A Proposal Regarding High Tech Immigrants to the US

The topic of H-1B visa’s has always been a hot one.  In the current economic climate there are plenty of American tech workers looking for work and therefore this special visa program is under increasing scrutiny.  I have many friends and associates and family members who have either lost jobs or found themselves in positions they would not prefer due to the current economic meltdown and my bias is to side with them on this.  We need to rethink the nation’s objectives regarding the H-1B program (you can read more on the H-1B visa program, including criticisms, at wikipedia).

Social Media and the National Security Professional

This is an update of an article I published last August in Social Computing Magazine (a great enterprise Web2.0 site edited by Dion Hinchcliffe).   A key goal of this piece has been to encourage more in the national security world to use capabilities like Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, and of course Twitter.  If you know someone you would like to encourage to use these sites please feel free to lift from this.  If you know of other sites or capabilities that deserve this sort of tutorial please let me know.

Another key goal of this paper is to enhance the security of our nation, and my thesis is that by getting more senior thought leaders into these web2.0 capabilities we can do just that. 

Social Media and National Security Professionals

24 January 2009

Bob Gourley

Social
Media is a term used to encompass a wide range of technologies used to
enhance shared meaning among participants.  When properly used, Social
Media capabilities also address the information explosion we are all
experiencing.   Social Media includes weblogs, wikis, email, instant
messaging, tagging and broadcast text. Popular social media services
include such familiar names as AIM, TypePad, Facebook, LinkedIn,
Twitter and Plaxo.

This note captures some tips and techniques for the use of social media focused on national security professionals.

First,
for context and background, let me start with the analogy of
traditional media and it’s still significant contribution to dialog in
the national security space.  Great thinkers with something to say
frequently author an editorial submission to news outlets.  Examples
abound, but as a reference let me point out the thought provoking piece
by Mark Lowenthal in the 25 May 2008 Washington Post titled “The Real Intelligence Failure? Spineless Spies.” 
Here one of the more elegant writers in the intelligence community laid
out his personal views and made a contribution to the dialog on the
intelligence community.   This type of article is of value in helping
us collectively think through some key issues.  The article also
underscores that the explosion of social media does not eliminate the
need and value for authoritative voices.

Now let’s discuss how new media helps the dialog.

With
new media, you do not have to be one of the leaders of the national
security domain to publish your thoughts.  You can establish your own
blog.  There are many services that do this. The most popular ones are Moveable Type and TypePad.  I like them both and have used both.  If you are just starting out I recommend you sign up with TypePad.  You can have a blog up in minutes, and with a little more time
you can have your own domain and a blog configured with your own
design.  Having a blog does not mean you are automatically an expert,
but when you have something to say you will have a path to say it.

Part
of the power of new media is that capabilities like blogs give more
people an ability to inject ideas into the dialog, and in many national
security issues more brains with more ideas can be a significant
enhancement to the dialog.  But new media gives even more benefits. 
New media gives others an ability to discover and comment on your
thoughts.  For example, blogs all come with rich commenting and
moderating features so others can share thoughts and endorse, critique,
or add to your original post.  This provides a way to highlight good
ideas from social media.

New media is also known for speed.  The
instant your thought is published you can have it provided to others
via RSS feeds, by e-mail push, and by alerts to Twitter, a micro
blogging site which is also being used by a growing number of national
security professionals.

To see how Twitter works, visit my site at http://www.twitter.com/bobgourley
.  You will see a series of small posts made by me.  Some were
automatically created when I posted to my blog.  Others were either
sent in from my cell phone while I’m on the road or from my computer at
home.    If you desire to “follow” me on twitter all you have to do is
sign up for a Twitter account and click the “follow” button.  Then you
can read those micro posts whenever they are made.  You can also find
other national security professionals to follow on Twitter, and they
will be able to find you as well. For example, from my page, look for
the graphic that shows Lewis Shepherd and click on his head.  You will
see his Twitter site. Or if you don’t remember what Lewis looks like
can click on the list of people I follow and find him there.  
Following feeds like this will keep you informed of key meetings,
conferences and events and of course blog posts.   Producing your own
Twitter feed will provide you with a way to contribute to the dialog.

