, the rich insights within that data may be difficult to identify by traditional means and remain hidden.

Against this backdrop, practitioners are turning to visual analytic tools and techniques. Graphically representing and exploring data can bring clarity to executives’ concerns and to performance improvement opportunities.

Visual analytics tools and techniques, including social networking diagrams, link analysis, geospatial analysis and tree maps, can help to focus investigations on particular activities and connect disparate pieces of information to form a cohesive story. Entities should consider equipping their personnel to employ these techniques to meet the growing challenge of reducing corruption, fraud, waste and abuse in the enterprise.

Download the PDF below to learn more. Two versions are provided to accommodate your viewing preferences: a standard version for printing and a screen version for reading on your computer or mobile device.

Phi Beta Iota: This is not new–they are roughly fifteen years behind Dr. Bert Little, who pioneered this work for the Department of Agriculture, virtually eradicating crop insurance fraud ($4 million invested stopped $80 million a year in fraud). Dr. Little received a Golden Candle Award at OSS '94 and continues to do extraordinary detection of corruption with clever computing across the Texas A&M University System.

2011/11/132011/11/13

Howard Rheingold: Crap Detection & Critical Thinking

04 Education, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Movies

YouTube Library

Howard Rheingold on essential media literacies [6:09]

Howard Rheingold on Crap Detection (Part 1) [9:59]

Creating a Critical Society – Howard Rheingold on Crap Detection (Part 2) [4:49]

Determining Site Credibility – Howard Rheingold on Crap Detection (Part 3)

TED: Howard Rheingold: The new power of collaboration (19:34)

Selected Books on Thinking by Howard Rheingold

Net Smart: How to Thrive Online (Forthcoming March 2012)

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (2002)

Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology (1986)

Howard Rheingold Short Pieces

Howard Rheingold: 10 Online Tools for Better Focus

Howard Rheingold: Mindfulness for Executives

Howard Rheingold: Finding Credible Social Information & Crap Detection

Howard Rheinigold: Cultivating a Personal Learning Network

Howard Rheingold: News Filters for the Future – Technical Services or Human Networks?

Howard Rheingold: Infotention Skills + Citizen Intel RECAP

Worth a Look: Pierre Levy Interviewed by Howard Rheingold on Collective Intelligence

A slice of life in my virtual community

Rheingold at OSS ’92

Below the Line: Full Text Article and More Links

Continue reading “Howard Rheingold: Crap Detection & Critical Thinking”

2011/11/062011/11/06

Koko: What If Government Were Like an iPod?

Advanced Cyber/IO, Articles & Chapters, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Ethics, Government, Methods & Process

What If Government Were More Like an iPod?

Dilbert's Scott Adams on bringing democracy out of the age of wax candles and into the age of touch screens

Scott Adams

Wall Street Journal, 5 November 2011

If Congress had a 9% approval rating while George Washington was still alive, he would have shoved his wooden dentures in his mouth, assembled a militia and marched on the Capitol. The nation's founders weren't big fans of dysfunctional governments. I'll bet we could solve our energy problem by connecting a generator to John Adams's corpse, which I assume is spinning in its grave.

dilbert thomas — Click on Image to Enlarge

I've heard people say the United States no longer has the caliber of intellectual giants that authored the Declaration of Independence, defeated a superior British military, crafted the Constitution and built a robot butler that would eventually run away and change its name to Mitt Romney. But that's OK, because individuals are not the primary vehicles for genius. When it comes to the larger matters of civilization, group intelligence is more important than individual genius. To put it another way: Do you know who is smarter than the entire senior class at MIT? Answer: no one.

Today, thanks to the Internet, we can summon the collective intelligence of millions.

Read full article.

Tip of the Hat to Damien Morton via IndieGoGo.

Phi Beta Iota: Mr. Adams provides a very thoughtful overview of the possibilities, while avoiding any mention of the corruption that is pervasive in today's top-down elite control “rule by secrecy” environment. The Electoral Reform Act of 2012 is intended to eradicate corruption, assure transparency, restore the Republic, and make direct democracy such as Mr. Adams envisions a reality before 2016. The next President should be of, by, and for We the People, tested in the fires of the Occupy Wall Street kiln.

2011/10/31

Tom Atlee: #Occupy Weekly Sparks = We Can Do It All

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Augmented Reality, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Hacking, InfoOps (IO), IO Deeds of Peace, Methods & Process, Policies, Policy, Reform, Strategy, Threats

Random Communications from an Evolutionary Edge

#Occupy Weekly Sparks = We Can Do It All

Much has been said about the Occupy movement's lack of demands and vision. Some say it will have no impact unless it makes demands and organizes to make sure those demands are met.

Others respond that the People should just take charge of their democracy rather than petitioning official powers-that-be to do this and that. Still others say that any list of demands – any effort to focus OWS more narrowly and explicitly – could weaken the movement because Occupy Together is a broadly inclusive initiative that's about (a) changing whole systems and/or (b) creating microcosms of a better society in the occupation zones and/or (c) stimulating transformational conversations out in society at large and/or (d) passionately building and forcefully demonstrating the Power of the People to resist illegitimate, corrupt authority.

Others note that the disturbing lack of demands spreads OWS' surprising impact through a “blank slate effect” – OWS becomes a mystery or a mirror into which diverse individuals and groups project their various desires, hopes, frustrations, and agendas. Furthermore, that mystery helps by enhancing the movement's uncommon anarchic power that makes it so hard for authorities and others to figure out how to control, undermine or use it. Others insist that a shared vision – articulating what the 99% actually want – would be much more powerful than focusing on a laundry list of demands that many 99%ers might well disagree with. Simultaneously, many Occupiers are chronically frustrated with all this talk and want Action!! Their more thoughtful colleagues reply that pulling so many diverse people together in consensus requires taking the time to hear each other and generate collective wisdom.

Read balance of very deep and provocative commentary.

2011/10/262011/10/26

Eliot Spitzer: Conversation on Democracy & Occupy

Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process

The Coffee Summit

Eliot Spitzer talks capitalism with one of the 99 percent

New York Magazine,21 October 2011

Last week, New York’s Mattathias Schwartz invited Occupy Wall Street protester Manissa Maharawal, a CUNY graduate student in anthropology, to discuss the movement and its impact over coffee with former New York governor and attorney general Eliot Spitzer. An extended transcript of their conversation is below.

FOUR EXTRACTS:

MM: Oh, okay. So we’re in the same system. As I was saying, one of the reasons this movement has been without demands is because without demands we can shift. The moment you have a list of demands, you have politicians take all of those demands and explain to you why they aren’t going to work.

ES: But in order to turn this into something other than a visceral cry of despair, you need to figure out how to confront the actual problems and issues. You need to think about all of this more rigorously. If you’re down in Zuccotti Park six months from now, having made it through a cold winter, I’m not sure whether you would deem that success. Trust me, the media won’t be paying as much attention six months from now if it’s just the same couple hundred people, right?

. . . . .

Continue reading “Eliot Spitzer: Conversation on Democracy & Occupy”

Category: Methods & Process

Richard Wright: More on CIA’s Continuing Implosion