Just when I thought all the hub-bub surrounding social networking media was scary stuff to explore from home - our troops in harms way are finding it to be an advantage on the battle field. First I should give a disclaimer - I've never actually started a myspace, facebook or twitter account, and this is my first attempt at entering the "blogosphere". I think I'm still a young guy - but I'm an OLD MAN when it comes to anything related with Web 2.0. I've always felt the more information you give out (or take in) on social media applications would place me and my family at risk. As if some techie boogie-man was waiting on-line to get us as soon as we poked our head out of our shell.
My employer has come out with a corporate policy restricting most use of non-company related Web 2.0 applications. I would have assumed it would be similarly shunned by the Department of Defence. As it turns out, our military is NOT shying away from these applications - in fact, they're embracing them to gain an intelligence advantage. In a recent article by Heather Havenstien (www.computerworld.com) the growing popularity in web based applications is finding significant growth in the US military. More specifically, given the Department of Defence's lead intelligence agency's growing use of wikis, blogs, RSS feeds and enterprise "mashups", security can actually be acheived through maximizing Web 2.0 applications, rather than avoiding them. Chief of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lewis Shepard, recently stated they are experiencing "Mushrooming use of various Web 2.0 technologies, which are becoming increasingly critical to accomplishing missions that require analysts to share intelligence... (allowing) intelligence agencies to improve and deepen our collaborative work processes."
Data is being received constantly. As such, the military needs to process it asynchronously to give real time information for battle field decisions. By having wikis, blogs and mashups able to be constantly updated, information can be timely for more effective intelligence. Chief Shepard went on to say DIA's analysts, "rely upon and demand instant gratification" for their information needs.
While the DIA's IT infrastructure is significantly more secure than any I will use from my home PC, their use of Web 2.0 as a way to feed their analysts with instant information is impressive. Blogging for the first time may not make me feel like a government agent - but it just might make this "old-timer" feel a little younger. Who knows, I might get a little crazy and throw caution to the wind by launching a facebook account... On second thought, one step at a time.
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