What if you could show key Social Media/Web2.0 sites in one graphic?

Overdrive is a company that specializes in helping others leverage the social media landscape.  They produced a great graphic that gives at least a high level overview of the key social media and web2.0 world.  Click on the image here for a larger view download the PDF here: Download social-media-map.pdf (1330.3K)

I really like this graphic for a couple reasons.  One is that like many other people I long for ways that can help me visualize and grasp things in this fast moving space.  I know this does not capture all the social media sites and I know the categories are not as clean as depicted here.  But still it is GREAT context and will be helpful to me in explaining to others some of the fast moving cloud based services out there (note to overdrive: please find room to add a section on cloud services, like cloud based office automation).  

Another key reason I like this is it proves Overdrive's assertion that they are a company that can demystify online tools and help companies leverage these capabilities.  The fact that they are letting any blogger anywhere post this graphic on their site is proof that they understand how these things work.  Companies who want to make it in social spaces should give first then receive later.

How did I find this cool graphic?  Friends at Facebook sent it to me.  I found this cool social media reference through a cool social media site.

A Great CTO and Pot Shots from the Peanut Gallery

My last blog post was on a guy a regard as one of the greatest CTOs: Vivek Kundra, CTO of the District of Columbia.  

Please see that post for a short summary of some of the great things he has been doing:

Vivek Kundra: Democratizing Data and Putting it in the Public Domain

There have been dozens of other reports on Vivek lately, all very much positive.  A recent one on the WTOPnews site at (District's top techie advises Obama transition) is one of many.  A comment from WTOP:

Kundra is credited with coining the phrase "The
Digital Public Square." A place he describes as, "one in which
technological advances now allow people from around the world
unfettered access to their government. Through these advances,
constituents can hold their government accountable from the privacy of
their own homes."

But the point of this follow-on post is to talk about an article that runs Vivek Kundra down.  It was in the Washington Post.  I don't know why this guy wrote the piece slamming Vivek.  It was totally undeserved, in my opinion.   Maybe the author of the piece thinks it is cool to run people down for no reason?  I just don't have a clue.   I almost hate to draw your attention to what he said.  It is so childish and so stupid.  But I guess you should take a look.  In fact, I would encourage you to read it and comment on the site and let folks know what you think.   Check it out here:

Where's Firing Fenty When You Need Him?

Can you believe Marc Fisher actually suggests that mayor Fenty should fire Vivek?  He seems to want him fired for exercising world class best management techniques in a highly efficient, cost-effective way.   I think Fisher should issue an apology.   If you think so too, please comment on Fisher's drivel.

Vivek Kundra: Democratizing Data and Putting it in the Public Domain

I'm hoping most enterprise CTOs have had a chance to learn more about Vivek Kundra's Apps for Democracy initiative.  I'm really impressed by this activity for many reasons, but primarily because it got results of use to the citizens and visitors of DC.  This initiative proved yet again that Vivek Kundra is a CTO who gets things done.  From his bio:

Vivek Kundra was appointed by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty on March 27, 2007
to the Cabinet post of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the District
of Columbia. As CTO, Kundra leads the Office of the Chief Technology
Officer (OCTO), an organization of over 600 staff that provides
technology services and leadership for 86 agencies, 38,000 employees,
residents, businesses, and millions of visitors.

Prior to this Vivek was getting things done in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the private sector, and in Arlington Virginia. 

In his current position he became an instant hero to an entire enterprise when he took the bold step of moving his enterprise to a Google Apps foundation. The video below provides some background on this move. 

An equally wise, and similarly bold move was Vivek's initiative called Apps For Democracy.  This contest began with Vivek insuring that the DC government is being as open and transparent with data as possible, exposing data in a variety of common formats.  This was no simple task, requiring vision, perseverance, and a dedication to plow through city hall obstacles that only a motivated leader could tackle.  Vivek set the groundwork for success by working with a great thought leaders like Peter Corbett at iStrategyLabs and by coordinating with Internet enthusiasts like the crew at Mashable.  The Strategy Labs team created a proposal for this project and brought this project to life in six days!  created a page encouraging mashup entries, and the result was an incredible generation of capabilities that serve DC citizens and visitors to our Capital.   47 applications were created in a way that did not require long procurement processes or costly integration contracts.  What do the apps do?  Check them out yourself here: medal-winners

My favorite:  DC Historic Tours.   This is really really cool.   Thanks Vivek!

