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The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is pleased to announce the "DNI Open Source Conference 2008" to be held on Thursday, 11 September and Friday, 12 September, 2008 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington DC. The conference is free; however, all who wish to attend must register online in advance.The two-day conference will explore a wide range of open source issues and open source best practices for the Intelligence Community and its partners. We invite participants from the broader open source community of interest including academia, think tanks, private industry, federal, state, local and tribal entities, international partners, and the media to attend.

After looking at the break-out sessions, it is unfortunate that below three will be held at the same time. All three look like interesting sessions:

Tags: opensource conference 2008, charlie allen, glenn gaffney, michael hayden, washington dc conference, dni conference, dni open source, chris rasmussen

Posted by eMarv at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Looks like the Intelligence Community is trying to be a bit more transparent. Always positive! Anyway, thought this AFCEA class might be interesting for Intellipedia blog community members. Let me know how it goes if you decide to go. Or if you have any thoughts on the Intelligence Community's (the US or others) transparency, please share!

Dates: Dec-11-2007 - Dec-13-2007

Classification: Unclassified

Fees:
$1260 Industry/Contractor Rate
$1008 Government/Military Rate

Location: AFCEA Headquarters - Map and Directions

Note: Unclassified! Great for those who need to know how the many intelligence agencies are organized but who don't have a current clearance!

COURSE DESCRIPTION
The U.S. Intelligence Community is faced with new challenges. This top-down course provides an up-to-date understanding of the new and still changing structure and functions of the Intelligence Community and its components. The changing threats and challenges with which they must deal, as well as resources and processes used are covered. The course addresses intelligence programs and provides insight into relations between intelligence producers and policy, military and other consumers, as well as useful information about the interaction between U.S. Intelligence and industry.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND - INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENT
This course is suitable for industry managers, designers and producers of security and intelligence systems and products, including software and special purpose products. The up-to-date coverage of the changing intelligence community is equally suitable for intelligence professionals proficient in their own services or specialties who have or expect to have responsibilities involving other agencies and services, overview functions or supervision of interfaces between various agency efforts. Past attendance has been divided about equally between students from the government and from industry.

COURSE OUTLINE: The U. S. Intelligence Community: Who Does What, With What, For What?

    Intelligence, Practice and Issues

        * Background of U.S. Intelligence
        * Definitions of Intelligence disciplines
        * Intelligence Process
        * Relationships between Intelligence and Policy
        * Intelligence Issues

    Components and Coordination of the Intelligence Community

        * Organization and Components of the U.S. Intelligence Community
        * The Role of the DCI
        * DNI Staff and Centers
        * Community Management
        * The National Intelligence Council
        * Intelligence Oversight and Management within the Executive Branch
        * Civilian Intelligence Organizations
        * Military Intelligence Components
        * Counterintelligence

    Intelligence Budget Structure

        * NIP (National Intelligence Program)
        * MIP (Military Intelligence Program)

    The Central Intelligence Agency

        * Structure and Functions of the Changing CIA
              o Relationships between CIA and Other Components of the Intelligence Community
        * Intelligence Collection, Analysis and Dissemination
        * CIA Support to Military Intelligence
        * CIA Support to the White House
        * Counterterrorism

    Military Intelligence

        * OSD Oversight
        * Structure and Functions of the Defense Intelligence Agency
        * Support for OSD, JCS, and Operational Commands
        * Military Intelligence: Organization, Roles and Missions
        * Impact and Trends Resulting from Changing World Situation and Operational Experiences

    Reconnaissance and Surveillance

        * National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
        * Airborne reconnaissance

    The National Security Agency and Central Security Service

        * Role in the Community
        * SIGINT, Infosec, Information Operations
        * US Cryptologic System

    National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

        * Origins and Role in the Community
        *
        * Geospatial-intelligence Management US Commercial Imagery

    Federal Bureau of Investigation

        * FBI Organization and Functions
        * Intelligence Functions
        * Counter-Intelligence
        * Relationships with CIA and Other Components of the Intelligence Community