Another tool of increasing use by people in this discipline is LinkedIn.  This is a site that lets users add a bio or resume and then helps
them manage their social network.  LinkedIn lets you connect to others
on the site who you know.  You can help out people you know who might
need to meet someone you know and vice versa. This site is very helpful
in learning a bit more about people before you meet with them and in
staying in touch with people when they change positions. LinkedIn also provides simple ways to communicate with others, either all at once or direct person to person and I frequently hear from other CTOs via this path.  How do you
get started with LinkedIn?  Sign up for an account, fill in as much of
your bio as you are comfortable sharing, and follow the instructions to
find people you already know and connect with them. 

A site with a different but somewhat related functionality is Plaxo
and I also recommend you create an account there.  Plaxo specializes in
contact management.  You can keep your entire address book there. 
You can also synchronize Plaxo and LinkedIn so if one of your contacts
changes their information in LinkedIn it will update Plaxo.
Additionally, you can have your blog and your Twitter feed
automatically update Plaxo (many readers in the national security space
prefer to read blogs via Plaxo).   The way to get started here is to
log into Plaxo, create an account and upload your address book to it by
following your instructions.  Is that safe?  It is at least as safe as
having your address book on your own computer.  I’ve never had any
problems doing that.

Another key social media site is Facebook. 
A growing number of national security experts are using Facebook to
stay in touch with friends and associates.   It is also a good method
for communicating. You can send private messages to Facebook users and
can also send open messages to them by writing on their “wall”.  You
can configure Facebook to display your latest blog posts and twitter
feeds.   You can join up with Facebook from their site, and then
Facebook’s “friend finder” will help you find the right people to
connect to.

Now let’s continue our discussion on the article Mark
Lowenthal published.  In this case, if you had an opinion on his
content you could post a note at the Washington Post website, and I
noticed many did.  Because the Post is an old media powerhouse they
seem to publish most comments, which has the benefit of letting you see
a spectrum of thoughts.   You can also post comments in your own
blog.   I published my thoughts on Mark’s piece here. 
My blog automatically sent word to Twitter, Facebook and Plaxo when I
did.  It also automatically pinged some key blog search engines so they
could access my content.  Another friend of mine in the community
posted his views on his blog.  Other friends on Twitter began dialog
with me via that channel.  And other associates began an e-mail dialog
with me on the issues raised by Mark.   So within a matter of minutes
wide swaths of people were engaged in collaboration and discussion on
the topics Mark noted.

Perhaps the greatest power of new media,
however, is when it is used to accelerate new ideas that were not
identified by one of the greats like Mark.  For example, I recently
read a Twitter post from a thought leader in this new space named
Jeffrey Carr (see his Twitter Feed at http://www.twitter.com/jeffreycarr)   
He posted a short comment about a blog entry he wrote and said it
included “3D imaging and Virtual Earth – mind blowing video http://bit.ly/3SxtdA
”   His Twitter post alerted me and I checked out his blog and yes, he
was right.  I saw a YouTube video that was absolutely mind blowing and
of direct relevance to others in the national security space.  And the
video, frankly, could change things more dramatically and in a more
positive way that Mark Lowenthal’s well thought out piece ever could
(Jeffrey you rock!). So I’ll be blogging about Jeffrey and will be
talking about the capability he highlighted when I attend a major
intelligence conference next month.  Jeffrey’s other readers in the
national security space will also be considering the significance of
his posting and the result will likely be an acceleration of a
capability into the fabric of the national security apparatus, thanks
to social media.

Another example of the power of social media for
national security professionals is in coordinating action and
participation prior to conferences.  How do you decide which
conferences to attend?  I try to pulse experts to see who else is
going.  Once I make up my mind I let everyone I network with know I’ll
be there so they can advise me of their intentions and so we can
arrange side bar meetings as required. This is all so simple in the
world of social media like Twitter, Plaxo and Blogs.

So a key
benefit of Social Media for national security planners is to accelerate
good ideas, whether they be good ideas for policy or good ideas for
technology.  Social Media can also be leveraged to address the
information explosion by enabling people to enlist the capability of
others to seek out and bring the right information to your attention. 
These others can be crowds, random individuals, fields of experts or
trusted friends.  Which of these you leverage can vary from subject to
subject or task to task.