For more see the video below:

Apps for Democracy from Shaun Farrell on Vimeo.

What else can I say about Vivek?  He also has great models for internal program management.  His approach is nothing like the one I learned from Gartner the everyone trys to implement.  And it is better than the one I learned in the corporate world that worked very well for us at TRW and Northrop Grumman.  His approach is nothing like the one we used at DIA.  In fact, if I had it to do over again I would use his approach in my old enterprise.  For more on his way, see the write up for his 2008 InfoWorld Top 25 CTO award. 

So hey, what's next?  My hope is that the methods and models of Vivek (and iStrategylabs) are applied across the nation and up to state and federal levels.  Think of the good that could be done. 

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?

Day One at Synergy Conference

This post provides a summary of day one of the STRATCOM Synergy conference.  The conference is focused on integrating combat ops/intelligence implications for national intelligence processes.   Conference leader Brigadier General Billy Bingham (USAF, ret) opened the conference by reviewing what was discussed last year’s Synergy conference.  He also laid out the goal for this year’s conference, to keep moving things forward and to ensure we are “Integrating operations and intelligence so we can achieve our nation’s objectives in the most efficient means possible. ” 

The morning included a presentation by the STRATCOM J5 (Brigadier General Mark Owen).  He was followed by Major General Michael Ennis, Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Services for community HUMINT at CIA. The afternoon was filled with discussions and briefings that brought home the perspectives of operators from the Ops/Intel world, including a panel filled with ops/intel professionals which discussed lessons learned.  Perspectives on ops/intel synergy on the front lines were provided by a seasoned Marine Corps professional.   Key areas where ISR models clash were highlighted by a seasoned Air force ISR Colonel.   An update was provided on army operational intelligence.

The following provides some takeaway’s from the discussions:

Brigadier General Owens mentioned the many missions of STRATCOM, including nuclear deterrence, and also cyberspace.  In his view, STRATCOM’s mission in cyber is to ensure freedom of action in cyberspace.  He also signaled a strong intention of the Commander, STRATCOM to return the J2 position to the importance it once had.   He also signaled a strong intent to do that while integrating ops and intel into the mission.  He talked about the terms he likes to use, those of intelligence and warfighters, since the operators are warfighters.  

General Ennis gave personal stories underscoring how important it is for ops and intel to work together.  He said great staffs have always worked that way and now at CIA it is all ops and intel together, at JSOC it is all ops and intel together.  He thinks it is wrong to use the old models of ops and warfighters.   That too frequently forces a separate structure.  In the old days there was an ops cell and an intel cell and they were separate.  Today, in efficient operations, the intel and ops cells are together.  General Ennis is a strong believer in new tools and thinks three in particular are dramatically changing the way we are working together.  Blogs, Wikis and the class of tools that lets users go after content in search vice just headlines.   By Blogs and Wikis he meant the many open source/Internet based wikis that can provide context and situational awareness.  For example, the MCIA cultural intelligence initiative makes extensive use of these tools.   He also provide some thoughts on the term “information sharing.”  There are things he doesn’t like about that term because sharing implies the data is yours to own and to decide when to share.   He believes in joint interagency platforms for ensuring responsiveness, relevance and unity of effort.   Regarding Open Source, he would like to see an interagency open source center that is focused on hard problems.   Regarding IT, he believes a common IT backbone is critically important to mission success. 

The afternoon speakers hit on many great topics related to ISR and the different cultures in the Services and how they clash over ISR.  There were many great stories and lessons, and several meaty recommendations.  But the bad news is all the stories sound the same as they have for years and the lessons learned are the same ones we have been relearning for years.  I guess the point of the conference is that we need to embody those lessons somehow.

