Intellipedia Inches Toward Acceptance

re: Intellipedia Inches Toward Acceptance

Chris Rasmussen — Fri, 01 May 2009 22:54:53 GMT

That story is mostly quantitative evidence. It briefly touches upon the over-emphasis on the analytic report and how to “bureaucratize” things near the end. These are the points I want to talk about. I’ve been arguing points similar to Treverton’s for a very long time behind the firewall and just recently in “public” in an attempt to jumpstart the “purple” process. This vision will take massive executive power (leadership) in the form of turning certain systems off and re-directing the IC’s often mis-directed “faith” in finished intelligence. As I said long ago, grassroots and impressive nominal user stats and edit rates are tapped out!

re: Intellipedia Inches Toward Acceptance

Chris Rasmussen — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:15:38 GMT

That story is mostly quantitative "evidence" and briefly touches upon the deeper points Mr. Treverton and I argue toward the end about "bureaucratization" and over-emphasis on analytical reports.

Channeling that often mis-direct energy of the analytic report is what I want to talk about.

re: Intellipedia Inches Toward Acceptance

Andrea Baker — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:41:21 GMT

I actually disagree with Mr. Rasmussen's assertions of slow growth and the plateau of the wiki. The CIA recently put out a press release with some interesting information about the 3rd Anniversary of Intellipedia. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/intellipedia-celebrates-third-anniversary.html

re: Intellipedia Inches Toward Acceptance

Chris Rasmussen — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:15:30 GMT

Good write up especially the third to last paragraph about over-reliance on “finished intelligence.” If you judge Intellipedia from the perspective of household name recognition, the number of users, and the high volume of encyclopedic content (not the trusted “source”) then Intellipedia is a success. I believe this is shortsighted and have been internally and publicly trying to steer Intellipedia into a “living” or “purple” intelligence model. I, like Treverton, believe that the wiki can be the authoritative place for “what we know right now” about a topic. This would help reduce duplication and shift the IC away from its often misdirected focus on agency-specific polished reports. Judging Intellipedia from this perspective it has a long way to go. Also, the purple intelligence model described above is supported by very few people even among passionate users. I like to ask, what has Intellipedia replaced? And the answer in most cases is very little. Has it fundamentally re-defined the heart of the “production” process of polished reports? There are a pocket of anecdotes but a couple of anecdotes after three years of use and hoping things will get better are not elements a strategy. Many may disagree with my strategy to break us out of stagnation, but I only ask this: instead of complaining and criticizing--suggest an alternative strategy. I’m trying to socialize the terms “Purple Intelligence" and/or "living intelligence.” These terms are references to what happens when a range of information is mixed together and the intelligence topic is constantly updated unlike the snapshot idea behind the "finished intelligence" process. If intelligence agencies were to adhere to the same concept – mixing their information together into one topical space rather than circulating reports with limited feedback loops on near identical topics through disparate agency-specific production systems--the government would experience more robust and efficient business processes. In 2006, intelligence officials acknowledged major barriers to information sharing. U.S. intelligence agencies still produce about 50,000 reports a year, often lengthy and redundant. Purple intelligence can help reduce the amount of duplication by moving the review process into the same space where the collaboration takes place. I’m working on a cool little video clip that explains purple intelligence. I’ve talked about it extensively for years behind the firewall at work, but it was mentioned in Lin Wells and Mark Drapeau’s Social Software and National Security paper (link below). http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/Def_Tech/DTP61_SocialSoftwareandNationalSecurity.pdf At any rate, I’m often mis-quoted in the press and blogs. These quotes spin off other commentary that is not always accurate. I understand this is a very esoteric topic but wanted to comment to convey more nuance.