More
than 3 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)) ((2013 Update: CRYPTOCORE is dead.))
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)) ((2013 Update: CRYPTOCORE is dead.; actually, very much alive and well!)
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).
Addition from a few years ago: (6/8/10)
11. Provide more transparency on the command slating process. Republish the O5/O6 slate and distribute widely. ((A work in progress))
9 comments:
Can you explain this one and what is happening?
"4. Re-evaluate where we are as a community. Can we 'bring back' cryptology? ((Underway)"
Anonymous @ 5:40 AM
The community reintroduced its foundational principles and VADM Rogers reasserted his role as leader of the Cryptologic/IW community. All the senior cryptologic/IW leaders committed themselves to these foundational principles.
http://seanheritage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/20110907CryptologicCommunityFoundationalPrinciples.pdf
As they say - "What's old is new again."
It's the same tired song. The "community" just does not know how to follow through.
This has been interesting and sad at the same time.
The "community" was told 20 years ago that it was all about C2W; then it was IO, and we chased that shiny ball for a few years. Then then it was the Dark Ages of NETWARCOM, and the MIC/MOC concept and PSYOPS and now it is the All-About-CYBER era.
I feel for the young officers who watch the seniors flail around without a deliberate, well thought out plan. It seems the leadership just chases the money.
Through it all the core cryptologic skills have carried the community. It seems the Naval Special Warfare leadership understands where our community should be going better than our own community leadership. Our community leaders should be able to articulate in detail a future path for the community. They should be able to advocate on behalf of the community to the leaders of other navy communities. Maybe that is happening, I just don't see it.
The move from Nebraska Avenue & change to IW from was the beginning of the end of the 'cryptologic' community. Accept it and move on. What we need to do is stop reminiscing about the past and figure out what we want the future to look like and move out smartly.
Anonymous 9:51 -
It is true that was all a distraction, but our core competency in Cryptology NEVER went away. In fact, I can say that in 25 years my primary role hasn't changed one bit. While the technology and means have changed, the core competency of Cryptology remains alive and well to this day.
Couple thoughts / opinions about earlier Anons' posts:
- The community wasn't told what it's about. Leadership decided to go that way (chase the shiny ball) and it was allowed to get out of control.
- Moving from Nebraska Ave had nothing to do with the end of the cryptologic community. The move was a BRAC decision. The mission focus had started changing before then.
Comfortably Numb
I certainly don't agree with your comment that "CRYPTOCORE is dead". Actually, is doing quite well. You should well know that bureaucracy,and established Navy "checks and balances" gets on the way of doing things like in the commercial world. the "DOD way" is a slow process.
CRYPTOCORE is not a dead project, it is still undergoing the official channels to become a legit DoD website that IW's can use. It isn't being constructed in a way that would allow embarrassment to the community should it be defaced (at minimum) within 72 hours of going live. There is a continuous effort to get the website live and there is a process in place that isn't a smooth one, it's very rigid for good reason. There are junior Sailors working the effort as well, since they will be the ones maintaining the site with IW guidance and mentorship.
-Joe Alfred
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