    Nuclear Intelligence and Role of Department of Energy

    Intelligence Community and the Congress

        * Functions of the Oversight Committees
        * Legislation Affecting the Intelligence Community
        * Trends

    Intelligence and Industry

        * Relationship Between Intelligence Components and the Private Sector
        * Intelligence Research and Development

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Tags: afcea, intelligence community, nga, nro, military intelligence, cia, dni, counterintelligence, fbi, nsa, sigint, osd, intelligence history, US intelligence

Posted by eMarv at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I came across a post on the MAZZ-INT blog on AFCEA's website. It appears that he went to the Analytic Transformation conference (that I really wanted to go to :) and from what he wrote, it appears that he has seen this before to some extent. Not the specific technologies that are being used in Intel 2.0 (e.g. Intellipedia and A-Space), but the thought processes behind them. And he notes the following at the end of his post:

Going back to the future, it is worth remembering those CMS [what some think of as the predecessor to the DNI] IC collaboration conferences showed, and the 9-11 and WMD commissions found, that IT tools and DCIDs don’t naturally lead to collaboration or intelligence sharing. The captain in Cool Hand Luke learning that he could not mandate communication should be a cautionary tale for the IC on this journey to transform analysis.

My advice to the IC is this: get the tools discussed in Chicago to transform analysis through collaboration and intelligence sharing in place quickly, but do not expect this behavior to be commonplace until the community leadership models it, values it, and incentivizes it.

In his post and words, I see skeptical optimism in his words. They are the words of someone who has seen and heard this before but is hopeful that this time it will be different.

So the real question to the entire community is: What is going to be different about this time around?

Anyone care to elaborate or speculate?

One note, based on Jesse Wilson's comments regarding General Cartwright, I think some leaders are already modeling and valuing "it." Now let's see if they incentivize it!

Posted by eMarv at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I referred to the INSA Analytic Tansformation conference in a previous post and a friend sent me a link to the INSA Analytic Transformation presentations in video. (Thanks friend!)

I haven't had a chance to watch them yet, but feel free to take a look at them and post your thoughts and comments (good or bad) here. 

The one that might be interesting is: A-Space: Bringing Web 2.0 to IC Collaboration by Robert Cardillo

I'm listening to it and one interesting stat is that 61% of employees at DIA have been at DIA under 5 years. Interesting!

Another quote (which is kinda scary, but true) is "we don't know what we know." 

One question that was presented was curious: "What tests have been done to demonstrate the utility of A-Space?" 

My answer: how can you really test a social network? You can test its features, but the most important part of social software is the people that will on the network. A social network could have the greatest features in the world, but if noone uses it, it's worthless.

another question presented to Mr. Cardillo: "Do you see a place for a Second Life-like concept in the IC?"

his answer: "That's where these people have these fictitious lives on the Net. I don't think so, I hope not."

my answer: He probably doesn't really know what it is so he may have been a little premature in stating that he doesn't think especially since Sean Dennehy, the CIA's Chief of Intellipedia development, recently was in FCW article:

Dennehy added that some users are asking for a virtual world for the intelligence community similar to Second Life.

“I think it is a no-brainer,” he said. “We could use it for training and other things.”

Hey if the CDC has Hygeia Philo, the virtual public health worker in the "virtual CDC" (in Second Life), why can't the IC have virtual workers?

An even better reason why the US Intelligence Community should be on Second Life is here. Scary... The US IC may need to speak with their Aussie counterparts...

Posted by eMarv at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

David Silver mentions in his blog that he will be attending the association of college and research libraries (ACRL) conference as an invited speaker. In his abstract (which you can read in its entirety on his blog post, he mentions:

With help from sites like theworldisnotflat.com, dosomethingamazing.com, intellipedia, and librarything, this talk seeks to open discussions around the intersections among social software, student learning, and academic libraries.

It'd be interesting to see how he refers to Intellipedia since it is not available to the public. (Though there is some pretty good information on the Wikipedia article.) What do you think?

BTW, if anyone goes to this and gets to listen to David's speech, feel free to drop me an email with some notes on what he said. (Thanks!) 

Posted by eMarv at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)