The Technology and Culture of a Generation Gap

The activity about blogging almost seems fast and furious, except for average bloggers who see it as just another day in a connected world. Web 2.0 moves information quickly, and those who understand the tools and are comfortable with the technology learn to multi-task quickly, receive and disseminate information quickly, and move on towards accomplishing the next task quickly.

Thad Allen, Commandant of the US Coast Guard, had a bloggers roundtable today discussing the Coast Guards activities in moving towards the utilization of Web 2.0 technologies to open up the information system of the Coast Guard for accessability, but what also sounds like the process of building a communication network between the Coast Guard and its customers and clients, including the taxpayers. There was a lot of revealing information, and I thought the transcript was worth the read in full (PDF).

The reactions are interesting. David Axe, who is a journalist but also blogs both on his own blog and at Wired, sees some irony in the whole process. He's right though, the Coast Guard did trip out of the gate with its first Web 2.0 attempt, and it is easy to be skeptical of today's announced direction of the Coast Guard with a new approach to Web 2.0. I highly recommend watching out for whatever the Unofficial Coast Guard blog says, because lets be honest, it is kind of silly they got denied FOIA request due to lack of legitimacy for an editorial standard when Jim Dolbow is one of the bloggers there. After all, he is on the Editorial Board over at the United States Navy Institute. Are we supposed to believe the Admiral would give priority for the dissemination of very technical Coast Guard information to people in the MSM over that group of incredibly knowledgeable Coast Guard dudes and the Coast Guard is really taking social media seriously? Sounds like they see value in the tools, but still want to have complete control of the content. In other words, they are still in the learning process regarding what Web 2.0 and social media is.

The only thing I picked up is that Wired's Danger Room is screwed if Noah still lets me write articles for them, because while I have no problem wearing a name tag that identifies me and the blog at a Navy sponsored event, I have no intention of identifying myself by name intentionally online until this blogging thing becomes more than a hobby.

However, moving beyond some of the silliness and into the substance, I thought Armed Liberal's question revealed the depth to which the Coast Guard is taking Web 2.0 seriously.

Q Okay. My first question is sort of, as you try and talk about transitioning -- and I apologize because I was a minute or two late -- are you talking about moving the Coast Guard to sort of one common, social media platform? Or are you talking about, in essence, a cloud of tools?

ADM. ALLEN: The answer is probably, all of the above. I think you need to use a variety of tools that are out there. First of all, I think we have to have an air gap between the .mil and .com domains. There's so much stuff that goes on inside the .mil domain where we have to have security concerns. And a lot of it which it can't even be discussed at this level. And a lot of that plays into the decisions we're making about what can be done within the .mil domain and what can't be.

There are also issues about bandwidth and the cost of doing all of this. If you take a look at how many people are on .mil domains that are involved in a .com site at any time during the day dealing with our bandwidth that we're purchasing right now goes towards that connectivity. I'd like to see us move into the .com domain wherever we can and push that content over there.

That said, you shouldn't rule out anything because you don't know what the next big application is. Right now, I intend to work on Facebook. But you know, I'm not saying I shouldn't be in Second Life at some point. I'm not sure we're ready to get there now. And whether or not you're dealing with a specific platform or a cloud, I think you should figure out the effect you're trying to achieve, and it should match that.

That said, whatever we're dealing with that's going to be out there in public domain has to be information that's truly releasable to the public and is consistent with our security policies. And that's where we intend to go.

Back in the day it began with MUDs, then upgraded to Talkers, and eventually IRC. Along came AOL, the webboards and PHPBB, and then it was ICQ. Next it was the MMOs, which rapidly evolved everything as the gamers required Roger Wilco and other voice activated applications to stay coordinated against their opponents. Before you knew it, Napster was a household name, and Yahoo was running commercials during Monday Night Football. That was before Y2K.

The means by which social networking has exploded the internet into content of all forms, from MySpace to Facebook, Teamspeak, Ventrilo, and Mumble. Twitter, Social bookmarks, BitTorrent, blogging, YouTube, and pod casting are just the tip of the iceberg. Ask a Korean gamer in the coffee shop about Lineage II, and you'll begin to understand how 1.6 million Koreans in 2004 represented a global generation that opened the door for MR T. and Verne Troyer to revive their careers as spokesman for the 10 million gamers of World of Warcraft.

If you had a job in 1990 in the military services, a lot of what I'm talking about above means absolutely nothing to you. I graduated High School in 1994, was an IRCop in 1990, and was part of the thinkgeek generation where >SELECT * FROM users WHERE age > 40 returns "no idea what the hell you are talking about." Have your IT guy explain that one to you...

Today's recruit was born in 1990, while today's Generals and Admirals were in the Persian Gulf in 1990, and they don't understand how the world changed when a bunch of young parents watched CNN on a certain winter evening. The culture changed back home, and with the fall of the wall a connected youth experience evolved the culture of a generation of young people to something unfamilar to previous generations. The culture most American youth grew up in is nothing like the culture that today's officers knew as a youth, and it extends far beyond technology even as it was heavily influenced by technology.

I read Admiral Allen's answer and for me it reveals the Coast Guard has seriously considered Web 2.0 in the broad context necessary to be successful over the long term. Domain distinction does matter. OPSEC is the consideration with the largest learning curve. Bandwidth defines the amount of content flow, so it must be center to the decision process. Technology is rapidly evolving, there is no maturity in any of the Web 2.0 technologies currently leveraged for moving information (despite what people believe), and it is unlikely these technologies will fully mature until after IPv6 becomes the accepted standard. We live in a 32-bit information world in transition towards X-Box of information flow. The distance between a MUD and World of Warcraft is the distance between the record player and the IPhone.

My advice to the Coast Guard is the same advice I would give all the services, evolve at the pace necessary to give the older officers time to adapt to the culture changes best reflected in the generation you are recruiting today, because the changes will be much broader than just the tools of technology. Technology is just one of many ways the generation gap is reflected. The entire culture of the connected generation is different, and the generation gap will extend far beyond technology.