You Really Have to See This: From MIT Media Lab

Words can hardly describe how neat this technology is.  I’m excited and enthused for many reasons, including the potential power of this technology to help us all make better decisions and of course to bring even more fun to our lives.  Watch and let your imagine go… Think of the wonderful ways we can interact with data to do good things in the world. 

Other thoughts:  Look for the dynamic, moving newspaper.  Yet again there is more evidence that Hollywood is driving enterprise technology.

Unrestricted Warfare Symposium, Sponsored by JHU’s APL and SAIS

For enterprise technologists and national security professionals and most of all for those who fit both of those descriptions, please check out Johns Hopkins University’s 2009 Unrestricted Warfare Symposium at: http://www.jhuapl.edu/urw_symposium  This symposium seeks to advance our understanding of and solutions for some very complex problems related to our nation’s defense.  I’ll be speaking on a panel at the conference (on issues of cyber war and cyber defense) and hope to see you there. 

The following is from an e-mail from Dr. Ron Luman (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory National Security Analysis Department Head)

National Security Community Colleagues:
This is a reminder that the Johns Hopkins University’s 2009 Unrestricted Warfare Symposium will be held 24-25 March 2009, and I encourage you to register now at http://www.jhuapl.edu/urw_symposium/.

The fourth annual symposium is in Laurel, MD at JHU’s Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), and is jointly sponsored by APL and the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Last year more than 300 participants from government, industry, and academia interacted with distinguished speakers and expert panelists who addressed national security issues from three perspectives: strategy, analysis, and technology. In 2009, this uniquely synergistic approach will be applied to the challenge of identifying interagency imperatives and capabilities.

The symposium presentations and panels are organized around four potential unrestricted lines of attack – cyber, resource, economic/financial, and terrorism. We’ll begin each session with a discussion of the potential for such attacks and then expert roundtable panelists will discuss imperatives for interagency action, offering ideas for enhancing interagency capabilities. A fifth session will focus on the role of analysis in identifying and assessing interagency approaches for preventing and combating these types of attacks.

I am particularly pleased that The Honorable James R. Locher, III, Executive Director of the Project for National Security Reform, will open the symposium as our keynote speaker, providing the Project’s timely findings and recommendations for interagency reform. Throughout the two days featured speakers and distinguished panelists, include: Dr. George Akst, MCCDC; Mr. Eric Coulter, OSD(PA&E); Dr. Richard Cooper, Harvard University; Dr. Stephen Flynn, Council on Foreign Relations; Representative Jane Harman; Professor Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown University; Professor Michael Klare, Hampshire College; Dr. Michael Levi, Council on Foreign Relations; Dr. Matthew Levitt, Washington Institute; Dr. Pete Nanos (DTRA); Mr. James Rickards, Omnis, Inc.; Mr. Frank Ruggiero (Department of State); Dr. Khatuna Salukvadze, Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Mr. Dan Wolf, Cyber Pack Ventures Inc.; Mr. Bob Work, CSBA, to name a few.

The attached announcement identifies confirmed speakers and other essential information. We encourage dynamic networking, and to facilitate audience participation, we will again be utilizing electronic groupware to collect comments, insights, and questions. The collection of papers and transcripts of discussions will again be published as Proceedings, in both hard copy and electronic form. The 2006 -2008 Proceedings, the current agenda/speakers, and 2009 registration details can be found at the symposium website: http://www.jhuapl.edu/urw_symposium/.

Your experience in national security and defense will contribute unique perspectives and challenging questions to our understanding of Unrestricted Warfare, and I look forward to seeing you next month.

Best regards,

Ron Luman, General Chair

I hope to see you all there.

 
Symposium Attachment:
URW2009Flyer 4Feb-1.pdf

CTOs, Global Cyberwar and Our Collective Future

If you are a technologist, please take a moment to download the PDF of the report by the U.S. Commission on Cybersecurity.  This report, titled Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency, is the best proclamation of the challenges of cyber I have read.  It is also a roadmap that will help any trying to navigate these very tough issues.

I've been involved in things cyber for a long time.  My deepest
involvement began in December 1998, almost 10 years ago to the day.  
In all that time I've seen lots of studies and lots of papers and many
treatments of the issues.  But I've never seen one that captures the
complexities and the need for specific actions as well as this one. 

I'd really recommend you read every word, if you want to be considered literate in this field.   But if it will be a little while till you get to it, here are some key points:

The three major findings are:  1) Cybersecurity is now a major national security problem for the U.S., 2) Decisions and actins must respect privacy and civil liberties, and 3) only a comprehensive national security strategy that embraces both the domestic and international  aspects of cybersecurity will make us more secure.

The report makes a few points about the Bush Administration's Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI).  In general the give credit to that initiative, and call it good.  I agree, it is a great activity I've previously written about that is led by one of the most effective people in government today and has done great work.  But as the comission points out, the work of the CNCI is good but not sufficient. 

