Thursday, September 20, 2007

The World of Wiki

What exactly is a wiki? According to Wikipedia, which is the largest public wiki available on the internet, a wiki is "a medium which can be edited by anyone with access to it, and provides an easy method for linking from one page to another". To me, this definition really downplays all of the great features of a wiki. They are easy to add to, and to edit. No complex computer language is needed to create or edit a page - there is little to no learning curve. Wikis are great for organizing information, knowledge; and can easily be scaled to the smallest or largest of size. Because of their open structure, they are great collaboration resource. The fact that the information posted can be reviewed and altered by others makes a wiki page the ultimate peer reviewed article.

While wiki's are great for the public, how can they be great to the intelligence community? Do you really want a giant wiki - essentially a massive database - of all the intelligence/information out there that can be viewed and edited? How can compartmentalization and classification be handled? While these are all valid concerns, the benefits that a wiki provides are truly invaluable. Some components of the intelligence community are already seeing the potential that a wiki provides. The CIA is one such agency, who has built an internal wiki - Intellipedia. I'll be taking a look at all these questions, along with Intellipedia and other wiki's in the IC in a later post.

There a number of options for someone who wants to start a wiki. You can host a wiki on your computer, or on a web server. You can also choose to have a company host a wiki for you - for most users, this is the best option. The wiki is already installed and configured for you, just waiting for content to be added. There are a number of companies out there that provide this service, but here are some of the best free sites out there:

Wikispaces is a simple looking website, but definitely don't judge this one by its cover. Wikispaces boasts a variety of features, including 2GB of storage, and unlimited users and pages. While this is more than sufficient for most users, they also offer paid packages for power users. One of the useful features available only in the paid plans are the privacy features. You can set your wiki to be public, viewable but only editable by certain people, and completely private - the wiki can only be accessed by a set group of people. Privacy features like this are crucial for wiki implementation in the IC.

Jotspot
is claimed by many to be the best hosted wiki application available. They were recently purchased by Google, to incorporate their application into the Google Apps Suite, which includes Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and most recently Google Presentations. Unfortunately, as the transition is occuring, Jotspot is temporarily not accepting new user registrations, and I was unable to get into the site to take a closer look. I'll be sure to update this post when the transition is completed.

Stikipad was the most innovative wiki application I found. They are constantly adding new features, like Google Maps integration and the ability to add RSS feeds to your wiki. Stikipad, feature-wise anyways, is definitely the right choice for power users. Unfortunately, their free plan is a little lacking: they only offer you 30MB of space, and 500MB bandwidth monthly. They do offer moderately priced plans which greatly raise the storage limit, but these paid plans are almost necessary to use all the features available

PBwiki implies its ease of use right in its name. It's main feature is its usability - anybody can quickly create a wiki. PBwiki is more for personal and small group work. Files can be uploaded and shared, and PBwiki ensures the safety of your page by daily backups to three different servers.

Let me know about any wiki applications that you use. What feature do you find most helpful? What kind of features do you look for in a wiki? What are your thoughts about wikis in the Intellgence Community. I'll be taking a closer look at this topic a little later, but I would love to hear your thoughts.

- Chris

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Conceptual modeling v. mind mapping

After reading Professor Wheaton's comment on my post about conceptual modeling, I did some additional research into the term to refine my definition. While mind mapping and conceptual modeling are similar, Prof. Wheaton was correct in stating that they are not "synonymous".

Conceptual modeling is more of a process than a model. You begin by restating the intelligence question, and defining your task. Once you have gained a deeper understanding of the question, you can begin to build a model based on information you already know. This basic frame will allow you to determine what information you need. Research is done to build upon this model, and is constantly being improved to build a better model. Having this basic understanding of knowledge about your question and task allows you to conduct better information collection.

While mind mapping and conceptual modeling are not identical, mind mapping applications can still be of great help when attempting to create a visual model. With that being said, I took a look at many of the applications people suggested to me via comments.

I was extremely surprised by the quality of Comapping. The demo on their site was easy to use and quick. I really liked the layout, which is very similar in design to the new Microsoft Office suite. The application does allow collaboration, although I was not able to try it out in the demo mode. The major downside of Comapping is that it is not a free service. There is a 30 day trial available, after which it costs $11.99 every six months. While this is not an extremely unreasonable price, it may be a deal-breaker for most with so many free alternatives available.

I also checked out Yugma, a very useful Web 2.0 application. While its mind-mapping functions were nothing special or above the ordinary, the other functions of the application could prove very helpful. Yugma is more of a web conferencing application, which supports skype integration along with whiteboard support. Definitely worth checking out if you are needing a way to conduct meetings or conferences over the internet, but there are better applications for mind-mapping out there.

As the theme of this blog is Web 2.0, I was trying to avoid desktop mind-mapping software, like MindManager. While many of these programs are definitely among the best, it would take more than a mention to do them justice. I will be focusing on web applications for the purpose of this blog, although your comments and suggestions, as always, are welcome.

