The Intelligence Community has always been plagued with the issue of sharing information, and while improvements have been made, much work still needs to be done. The internet is currently undergoing a revolution in the way users communicate and share information, known as Web 2.0 This blog will take a look at how Web 2.0 principles can be applied to the intelligence community.
Here's a neat application that could definitely prove useful for most people. RescueTime is a Web 2.0 program that analyzes how you spend your time. You can view reports about how much time you wasted reading your favorite blogs, and how much time you spend in applications on your computer. As a free tool, it is extremely comprehensive and quite possibly a very useful resource.
As this project is going to be based off of open source intelligence, our biggest resource will be an internet search engine. While most people would, and rightfully so, depend on google, there are many other search engines available for use. One very interesting tool is ChaCha Search. ChaCha Search will take your search term and gather appropriate and relevant results from all the major search engines. What makes it unique is that it offers you the opportunity to search with a human guide. The guide will go over the results and personally pick the ones that best answer your search. While it is not the fastest or most efficient way to search, it can be a helpful resource when you are having difficultly finding information on google.
As we search the internet, I decided to collect all the relevant information and save it as a wiki. The benefits of this method are two-fold: First, my research will be available on all computers with internet access. Second, a wiki will allow other users to view, edit, and add to my research - its collaboration features and ease of use can't currently be matched by any other tool out there. I created my at wikispaces.com - it is accessible at http://culrich.wikispaces.com/
I have already added information about mining projects and companies to the wiki, and will be updating it as my research continues. The wiki is set up as public, meaning any person who accesses it can add and edit the pages - feel free to participate. Next up we will try to find some Web 2.0 tools to perform the analysis step. If you have encountered any tools that would be helpful with the analysis phrase, please leave a comment.
Check out this neat tool called Unyverse - a mobile wiki platform. It allows you to create a wiki on your cell phone, and update it both from the internet and from your device. It also acts as an RSS reader, and a mobile viewer for Wikipedia. Definitely an interesting tool to stay updated.
Over the next week or two, I am going to go through the process of researching and developing an intelligence report on a question, using only Web 2.0 applications. Throughout the process, I invite everyone who wishes to participate - hopefully this project will be a proponent of the collaboration features of Web 2.0 applications. As this will also be a learning experience for me, I welcome all comments and suggestions about how to go about the process - while I consider myself knowledgeable about the Web 2.0 system, I am definitely not an expert.
With that being said, let's get started. The country of Mongolia is sandwiched between Russia and China in Eastern Asia. The mountainous region is high in mineral deposits, including coal and uranium. Uranium mining has become a major business in the country. Your supervisor would like a report on the uranium mining in the country, especially looking at foreign business and foreign government involvement in the process.
Without knowing much about the country of Mongolia or it's uranium market, my first action is to collect what I know about the country, and what information I need to research to help answer the intelligence question. To help me diagram my thoughts, I am going to create a mind map using Bubbl.us, a service that I have reviewed before on this blog. I chose to use Bubbl.us because of its ease of use and its collaboration ability.
I was able to quickly put together this little mind map, just as a small outline for myself. Over the next day or two, I will be doing some basic research on Mongolia. Wikipedia is a great place to start, to get a general idea about the country - while its not a great place to get your specific facts about a specific topic, it is an excellent resource for an overview. As I conduct basic research, I will be expanding upon the mind map.
I encourage all of you to at least look at the mind map, and it would be even better if some of you would like to participate. If you would like to be able to work on the mind map with me, please leave me a comment below with either your email address, or if you already have a bubbl.us account your username on the site. I will be sure to either send you an invitation, or add your account to the mind map. I'm going to be actively adding to it over the next couple days and it will be constantly consulted during the process.
Monday, November 12, 2007
As the intel community continues to try to make the transition from a "need to know" culture to a "need to share" environment, Web 2.0 principles are increasingly being utilized to help in the shift. This interesting article from Government Executive.com talks about how government researchers are embracing virtual worlds - like Second Life - to exchange information and better the decision making process.
Here's a rather interesting application: Smart Editor. The website is not as flashy as most Web 2.0 applications, but its concept is something that I have not seen before and something that could be extremely helpful. You start to write about anything you want in the text box, and to your right appear links and pictures that are relevant to what you are writing about. I played with it for a while, and found some websites that I would not have come across with a simple google search. It's definitely worth checking out: SmartEditor
Heres a neat little program that allows you to get Twitter updates right in Outlook, called OutTwit. Just another way to stay up to date on your friend's status, especially if your outlook is open all the time.