More later

CIA IT Leaders Are World Class IT Leaders (continued)

CIO magazine continues its reporting on the IT enterprise at CIA and the CIA's CIO (Al Tarasiuk).  I have little more to add:  My comments from before still stand:  Al is a world class leader and this follow on report just underscores that.  I imagine Al is similar to other great CIOs from industry (folks like HP CIO Randy Mott, for example) and my old boss Mike Pflueger of DIA.   These leaders must wrestle with far more than technology (they can hand of the easy technology stuff to CTOs, right?).  In story after story of the great CIOs I note that they spend a great deal of time on culture, policy, process and human factors. 

For continuity I wanted to provide the link to the rest of the story.   It is here:  http://www.cio.com/article/print/441688

Bob

I hope to see you at the Synergy Conference

The second annual Synergy Conference and expo will be held 12-15 August 2008 at Marco Island, FL.  Last year’s conference provided a great way for participants to learn from each other and interact with speakers from both operational and intelligence backgrounds.   I sure enjoyed it. It was one of my last official events before leaving DIA.    I had a couple speaking parts, so I got to solicit feedback on my views of the future of technology, and I really appreciated that.  But it was also really enjoyable to be on a panel led by Col Montgomery that let me interact with John Marshall of JFCOM, LTC Mahoney of NRO and Ms. Lynn Schnurr of the USA G2 (she is the CIO for G2). 

I also spoke on a dinner panel with General Clapper and Rita Bush.   What an honor to be seated next to them. 

And then I ended up on a third panel moderated by Lewis Shepherd that included Rita Bush, Gayle von Eckartsberg and David Chaffee.  I enjoyed that panel the most.  Ten minutes before the panel Lewis reminded me that I should have graphics.  No worries, I said, I’m a trained Naval Intelligence officer, I can produce graphics almost instantly.  The result was the attached.

A key graphic in the presentation is shown here.  This graphic is my list of who is wired and who is tired in enterprise technology.  On the tired list, Acquisition Executives.  They have a hard hard job that is thankless most of the time, largely because of the constant mission demands, the horrible government system they have to work in, and the fast pace of technology that is making them less relevant.

In my comments I mentioned that because of the rapid pace of technology and the increasing tech savvy of power users and the ability for users to “mashup” their own solutions, “Acquisition executives are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the delivery of capabilities to end users.” 

I didn’t mean for that comment to generate drama, but it seemed to do just that!  Friends/allies/associates in the audience went wild with the remark.  Then my comrade and community leader Kevin Meiners asked me for my handwritten notes and used them in introducing Jennifer Walsmith, the Acquisition Executive for all of NSA!   Much to my surprise, Jennifer agreed with me that things are getting harder on the acquisition community and there is a great need for change. 

This year I’ll be spending most of my time watching/listening/visting the expo floor, but I do have a few brief moments on a panel and look forward to seeing how I can insert some drama/controversy to the proceedings.  

Anyway, if you can make it to Synergy, please come.  If you can’t make it, please stay tuned to the blog.  I’ll try to capture interesting parts in future entries.   I’ll also plan on posting to Twitter while there, so please sign up for your Twitter account and connect to me there at http://twitter.com/bobgourley

More on Synergy:

The 2nd Annual Synergy Conference and Expo
will provide a unique forum to highlight advances the Intelligence and
Operations communities have made in support to military operations in a
tactical wartime environment and how these may reform national-level
processes. It will give front line Operators, Key Decision Makers,
Intelligence professionals, Technologists, and Academia the opportunity
to learn from and work with experienced tactical-level representatives.

In conjunction
with U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), the Government Emerging
Technology Alliance (GETA) is planning an event that will focus on:

• Changes occurring and envisioned in the relationship between Operations
  and Intelligence as a result of lessons learned from current wartime
  activities.
• Each of the Uniformed Services
  sharing their front-line experiences and providing thought provoking
  ideas about the critical need for change in an agile operational
  environment.
• Insight into activities at the
  Commands and National Intelligence Agencies with the critical
  challenges of better integrating Operations and Intelligence activities
  during a period of Irregular Warfare.

Vision for the Enterprise CTO: Lessons from DNI Vision 2015

This
note provides two lessons and a comment for enterprise chief technology
officers that comes out of a new vision document from the Director of
National Intelligence (DNI).

