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ExecutiveBiz: What is your definition of Web 2.0 technology?
Jesse Wilson:
Web 2.0 encompasses both technologies and collaborative behaviors that take place via a network. A common theme for Web 2.0 tools is they empower end users, drawing the collective wisdom of the crowd. Several Web 2.0 technologies are emerging in the intelligence community, including wikis (e.g., Intellipedia), blogs, RSS feeds, tags, and soon, “A-Space,” a social networking site intended to bring analysts together.
ExecutiveBiz: What is Intellipedia?
Jesse Wilson:
Intellipedia is a wiki available on government networks, including JWICS, SIPRNet, and Intelink-U, each with variations of classification levels allowed. It is open to national security related organizations, including the Intelligence Community and beyond. It uses MediaWiki, the same software used by Wikipedia on the internet. One of the main differences between Wikipedia and Intellipedia is every edit is attributable to an individual with a log-in.
ExecutiveBiz: How are you using Intellipedia?
Jesse Wilson:
I use it in several ways, but I’ll give three. First, we all track issues everyday—issues for which we are responsible for. And we as analysts have a choice: to either save that information in folders only accessible to our agency, or to integrate that knowledge into agency- neutral, issue based pages in Intellipedia. I’ve chosen the latter. And when others perform this behavior, you not only pool the community’s collective knowledge, but you begin to build a social network of other users working the same issues.
I’ll give you an example. A certain issue popped up, and rather than releasing an updated report every week, we integrated our knowledge into an Intellipedia page, which was up in a matter of seconds, and invited as many people as possible to contribute. Over the course of several months, that page was edited 500 times and viewed over 12,000 times by people all across the community. We had 13 agencies and/or offices contributing to the page. It was amazing.
We also use it to track our team’s weekly activities and productivity. Friday used to be the day when everyone scrambled to compile a list of what they did over the course of the week, usually by sending a thread of emails back and forth, and eventually compiling a list to send to our boss to send to his/her boss, etc. Now, instead, our team adds things to a page throughout the week, and Friday, we simply send the link to our boss.
Finally, the other way I use Intellipedia is to upload large files that I don’t want to email out to hundreds of people and fill up each of their inboxes with megabytes of information. Instead, I upload the file and email the link. This is a much more efficient way of sharing knowledge.
ExecutiveBiz: What hurdles exist for increased participation in Intellipedia?
Jesse Wilson:
First, “secure” portals of information are proliferating on the community’s secure networks. I’m not saying they’re bad—they are needed to restrict certain data sets which the general community may not have the appropriate credentials for—however, communities of interest have begun to store lower classified information there as well. Intelink, which binds the community together, has a crawler, much like Google, which indexes information from organization web pages, which gives us the ability to search. But these hidden portals block Intelink’s indexing capability because of the higher restricted data. This makes the appropriately classified knowledge undiscoverable. Imagine if you had to go to each individual website on the internet to find information. You’d never know which one to go to in the first place! Luckily for you, Google is able to crawl most of the web.
Second, there’s a lot of misunderstanding and worst-case scenarios batted around, typically by the mid-level management. They argue that Intellipedia isn’t work, or that it perpetuates bad information. The fact is all these questions have answers. We all know collaboration is work. We do it everyday, but using different mediums like email and phone calls. And the “peer-review” process of wikis ensures the information is vetted—but in a different way—horizontally.
Lastly, culture and policy barriers remain, which prevent or dissuade members in the community from integrating their knowledge into the space. A strong information sharing policy from DNI or a new executive order with clear language that doesn’t allow agencies loopholes for maintaining ownership of intelligence information is the only thing that can open the spigot for greater information sharing. For example, the originator controlled (ORCON) caveat prevents an analyst from disseminating information to other parties unless approval is sought from the originator.
ExecutiveBiz: Where do you see Intellipedia in two years?
Jesse Wilson:
Great question. If new policies are successful, Intellipedia will be revolutionary. We’ll look back and wonder how in the world we survived without it. It will be robust, constantly up to date, and have every topic or link to every topic imaginable. People will find things quicker, have mundane and tedious tasks done already, and can spend more time trying to connect the dots and prevent the next 9/11. New analysts will be able to look over their predecessors “scrapbook” of information, contacts and tracked issues, and hit the ground running. When an issue pops up, Intellipedia will have a swarm of diverse analysts working on it, just like a bee-hive. The bottom line is it’s going to make us safer because it ensures unity of effort across the entire U.S. government.
ExecutiveBiz: What is the biggest misconception of Web 2.0?
Jesse Wilson:
The biggest misconception of Web 2.0 is that only young people can use it or understand it. To be honest, before joining government service, I had never written a blog or edited a wiki. But I saw the potential value for government use immediately, particularly with the reforms our nation was demanding from our intelligence community. If you need collaboration, information sharing, and knowledge integration across organizational boundaries, a Web 2.0 infrastructure is certainly a good prescription.
For more information about
United States Central Command, visit
www.centcom.mil.
Interview with Jesse Wilson conducted by JD Kathuria.
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