More than 2 years ago, I posted this "empty" gauge for ideas for the IW community. As a result, here are some of the ideas that I received. While all were good ideas, none were fully implemented. For me, this is the difference between thinking and doing. Many strong thinkers, not enough strong doers.1. IW Commanding Officers (COs) should self organize, set their own agenda and have their own IW Commanding Officer's conference via VTC/teleconference to discuss IW community issues. ((A work in progress))
2. Like-minded IW officers could meet in cyberspace (GOTOMEETING.COM) and chat (brain storm) once a month (on a specific topic) at a designated time with a moderator (IWOCM?).
3. IW COs could set up a best practices blog (similar to the Army's Company Commander's site) to share ideas and practices that have worked for them. ((VADM Rogers has done this with a blog under BETA testing now))
4. Re-evaluate where we are as a community. Can we 'bring back' cryptology? ((Underway)
5. IWOs could become insurgents (ala Seth Godin) and self-market to the warfighter. We used to 'sell' our SIGINT capability to the warfighter and had Flag officers champion our capabilities. How do we regain that?
6. Information Warfare Commanders self-organize and set their own agenda and have their own IW Commander conference via VTC/teleconference to discuss IW Commander issues. Built a story for their reliefs. What are the respective IW Commanders doing? What are they not doing that they should?
7. Build a repository of IW officer and enlisted lessons learned from the IA/GSA experience on SIPRNET. What are we doing right; what have we done wrong?
8. Review our progress on the IW officer survey. Where do we stand on the actions recommended in the survey? Are we done? What did we accomplish with the survey? ((Ideas died on the vine))
9. Get the IW blog back into the open. (Note: I think this is done now with some visibility on FaceBook). If it's good enough for Admiral Chad Allen (USCG) and Admiral Jim Stavridis (SOUTHCOM), then it's good enough for us. Hey, do our Flags tweet? ((VADM Rogers working this personally))
10. Change our detailing process. (Not much help with this one since no other specifics were provided. What do you want to change about it? What paygrades are we talking about? Is it detailing in general or slating/command screening? More specifics, please. Not enough to go on here).
Recent Addition: (6/8/10)
11. Provide more transparency on the command slating process. Republish the O5/O6 slate and distribute widely. ((A work in progress))
6 comments:
Yes! Number 10. Please stop the dirty tricks played by these detailers - all communities. Recommend more rumor control and straight up honest dialogue. What might sting more upfront WILL NOT linger!
Not going to touch any of this.
You are wasting your time.
The fact that you can instantiate milestone screening boards and cross community detailing without a formal record message is an indicator. You decide if it's good or bad.
I've worked directly with the IP community for almost 9 years now and I can tell you it is possible to get some things done. We have had a Board of Directors for the past 7 years. It consists of the IP flags, senior detailer, OCM, senior community LDO, senior reserve Captain, the CO at CID, and a Space Cadre representative, as well as others as necessary. We meet quarterly and while it often ends up in a lot of tasking, it gives the senior leaders a chance to discuss important issues for the community. Try to herd all of your flags to meet for any two hours at the same time...always an adventure. An IW CAPT asked me to give her all of the information on the BoD several years ago, loved the idea of a BoD for IWs and that was the last time I've heard it mentioned. We also have bi-annual community training symposiums and an annual senior leader meeting (O6/O6(s) and above). It gives the community several opportunities to get together and in many cases has led to significant changes to the way we do business. Our slate is posted several times a year on NKO and I can't tell you the number of IPs that have called me over the years to get information on billets, career path, and the like. As a retired CTIC, I've lived in the IW world and drank all of the kool aid (well, at least when I was still in...lol), so I like to think that I'm not talking out my keister. Don't say it can't work, can't happen, or it's too hard. It can work but it isn't going to be easy. I say go for it. But once you start, you have to keep plugging away at it. That's what usually happens...it gets hard or time consuming and it withers on the vine.
@ Joe Sullivan
Thanks Joe. We keep plugging away at it. We are making some progress. No doubt about it. But things should be moving along with more urgency.
I like the fact that there are some tried and true ideas among the list, however I think we owe it to the US taxpayer and the navy to try and use architectures and tools that are currently in place in these times of fiscal constraints. It is also great that the blog is looking at the IW community, but should we be looking at solutions and practices to emulate only in the community or the bigger IDC community. Can we use NKO and make it the site it should have been as the model for IDC blogging? Can we use the Navy Lessons Learned website for our best practices and lessons learned? Can we use CAS properly to inform afloat forces? These tools are good and provide a good starting point rather than creating something new and expensive. What do you think?
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