The DNI, Mike McConnell, just released Vision 2015, a vision for a
globally networked and integrated intelligence enterprise.   This
vision is for far more than just IT, but it has lessons for all
enterprise technologists.   

This document lays out a compelling, motivating vision for the future
of one of the largest enterprises on the planet, the US Intelligence
Community.  Currently this enterprise is guided by a Director who
exercises authority over its 17 major components and several smaller
organs.  But those many parts also have other chains of command and
frankly the enterprise is not optimized for mission success.   I’ve now
read a vision, however, that I know will change the future.

This is not just an IT vision, which might be ignored by
parts of the enterprise.  It is an enterprise vision.  So, the first lesson I believe this vision has for enterprise CTOs:  life can be so much simpler
if your boss releases a compelling, motivating vision for the entire
enterprise. 


The IT guys in the intelligence community clearly had input to this document.  Some smart techies wrote large sections of this, I can tell.  Here are a few paras from the vision:

QUOTE:

The end state will be seamless access to all intelligence information, tools and processes across multiple agencies and databases. Our information architecture will have to undergo a fundamental shift: from the multiple hub-and-spoke model of information collection, analysis, and dissemination based on specific discipline to a unified architecture designed around a common “cloud” (i.e., a distributed peering network) containing our information. This information infrastructure will allow authorized end-users to discover, access, and exploit data through a range of services, from federated query to integrated analytic tool suites.

Currently, each intelligence agency operates and maintains its own network and information infrastructure: power, cooling, circuits, switches, routers, databases, information management systems, data centers, security and enterprise systems management tools. By 2015, we will migrate to a common “cloud” based on a single backbone network and clusters of computers in scalable, distributed centers where data is stored, processed, and managed. The shared data centers will be unique facilities designed and located for access to communication and power supplies. The Intelligence Enterprise will benefit greatly from a more robust, secure, and effective means to organize, update and retrieve all of the information it collects. The centers will also allow experience and technologies employed across the Community to be leveraged, focusing scarce technical resources and reducing costs.

Over the last 20 years, the Intelligence Community has been challenged to keep pace with rapidly evolving information technology. Although a less-than-agile acquisition and procurement system has been part of the problem, the Intelligence Community is also undermined by its basic approach. If we are to maintain a technology edge, we must adopt an enterprise wide, service-oriented architecture that is interoperable with systems in other federal departments, and can share information with non-traditional partners. A service-oriented architecture provides a proven means to adapt new technologies while responding to changing user needs. By creating “software as a service,” this architecture reduces system complexity and deployment risks through a shared development style, uniform standards, and common interfaces. These services will enable a user-defined analytic environment through the use of composite applications – discrete services that can be pulled from a central library and dropped into a user-defined workspace.

The range of Enterprise-wide services that should be deployed by 2015 include communication services (e.g., common e-mail, directories, calendaring, and collaboration); data services (e.g., federated queries and searches, tagging, entity extraction, and storage); security services (e.g., single sign-on, access control, monitoring, and auditing); and analytic services (e.g.,portals, data mining, visualization, and modeling and simulation tools).

 UNQUOTE

Something this vision does very very
well is capture the IT components of the vision, which is very
empowering for enterprise technologists.  This points to what I believe is the second big lesson for enterprise technologists:  CTOs
should ensure their vision for the future makes it into the bosses
vision.   

And a closing thought:  To me the IT components of this vision were a
very familiar read.  It is the same vision that was successfully
accomplished under the leadership of Mike Pflueger and Mark Greer when
they transformed the DIA and DoDIIS enterprise from 2004 to 2007 (I was
honored to have been their student and their CTO).   They lead a team
of us at DoDIIS HQ and throughout the global enterprise to consolidate
the efforts of 11 major enterprises (and several smaller ones) into one
strong globally networked intelligence enterprise.   In my entire
career they are the only two people I met who I’ve seen accomplish this
type of effort in government.   [Mike and Mark, my crystal ball is clear
on this issue.  You will likely be getting a call from the DNI.  The call might come in 2014 saying a rescue is needed because this IT integration was harder than they thought.  But hopefully the call will come in 2008 and ask your
help/advice on this in its early stages.  If you can work your magic in
the early days of this effort the nation will be far better off for
it.]

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.