IntelAnalysis

Using new media technology to make the filmmaking post-production process more collaborative has uncovered some interesting theoretical insights. It has introduced some constraints that have allowed me to abstract some broader concepts that can be applied to journalism and collaborative sensemaking.

Below I explore some of the parallels between Collaborative Filmmaking, New Media Technology, Journalism, The Intelligence Cycle, Knowledge Management Pyramid and the Scientific Method...

* Constraints Can Be Good
* Scaling Up Complexity with Folksonomy Tags & Playlists
* Towards a Theory of Collaborative Sensemaking

I attended a conference on Open Source Intelligence and collected over 3 hours of interviews from the 10 of the presenters. My citizen journalism coverage was looking through the following two lenses:

* What types of insights could intelligence analysis provide to journalism?
* How can information and communications technologies be used to help avoid and prevent armed conflict?

UPDATE:Here is a 90-second video introduction to these interviews

Music: On The Moon (Trip Hop mix) by disharmonic

FYI:You can use this feed to download all of the interview audio.

More information below...

(15:20 / 4.4 MB / Subscribe to Interview Audio)

Listen to an interview with Mats Bjore.

More information on the Open Source Intelligence conference here.

Transcript Coming Soon.
January 18th, 2006

(17:39 / 5.1 MB / Subscribe to Interview Audio)

Listen to an interview with Carolyn Stewart.

More information on the Open Source Intelligence conference here.

Transcript Coming Soon.
January 18th, 2006

(14:24 / 5.1 MB / Subscribe to Interview Audio)

Listen to an interview with Michael Andregg.

More information on the Open Source Intelligence conference here.

Transcript Coming Soon.
January 18th, 2006

(26:11 / 7.5 MB / Subscribe to Interview Audio)

Listen to an interview with Robert David Steele.

More information on the Open Source Intelligence conference here.

Transcript Coming Soon.
January 19th, 2006

(18:32 / 5.2 MB / Subscribe to Interview Audio)

Listen to an interview with Elliot Jardines.

More information on the Open Source Intelligence conference here.

Transcript Coming Soon.
January 17th, 2006

(15:01 / 4.3 MB / Subscribe to Interview Audio)

Listen to an interview with Congressman Rob Simmons.

More information on the Open Source Intelligence conference here.

Transcript Coming Soon.
January 17th, 2006

I will be attending a conference next week put on by Robert David Steele's Open Source Solutions called Information Operations, Open Source Intelligence, & Peacekeeping Intelligence.

There will be an interesting mix of government intelligence professionals, corporate competitive intelligence professionals, knowledge management experts and embassy representatives from around the world.

Steele has granted me permission to film interviews with various speakers throughout the conference, and I will be particularly interested in capturing insights that professional intelligence analysts can provide to investigative and participatory journalism.

I have argued before that the field of Intelligence Analysis can provide many insights for how journalism could do a better job at discovering, discriminating, distilling, and disseminating knowledge.

It seems as though Open Source Intelligence advocate and founder of OSS.net Robert Davis Steele has also been suggesting that there be a migration of these analytical insights into the public domain:

Because the policymaker is inundated with contradictory information lacking methodical evaluation, a critical priority must be the transfer of the proven methods of classified intelligence analysis, to the world of unclassified information.

Steele calls it a "critical priority" to transfer these advanced analytical techniques and methodologies into the hands of ordinary citizens. This is part of Steele's larger vision for creating an open source network of NGOs, academic institutions, international organizations and potentially individual citizens that could tap into the wisdom of the electorate and create the "possibility of revolutionizing governance by revolutionizing what government can know, how it knows it, how it decides, and how it communicates both its decision and supporting information."

Steele suggests creating a public intelligence "skunk works" that would "focus on creating public intelligence sources, softwares, and services that elevate the utility of all information to all citizens all the time."

There are many unanswered questions for how Steele's vision will be implemented by the coalition of private corporations that he's building, and how much government support and cooperation he will eventually receive. But I would argue that the press should have some role to play in this type of coalition because it sounds very similar to the public interest mandate that the field of journalism aspires to fulfill.

The press is facing an economic and credibility crisis as they attempt to reinvent how they create and deliver their information products. Wall Street pressures are moving the newspaper industry towards implosion by forcing cutbacks and diminishing the amount of available resources for journalists to gather the news -- let alone introduce even more complexity to how they analyze and make sense of the endless stream of facts. But the industry is at a cross roads, and they must change or die.

There happens to be many similar dot-connecting challenges facing the US Intelligence agencies where reform has been hindered by an obsession with secrecy as well as the business models of vested interests that are more focused on "esoteric collection systems" than figuring out how to make sense of the hoards of collected data.

This post is intended to explore the parallels to these challenges and how solutions to all of these challenges can be found through the converging trajectories of Open Source Intelligence and Participatory Journalism. As Steele says,

It is essential that operational, logistics, acquisition, and other information be managed as a coherent whole, not in isolation from classified intelligence. Sharing and sense-making, not hoarding and secrecy, are the watchwords today.

The opposite of information hoarding is collaborative participation, and the opposite of secrecy is transparency. Blogging is pushing journalism to be more participatory and transparent while Steele's Open Source Intelligence initiatives are doing the same in the national security domain. In both cases, the cooperative principles of Open Source holds the keys to unlocking these potentials of the wisdom of the crowd and the trust of the electorate.

The post looks at the following issues...

* THE CRISIS FACING JOURNALISM
* COMBINING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS INSIGHTS INTO JOURNALISM
* ECHO CHAMBER PROJECT'S PATH FOR INTEGRATING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES
* WHAT IS THE MOTIVATION FOR USING ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES?
* WHAT JOURNALISTS CAN LEARN FROM INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS