The Future of Intelligence, Part 1

About six months after 9/11, I came across a book by Gregory Treverton, who served as the Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council under Bill Clinton. The book, Reshaping National Intelligence for the Age of Information, was published shortly before 9/11, and its insights into the state of national intelligence were both revealing and prescient. It’s a remarkable book, and it got me thinking more deeply about the incredible cultural and organizational challenges of national intelligence. Not coincidentally, around the same time, I was starting to synthesize my ideas on collaboration, a process that resulted in my founding of Blue Oxen Associates.    (L7T)

Things are starting to come full circle. Over the past year, I’ve found myself engaged in conversation with a number of people in the intelligence community, and it culminated in a two day workshop with the CIA this past week. It’s been somewhat of a surreal experience, given that I’ve spent much of the past four years working side-by-side with progressive and Open Source activists, many of whom consider the government an antagonist at best, an enemy at worst. Moreover, my one previous brush with government work — a project with the FAA — left me with a less than favorable view of how our federal agencies work. The culture there is stifling, especially in comparison to the Bay Area. There is a stated desire to learn and to improve, but there is very little real commitment. Those who actually want to do something are trapped under a blanket of repressive indifference, and those who manage to do something anyway are usually completely marginalized by their superiors and even their peers.    (L7U)

All that said, the fundamental challenges regarding intelligence are dear to my heart, and I find myself paying a bit more attention when these conversations and opportunities present themselves. I firmly believe that deep knowledge about collaboration is spread across a number of domains, and the only way to acquire this knowledge is to engage with each of those different communities. This especially holds true with intelligence, where the knowledge product itself is sensemaking and actionable knowledge.    (L7V)

I am also a patriot. That word has attained somewhat of a negative connotation over the past five years, which is not necessarily a bad thing, because it has forced us to deeply reexamine our values. I’ve gone through this process myself, and I’ve walked away even more sure of my feelings. I’d like to make both this country and the world a better place. Those two goals are not orthogonal.    (L7W)

Last year, I met Darniet Jennings, an intelligence researcher, at WikiSym. We’ve had a number of interesting conversations since, and he participated in our first “Tools for Catalyzing Collaboration” workshop. About six months ago, he referred me to a paper written by Calvin Andrus entitled, “The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community.” Andrus, who is with the CIA, wrote this paper last year, and it has since become the de facto reference on the role of Social Software in intelligence.    (L7X)

I’ve found the majority of these kinds of whitepapers shallow and uninteresting. Andrus’s paper is anything but. Rather than offer some simplistic portrayal of these tools while repeating the same tiresome anecdotes and misconceptions over why they’re useful, Andrus frames the conversation in terms of systems theory. He cites Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Jane Jacobs, and he praises decentralization, localization, and emergence. The depth of his paper comes from this framing, which establishes the correct higher-level goals and philosophy behind these tools and which surfaces the intelligence community’s real challenges. The paper has flaws, but they are minor.    (L7Y)

The fact that such a paper exists and that it has been embraced by the intelligence community makes me hopeful, but that hope is tempered by Treverton. Andrus writes about the importance of empowering local, bottoms-up action, and he cites Tip O’Neill‘s famous maxim, “All politics is local politics.” For those who might perceive of the intelligence community as being overly centralized, this seems to be a refreshing viewpoint.    (L7Z)

However, Treverton suggests that this view is not foreign to the intelligence community at all. In fact, he writes that “intelligence analysts tend toward the long view and to take the world as a given.” Treverton then cites the very same O’Neill quote, writing, “Because they [intelligence analysts] are so immersed in the local, they are by profession believers in the adage attributed to former U.S. Congressman Tip O’Neill that ‘all politics is local politics'” (181). In contrast, policy makers tend to care less about the long view. Transforming national intelligence is not enough. We need to transform the relationship between intelligence and policy.    (L80)

HyperScope Release Party Thanks!

Thanks to all of you who came to the HyperScope Release Party on Tuesday night, and many thanks to Jack Park and Adam Cheyer of SRI for hosting, and to Jeff Rulifson for picking up the first round of drinks at Oasis. Some photos are up, with more to come and hopefully some video as well. My presentation is also up, HyperScope-enabled of course.    (L5I)

The past few days have been wild, with the blogosphere chattering about the release. I’ve said all along that we wanted to initiate a conversation about bigger and better things. Well, that conversation has started and then some, so now the onus is on me and my team to respond. Give me a few days to catch my breath, and I promise, I’ll have plenty to say.    (L5J)

My friend, Min Jung Kim, wrote a really nice post about the party, about the Bay Area, and about faith. I’ve been saying for a very long time that I’m a closet-optimist. A few years ago, I dropped the usual line, and someone responded, “You don’t seem to be too far in the closet.” Working on things that you care about and working with people who also care about their work, these things have a way of outing you.    (L5K)

The most gratifying thing about working on the HyperScope and all of Blue Oxen Associates‘ other projects is that the folks we work with care about the bigger picture. It’s not about creating a nifty piece of software. It’s not about throwing great events. It’s not about writing cute essays. It’s not about helping any single organization. It’s about bettering the world we live in. When you’re around people who truly believe that, it’s intoxicating and it’s motivating.    (L5L)

Announcing HyperScope v1.0!

Last March, I announced the HyperScope project. Six months later, I’m proud to announce the release of HyperScope v1.0. More information is available from the HyperScope web site.    (L5E)

We’re throwing a little release party at SRI in Menlo Park tomorrow night to celebrate, and it looks like we’re going to have a great crowd. We’re also announcing a contest to write HyperScope file transformers. The prize? No less than lunch with the man himself, Doug Engelbart. (Or, if you’re not in the Bay Area, then you’ll win an autographed poster.)    (L5F)

It has been an intense and gratifying experience. I’ve known Doug for almost seven years now, and I’ve studied his work intensely for longer, and I still learned a tremendous amount. Much of that learning was the result of collaborating with an unbelievable team, including Doug, his daughter Christina Engelbart, Jonathan Cheyer, and the man who wrote the HyperScope code, Brad Neuberg.    (L5G)

I’m looking forward to sharing much of that knowledge over the next few months. For now, play with the software and participate in our community. The best document (for now) to play with is Doug’s classic 1962 paper, “Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework.”    (L5H)

“An Inconvenient Truth” Followups

Lots of cool followups to report on the excellent global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth.    (KPM)

First, Eric Pan wrote the other day about his web site, Share The Truth, a marketplace for giving away free tickets to see the movie. I love Eric’s enthusiasm, and I love the fact that he did something about it, so I’m sponsoring three free tickets with the following caveats:    (KPN)

  • Whoever claims the ticket must not live in the Bay Area.    (KPO)
  • That person must bring at least one person who would not have otherwise seen the movie.    (KPP)
  • That person must blog his or her impressions of the movie or post them to the Share The Truth forum.    (KPQ)

If you want to take me up on the offer, respond directly on the forum.    (KPR)

In a similar vein, I dragged the HyperScope project team along with other folks in our extended community to see the movie. We had (and continue to have) lots of great discussion afterwards. I encourage all of you to take similar field trips.    (KPS)

Finally, in my review, I wrote:    (KPT)

We need more transparency in society, and we need tools that give us that transparency. For example, when I purchase food from the supermarket, I’d like to know the comparative “carbon costs” of those different items. As my friend StephanieSchaaf has often pointed out, when you buy locally grown produce, even if it’s nonorganic, you’re helping the environment, because less energy is consumed in transporting the food. Everyone needs to know these things, and then they can decide for themselves whether or not to do anything about it.  T    (KPU)

Boris Mann (via Kellan Elliott-McCrea) reports that there’s a grocery delivery service in Vancouver that includes distance travelled on its bill. It’s called Small Potatoes Urban Delivery. Cool stuff.    (KPV)

HyperScope Jam Session Tonight

For those of you in the Bay Area interested in learning about the HyperScope, we’re going to be doing a public jam session tonight (Tuesday), 6-8pm at SRI in Menlo Park. We’ll update y’all on the status of the project, and you’ll have the chance to meet and interact with the team. We may even break out our Chording Keysets and Augment if you’re lucky. Let me know if you plan on making it. Looking forward to seeing many of you there!    (KJW)