All news, All about Intellipedia!

I found this article after seeing it bookmarked in kirbyp's del.icio.us bookmarks. Thanks kirbyp!

Now for the quotes and comments:

"...officials from the 16 U.S. spy agencies — and even some beyond that — are increasingly using a new internal website called 'Intellipedia'..."

"...even some beyond that..." Interesting! At least one of the beyond that is the TSA which they refer to further down in the article.

"All of these tools ... are in their Model T stage," conceded Sean Dennehy of the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, who helped develop the Intellipedia.

Congrats Sean! (You will be in the history books, for sure.) Regarding the Model T comment, it is great to hear that the Intelligence Community is not waiting to develop a perfect solution (which doesn't exist) and wait to deploy it (when it is obsolete). Agile methodology at its best! Throw something out there, let people pound on it, massage it, throw it out there again and repeat. BTW, it looks like Sean is becoming the king of the memorable sound bite. Remember his other quote in the LA Times article: "It moves us away from homogenized intelligence..." (I also saw an interesting quote in Influence: The Pyschology of Persuasion that extends Sean's comment: "Where all think alike, no one thinks very much." Walter Lippman. I wonder if that is what happened in the past...)

"When New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashed his plane into a Manhattan apartment building this month, officials from the Transportation Security Administration and eight other agencies updated information on the accident 80 times in two hours."

Can you say success story? Imagine if this were to happen with any other potential terrorist event. Actually, who's to say it hasn't happened already?

"Don Burke, a CIA officer from the Directorate of Science and Technology, said more than 3,600 users have created log-ons to use the site..."

I wonder how many are active users or what percentage of the registered users are actually active. My guess is that they haven't tapped into the Long Tail yet since as mentioned further in the article there are "tens of thousands of users."

Getting some traditionalists to contribute takes encouragement. Intellipedia's architects have resorted to sending small, black garden shovels to contributors.

"I dig Intellipedia!" says the handle. "It's wiki, wiki, Baby."

Want to see what it looks like? That you'll have to Google.

Why not just get rid of the traditionalists? (Just joking, I know there will always be traditionalists but it doesn't hurt to ask... :) As you all know, you need not look further than this blog's Intellipedia shovel category to see the pic. We also know that they aren't giving them only to traditionalists as Kevin is proof.

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If you want to find out more about this blog post or what Esenai (my real estate and technology consulting company) can do for you, call me at 240-441-5086 or email me. (just remove the "-spamnot" from the email address.) Marvin a.k.a. eMarv

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Posted by eMarv at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The Reuters article.

"...the [Wikipedia] format known for its openness is key to the future of American espionage."

Wow! Key is the word! Imagine that, the government using an open system to open up! I wonder if and how the new spy movies to come will use Intellipedia. They'd probably have to spice it up a bit and create a Minority Report system-like interface or better yet use virtual worlds like Second Life. (If you go there, feel free to add me as a friend. I'm eMarv Alturas.) What do you think? What kind of movie would it be?

"Less restrictive versions exist for 'secret' and 'sensitive but unclassified' material."

Wouldn't it be great to have one version that can effectively handle all versions? 

"Intellipedia is currently being used to assemble a major intelligence report, known as a national intelligence estimate, on Nigeria as well as the State Department's annual country reports on terrorism, officials said."

Great to hear! The State Department is also participating.

"Some day it may also be the path intelligence officials take to produce the president's daily intelligence briefing."

Intellipedia may produce the president's daily brief! Very cool!

Dr. Wertheimer comment: "We're taking a risk," acknowledged Michael Wertheimer, the intelligence community's chief technical officer. "There's a risk it's going to show up in the media, that it'll be leaked."

There are risks in everything that everyone does. The key is risk management, not risk avoidance. The clearance has to mean something...

"Intelligence officials are so enthusiastic about Intellipedia that they plan to provide access to Britain, Canada and Australia."

What do you think about this? IMO, this can only be a good thing. Would you add anyone else to the list? If so, who else would you add?

A final very interesting quote:

Even China could be granted access to help produce an unclassified intelligence estimate on the worldwide threat posed by infectious diseases.

"We'd hope to get down to the doctor in Shanghai who may have a useful contribution on avian flu," senior intelligence analyst Fred Hassani said.

WOW! Why can't this happen now?

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If you want to find out more about this blog post or what Esenai (my real estate and technology consulting company) can do for you, call me at 240-441-5086 or email me. (just remove the "-spamnot" from the email address.) Marvin a.k.a. eMarv

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Posted by eMarv at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

As I mentioned in the last post, mainstream media is starting the onslaught of Intellipedia articles. The LA Times article is one of them.

Here's some interesting quotes from the article:

After being criticized for downplaying dissenting views on Iraq's alleged weapons programs, "we're trying to transform the way we do business," said Michele Weslander, a senior official overseeing the initiative for the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte.

Transformation in the Intelligence Community is good. Don't ya think? (BTW, in case you didn't know, Michele Weslander is the Deputy CIO of the ODNI.)

Here's another excerpt:

Officials said that the program is still under development and has not replaced existing procedures used to create intelligence reports delivered to President Bush and other policymakers. But it is being used to assemble preliminary judgments for a forthcoming National Intelligence Estimate on Nigeria and could someday supplant the more cumbersome mechanisms used to create such reports.

I wonder why it hasn't replaced existing procedures and why it hasn't already "supplant[ed] the more cumbersome mechanisms?" If you had a choice on whether to select a process that was more cumbersome or efficient, what would you choose?

Another quote:

"I think in the future you'll press a button and this will be the NIE," said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

Hooray for Dr. Wertheimer! We need more forward thinking leaders like him in the government! Imagine that press a button and out pops the NIE. Who woulda thunk?

Another: "In a meeting with reporters at the Office of the Director for National Intelligence..."

So this must have been the by-invitation-only meeting on 31 October 2006, which the Homeland Security Watch referred to and that I wrote the last post about.

Another: "...officials showed how analysts from multiple agencies had used the network to post frequent updates on recent events, including the crash of a small plane into a New York City apartment building last month and North Korea's test of a missile in July."

Awesome! Real-time intelligence!

Another:

Officials said they were not making the network available to members of Congress or other policymakers, largely because of a reluctance to disseminate material that analysts view as a work in progress.

If the material expressly states that it is a work in progress, what's the problem? Anyway, isn't everything a work in progress?

Another:

But they stressed that disseminating material to the widest possible audience of analysts is key to avoiding mistakes like those that contributed to erroneous assessments that Iraq possessed stockpiles of banned weapons and was pursuing a nuclear arsenal.

"erroneous assessments": I'm not going to comment on this since I really don't want to start a political debate, but we'll see where the blog takes us... :)

And the final and most awesome quote:

"It moves us away from homogenized intelligence," said Sean Dennehy, a CIA official involved in creating the new system.

I was going to say that the only thing I want homogenized is milk, but I drink soy milk. ;-) Being different and diverse is good, especially, IMO, when dealing with intelligence!

So what do you think about the government officials comments? 

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If you want to find out more about this blog post or what Esenai (my real estate and technology consulting company) can do for you, call me at 240-441-5086 or email me. (just remove the "-spamnot" from the email address.) Marvin a.k.a. eMarv

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Posted by eMarv at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)