Over the weekend I will be doing research into the world of wiki. I'll be compiling a list of the best free online wiki services available, along with a look at their EULA (end user licensing agreements) t0 see how they protect the privacy of their users. Later in the week, I'll be taking a look at how the IC is currently using wiki software internally, especially the CIA's Intellipedia. Feel free to leave me any suggestions, questions, or comments that you have - your input is truly a great help to me.

- Chris

Thursday, September 13, 2007

I would just like to take a minute to thank everyone for their comments, thoughts, and ideas. It's great to know that there's so much interest out there. I plan on making another post later today incorporating some ideas from people's comments, and looking at a few more applications. You can reach me anytime by leaving a comment on this blog, or via email: culric71(at)mercyhurst.edu

Thanks again,
Chris

Monday, September 10, 2007

Conceptual Modeling

Conceptual modeling may sound like a complicated process, but it is a great way to begin any type of project. What exactly is conceptual modeling? A conceptual model, also referred to as a mind map, is any type of diagram that organizes your ideas and concepts, and presents them in a visually appealing manner. Let’s break this definition down a little bit. A mind map can really be any type of diagram. It can be a listing of ideas and concepts, a group of ideas organized around a central theme, or clouds of ideas floating around in a general belief. Mind maps can be used to organize and collect ideas and concepts. Through the process, links are discovered between different ideas, and areas that need more development and/or research are exposed. Finally, mind maps present often complex ideas or groups of ideas in an easy to read and understand manner. The diagrams are visually appealing, and can make ideas more consumable to a variety of audiences.


When analysts are presented with a question and/or an intelligence need, they often jump right into the information collection phase. However, once the collection begins, sometimes the analyst comes to a roadblock: What exactly am I looking for? This is where the concept of mind mapping could be put to great use for analysts. Taking time before the information collection phase to create a mind map helps to both visualize the concept, and find the areas that need be researched. Referring to the mind map during the information collection phase can also help analyst to spot areas that are lacking in information, areas that need to be researched more thoroughly. This is a major flaw that may occur when jumping right into collection, and is easily spotted with a conceptual model.

There are a variety of mind mapping tools available on the internet. The following are some of the best applications I reviewed:

Bubbl.us
Bubbl.us is one of the simpler mind mapping applications out there. Concepts and ideas are organized in bubbles, and the bubbles can be linked with each other. The diagrams can be scaled for extremely complex or extremely basic models. Bubbl.us is a great program for quickly organizing your ideas, and getting them written down.

Vyew
Vyew contains numerous features: documents, images, hyperlinks, and text can all be organized into mind maps. The premier feature of this application is it’s collaboration abilities. Multiple users can edit mind maps and work on whiteboards simultaneously. The collaboration features in Vyew make it invaluable for group projects and analysis.

MindMeister
Mindmeister is easily the most developed of the mind mapping applications available on the internet. While simple to use, it holds a number of powerful and flexible tools that put it above the competition. It also boasts a collaboration feature, flawlessly allowing as many users as you wish to edit the map simultaneously. MindMeister offers a free basic version, with paid plans offering additional features and more storage.

WikiMindMap
While WikiMindMap doesn’t allow you to create your own mind maps, it is an extremely useful to. It has a single function – turning Wikipedia articles into mindmaps. It is a quick way to get an overview of a topic, and can show connections that may have not been found through more conventional means of research.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Information Sharing in the Intelligence Community

Intelligence sharing has always been a major problem that has afflicted the intelligence community. The lack of intelligence sharing between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency was cited by the 9/11 Commission as one of the major factors that contributed to the major intelligence failure on that day. While attempts have been made by the members of the Intelligence Community to increase sharing and cooperation, much reform still needs to be done. With internal ideas for better information sharing are coming up short, the Intelligence Community should look to the outside world for more efficient ideas.

During the past couple years; the internet has been going through a major revolution. Websites are slowly evolving from static text into dynamic, interactive web applications. Personal websites are transforming into blogs, and users themselves have created and maintained what is now the world’s largest encyclopedia, known as Wikipedia. Social networking sites, such as Facebook and Myspace, are changing the ways that people are communicating with each other. A major trend of all these new web applications is that the users control the content; they post and share information with each other to build these applications. Within a matter of seconds, anyone can post to a personal blog or edit a page on Wikipedia, with little to no technical knowledge. These changes are seen immediately by everyone that accesses the site worldwide.

What if members of the Intelligence Community started to use similar applications in the workplace? Analysts working on a specific country could post their findings to a blog, which would be viewable by all analysts researching that country. This post would be quick and informal, bypassing the need to write a full report and the time delays that occur as a result. A community wide social network could allow analysts to connect with each other and share ideas. Creating a massive database, similar to Wikipedia, which all intelligence community members could view and edit would be a major step forward for intelligence sharing. While the scope of these ideas would most likely be limited by compartmentalization and classification, they could still very easily revolutionize the intelligence community.