The biggest shock for me in this study:  The amount of funding on R&D for cyber security.  I have been looking into the many activities underway, and maybe that look made me deceive myself into thinking it was a well funded effort.  According to the comission, however, they estimate that the total R&D funding in the federal government for cybersecurity is about $300million.  Less than two-tenths of one percent of the total federal R&D.

The report has a great section on identity manangement. 

I am convinced the organizational approaches outlined in the study are the right ones as well.  There is only one place in our government where we can lead solutions to this challenge.  Where is that?  Hey read the report!

What else do I recommend CTOs do besides read the report?  I think one way we can all help the cybersecurity effort is to think through which standards bodies are the most important to engage with regarding security.   A few are here:
http://www.ctovision.com/2008/05/standards-organizations-ctos-should-track.html

Is Your CTO Making You Stupid?

Nicholas Carr writes in ways that makes people think.  I really enjoyed reading his latest in the Atlantic titled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"  This article covers some rather significant trends that IT is pushing into the global social fabric.  The changes he talks about are disturbing.  They are infecting people like a fast spreading disease. 

There is a chance you are suffering some of these symptoms yourself, so by all means read the article. 

Or if your attention span is going, here is how Nicholas Carr describes the symptoms : 

" Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle. "

I hope you dive deep into the Carr article for more details, but if you have the disease yourself you might not.  So here is a gist of key points:

• Google and others have made research simple and fast and easy.

• Almost all data can come into your head via your browser.

• People read fewer (or no) books.

• People are loosing the ability to read and retain info from long articles.

• The Internet, through your browser, is the medium of choice.  Newspapers and print are on the out.  TV is heading out fast.

• We also write through the web, and that is changing the way we think.

• We too frequently are relying on computers to mediate our understanding of the world.

What do we do with this cautionary info?  One immediate think all of us should do is remember to carve out time in the day, every day, to read, write and think.

But if you are an enterprise technologist you should also consider what this means for you and your organization.  Some ideas:

• The systems you are designing, developing and fielding to your workforce may serve your workforce better if their interfaces are more intuitive and less textual.  People will want to interface with enterprise systems they way they interface with the Internet (present your applications through browsers and summarize results and seek rapid human feedback on what they like or don't like about the results).

• To the greatest extent possible, build systems that present fast results.

• And present information in ways that let humans interact with it.

• And present information in ways that ensure the humans are in charge of the process and in charge of assessing the relevance of results.

• Don't stop innovating. 

• Stay on the net yourself so you can track where it is going.

• Get engaged in social media (if you are not already).  That means Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, and Twitter (especially Twitter– it really changes your mind).

• Translate those many lessons into the enterprise technology you field.

If you can do that and if you can stay focused on the mission all your users will thank you, and in many ways I think you will be helping make your organization smarter.  If you don't do that then the odds are great that you will just be part of the noise.   You may even be contributing to making your organzation stupid. 

Any thoughts/comments/suggestions on that topic?

The greatest new technologies (and great drama too!)

I like technology and I like drama.   These are two of the greatest of human creations.  And they can be even more interesting when combined.

There
has been some real drama in the West Coast tech scene the past few
weeks, heating up to a boil in the last few days, and about to come to
a head tomorrow.

The story is this:

- Two great expos for high tech startups are the DEMO conference and the TechCrunch50.

- DEMOfall08 will be in San Diego.   According to their website, Chris
Shipley has been around the globe gathering info on the best new
technologies and has brought them into one place for this conference. 
72 new digital technology products from 11 countries will be
introduced.  A record crowd of over 800 have registered already.   This
looks like an awesome conference and I can't wait to read about the
presentations and study the companies.  I'm sure I'll find candidates
for my own list of top disruptive technologies from what I read from
this conference. For more info see:   http://demo.com

- TechCrunch50 is Sep 8-10 in San Francisco.   It has a goal of
bringing the best start-ups and launching them in front influential VC,
corporations and the press.  Many companies also give demos.  It seems
to be about twice the size as the Demo conference, about 1700
attendees are expected.   Between the two conferences this appears to
be the one with more VC and big company attendance, but I am only
basing that on a review of the website.   The website, by the way,
shows an incredible panel of experts.  These are really the greats in
the community.  Experts judging at TechCrunch include Marc Andreessen,
Marc Benioff, Dan Farber, Bradley Horowitz, Joi Ito, Tim O'Reilly, and
Robert Scoble, to name a few.   Here too, I'm sure I'll find companies
that need to be on my early warning screen of disruptive IT.   For more
on TechCrunch, see:  http://techcrunch50.com

So now you see the drama?  How could these two great conferences end up being held at exactly the same time? 