Is there a dark side for national
security?  What are the risks of social media?  Perhaps the greatest
risks are that we not fully engage in the power of these tools,
especially when adversaries are not constraining themselves.   But
there are risks to mitigate in our use of new media.  These include
risks to the confidentiality of ongoing operations and in some cases
risks to personal security.  By identifying these risks and taking
steps to address them now we can accelerate the use of new media faster
through the community.

I have personally encountered several
other examples, but it seems we have just scratched the surface on the
benefit of these capabilities to our nation’s security.  New thinkers
are pioneering paths that are already helping the nation come to grips
with some significant issues. With more participation by thinkers like
you the contributions of social media will likely grow in importance.  
So please, if you have not started engaging in social media sites yet,
jump in now.

Bob Gourley
http://ctovision.com

The Technology Implications of the Obama Win

There are several megatrends sweeping the technology industry today.  Some of them are about to be accelerated.  

I like to use five key topic areas to track megatrends in IT: 

- Convergence and trend towards unified communications and user empowerment
- Globalization and increasing internationalization of IT and demographic shifts
- Increasing open development of software and hardware
- Power, Cooling and Space (PCS) impacting data centers and every place computing is done
- Increasing pace of technology development and probability of disruption

Over the past two months two major events have occurred which are impacting these trends.  

The
first was the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the resulting cascading
effects on the financial industry.  The impact on IT spending and the
movement of more enterprises to grid/cloud computing because of that
are still being assessed, but for some thoughts see: Wall Street Crisis

The second was the Presidential election of Barack Obama.   

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 National Security Implications of Free 3D in a Browser

Jeffrey Carr sent a short broadcast via Twitter the other day: “

New post on 3D imaging and Virtual Earth – mind blowing video http://bit.ly/3SxtdA “  

Jeffrey was blogging about a capability shown in the short clip below:

As you watch that, keep in mind that what you are seeing is a capability that can run on any PC that can run Internet Explorer (which is just about all of them).
The clip shows a capability that Microsoft’s Caligari toolset “TrueSpace” has to build high resolution 3D models then upload them into Virtual Earth.

Currently national security planners, as well as others with mission needs for geospatial information, have many choices for solutions.  But most good solutions require loading specialized software on the workstation.  This includes, of course, Google Earth.   Google also provides 3D creation capabilities with Sketch-Up.  And that is a powerful combination.  But the need to load programs on workstations and move data to workstations complicates enterprise IT solutions.  Additionally, Google Earth is reportedly not accurate in elevation measurements.   Now the new capability shown in the YouTube clip indicates a solution that can give highly accurate 3D models to planners everywhere, and it can do that without having to instal large stand alone apps on workstations and without having to move large datasets to the workstation.    

A use case:  Imagine a USMC team preparing for an evacuation of a group of citizens.  They shift into their Rapid Response Planning Process (R2P2) and move out.   Although this process ensures all available information is used and can accomodate information from external sources, the urgency of the mission means it will proceed no matter what.   No one involved is going to waste time trying to download new software programs or test applications or risk breaking systems that are working well.  New data is fine, but new software is not needed.   This 3D model that runs in a browser could be of tremendous use at times like this.  If the data is there, models can be presented to the planning team and they can visually walk through buildings before their mission.  The models can be provided from locations far away or from local data if available.  And they can be presented on any computer with a browser.   

That is just one use case.  Many more can be brainstormed by planners, and I’d recommend this dialog get underway soon.  But there is actually another meta-point to make.   Consider the fact that this dialog can start much earlier in the process because of new web2.0 capabilities.  Thanks to Jeffrey’s micro-blogging on Twitter and the Google YouTube posting on his Blog, the national security community has some early warning on things we should be thinking through.  

My recommendation:  If you haven’t done so already… sign up for Twitter.  If you’d like to see some good feeds to follow start here.  

Special Request: Collaboration Tool Survey

With the help of vizu.com I have just created an online survey I’d appreciate you taking a quick look at.  The survey is located at this link:   http://www.ctovision.com/collaboration-tool-survey.html  and is also, for now, along the lower right hand column of the CTOvision blog.  You can enter your responses either place for a look at results. 

The point of the survey is to get a quick feel for collaboration tools that CTOvision readers use.  I don’t know what results to expect, but if there are conclusions of note I’ll blog about them here.  

Thanks in advance

Bob

Blackberry and Google Contacts Synchronization

Some tips for those who need to synchronize Blackberry and Google contacts: 

- There is not a single easy way, at this point.  In the near term you can expect a small sync system either provided by Google or Blackberry, and I would guess that would be out about the same time as the Blackberry Bold, but that is just speculation.  

- Make use of Plaxo.  Tell Plaxo to use Google Contacts as a sync point (it is just one way sync for now, Plaxo pulls your Google contacts).   Plaxo can sync with many systems, but for some reason it is just one way with Google.

Enter my office: using Adobe Acrobat Connect

I have picked a primary online meeting tool for my consultancy (Crucial Point LLC).  Although I will use any tool a client or associate needs me to use, the tool I prefer is Adobe Acrobat Connect.  

Why did I select Adobe Acrobat Connect?  A key reason is that no downloads are required for this to work (assuming, of course, that you have flash player installed on your system, which 98% of the computers on earth already do).

AFCEA, JFCOM, Blogs and Twitter

AFCEA just pulled together another great conference (Joint Warfighting 2008).  They have been
real pioneers when it comes to using new Web2.0 technologies during
these events, and that really came out during this conference.  For example, some of
Signal Magazine's greatest writers, including Maryann Lawlor, were at
the conference blogging the highlights of the key events as they were
occurring (they also encouraged other bloggers to post, including the
military PAOs).  For a look at what they did: The AFCEA blog for the Joint Warfighting 2008 conference starts here.  The JFCOM blog for the conference starts here. 

Both AFCEA and JFCOM also used Twitter to give a running feed of what is happening where.   To see what the AFCEA Twitter Feed looked like click here.  To see what the JFCOM feed looked like click here. 

I've been using twitter a bit as well, and I encourage all CTOs to
check it out.  If you use it wisely and configure it to automatically
update your Plaxo feed and Facebook it can be an easy way to keep comrades up to speed on items of interest.  I've also posted a feed on my blog here as a bit of an experiment (I might decide to move that to my personal page instead).

Why do folks like me see a potential benefit from Twitter?  One
example is in the post I did before going to the conference last
week.  After some friends saw that we were able to pre-arrange some
meetings that we would not have done without Twitter.  And, by
following Signal and AFCEA's twitter feed, I was able to maximize my time at
the conference.   

You can check out my feed at: http://twitter.com/bobgourley 

What’s Next In Enterprise IT

Reportedly Bill Gates said "We always overestimate the change that will occur
in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in
the next ten."  That is a very level headed observation.  I think it reflects the way we humans react to technology capability growth.   Think for a minute about most of the graphs you see in Ray Kurzweil presentations.  Exponential growth isn’t dramatic right away, it is dramatic over time.  We get our hopes up and expect wonders right away and overestimate the change that should be here short term.  Then tend to be discouraged when that dramatic change isn’t here yet which makes us underestimate the power of something like a doubling of performance every year multiplied by ten years. 

I think enterprise CTOs are in tough spots because they are charged with avoiding both the human faults outlined above.  A CTO needs to have a balanced estimate of the change that will be here in a year or two or ten.  And we need that balanced assessment across multiple sub disciplines of enterprise technology, including virtualization, storage, communications, middleware, development environments, etc.   

I can’t say I have the magic recipe that will provide that balance.  But I do have some personal predictions of change that I enjoy sharing with other technologists.  I built a briefing on the future of IT several years ago to help my organization confront some brutal facts about the future.  I later changed it to help us with strategic planning efforts, and over time updated it to help several decision makers noodle through the impact of some key technologies on our future. 

I’ve attached two copies of the briefing here, one in open document format and one in Powerpoint format. 

Download 080402TechnologyFutures.odp

Download 080402TechnologyFutures.ppt

Now let me mention the big flaw in my briefing.  Although it has been reviewed and commented on by some GREAT technologists around the federal community and in Silicon Valley, it really needs more eyes on it and could use more input.  I think what I need to do is convert it to 100% text and then build a page on wikipedia for this topic that many hands can edit.  Then we will have something that may be of more use to enterprise technologists.   

But till then, please let me know if you have any suggestions for me on technologies I should be tracking, or comments on assessments I mention in the briefing.

Thanks much.

Bob