The way this started, as far as I can tell, was captured in an April blog post from Henry Blodgete.  He said, I quote:

Now that TechCrunch and Jason Calacanis have scheduled their
TechCrunch50 start-up celebration conference at the same time as IDG's
DEMO start-up celebration conference, the allegations are flying:

Who moved whose conference to kill who.
Who ripped off who.
Who's screwing who.
Who's greedy, mercenary, abusive…
Etc.

The drama really heated up a few weeks ago when the long running
tension was written about by the New York Times.   An article by Brad Stone put it this way:

Demo, a 17-year-old conference franchise owned by the technology
publisher IDG, has served as the springboard for hit products like the
Palm Pilot and the TiVo digital video recorder. In San Diego during the
second week of September, 70 start-ups will pay $18,500 each to make a
six-minute presentation to a crowd of investors, journalists and
others. To Michael Arrington, the elbow-throwing, supercilious founder of
the popular Silicon Valley blog TechCrunch, Demo’s business model
amounts to “payola.”

From that article, leaders and associates of both Demo and TechCrunch began exchanging heated posts and interviews.  

Here is one from Michael Arrington titled "Everyone Needs To Calm Down" 
Mr. Arrington asks folks to chill, but calls the Demo conference
unethical.   I guess I like the way he says what he thinks.  But I
don't think his post will calm anything down!

Here is one from Chris Shipley who says she has had it with the shoddy
reporting, invective and arrogance that has attended most of the
commentary.  The following are some quotes from her post at: http://guidewiregroup.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/shoddy-reporting-invective-and-arrogance-yeah-i-want-some-of-that/

QUOTE:

When in a twitter I bemoaned the lack of original reporting (only one
reporter (cnet) and exactly zero bloggers writing this week about this
silly DEMO v TechCrunch episode actually contacted me), the infamous
blogger Robert Scoble suggested that if I'd blog my opinion, he'd link
to it. Does that mean that a perspective only exists or matters if it's
expressed in a blog post? Or that Robert's just moving too fast to do
any investigation outside his narrow medium?

Scoble's not the only guy living in the rarefied air of the
echo-chamber. Sarah Lacy, who works for the much-respected
Businessweek.com, conducted a five-minute video interview with TC50's
Mike Arrington and Jason Calacanis, during which the two leveled the
usual slander. Did Lacy fire one tough question at the two? Did this
journalist call me or the DEMO organization to get a response to
serious accusations? Um, the answer to that would be "no."

In fact, a few weeks ago, when Mike Arrington wrote an
assumption-based and error-filled story that demanded an apology from
the DEMO organization for a comment that was clearly not made by or on
behalf of anyone at DEMO, Lacy picked up the story and wrote with
righteous indignation that slander was the highest insult that could be
leveled against a journalist. Did she call me or DEMO before posting
her story? Again no.

UNQUOTE

So, what's my take on all that?

It is my intent to follow, from afar, both conferences, and review all
I can read out of both.  I'll make my own assessments on which hot new
technologies are of interest to me, and I'll try hard to help my
associates, friends and readers know my opinion by updating my blog
here.  Stay tuned to my list of disruptive IT:  http://www.ctovision.com/disruptive-technology-list.html

And I'll also keep tracking the drama.  

A Google Knol on Disruptive Technology

Google just opened up their Knol capability to all Internet users.  The Google concept for a Knol is that it is an authoritative article about a specific topic.   It is a unit of knowledge.   People can write what they want, but the idea is that they should put their name on it so there is some way to measure credibility.  Others can contribute to the knol in measured ways.  For example, a setting can be selected so that anyone can edit the entry, or anyone can suggest entries, or no one can suggest changes.

From the Google Blog entry:

The web contains vast amounts of information, but not everything worth knowing is on the web. An enormous amount of information resides in people’s heads:
millions of people know useful things and billions more could benefit
from that knowledge. Knol will encourage these people to contribute
their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone.

The
key principle behind Knol is authorship. Every knol will have an author
(or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. It’s
their knol, their voice, their opinion. We expect that there will be
multiple knols on the same subject, and we think that is good.

Sounds cool, so I thought I’d give it a try.  The first and most important step was trying to think of a subject to write about.  I decided to take the easy way out and self-plagerize myself.  I copied my list of disruptive technology and created a knol based on it. 

I found the knol page was very easy to configure.  Within about a minute I had my account active and copied in a bio so anyone interested could read about who I assert I am.   I copied in my info on disruptive IT and hit publish and my knol was up.  You can check it out here:  Disruptive IT knol.

So far, I have to admit, I am not impressed.  How could this be of more value than the list I already maintain? 

But I’ll keep an open mind for a little while.  My goal is to keep that list up to date with new information that will be of actionalble use to the enterprise Chief Technology Officer (CTO).  If the knol concept enables a wider swath of people to read and contribute to that list, then it may be a useful concept.  If, however, it generates no new information for me or my readers, then it will probably be easier for me just to maintain the list on my blog.   Stay tuned and I’ll post more info on this topic after I see results.