Navy CIO and New Media

The Navy is set to release an outline of information technology security priorities in March called the Computer Defense Roadmap. The intent is to influence research and development efforts to get better security tools. Washington Technology fills in some details.

“We’re trying to drive a little bit of the R&D spending, but not for things that will take two or three years to sort out,” he said.

The Navy’s needs are immediate, Carey said.

The security needs are at the individual user level, the network level, the data level and the Global Information Grid level, he said.

Some of the specific technologies include identity management, privacy and encryption.

A piece of advice he had for companies trying to sell to the Navy is to explain how their technology will fit with the Navy’s strategy. “I want to know what brick in the wall you can be,” he said.

Privacy and encryption will be the easier part, but identity management is never easy. I've done 3 major 20K+ user enterprise IM implementations, and none of them went as advertised. If you think it is a real pain in the ass to have a bunch of passwords, several of which you use infrequently, IM will fix that problem. It is a big pain in the IT staff ass to get there though, so be nice to your IT admins during the early implementation phases.

The article goes on to discuss new media.

Carey supports the use of Web 2.0 technologies and collaboration, but said there is a need to balance access with security.

“We have to embrace the net, but we have to embrace security,” Carey said.

Note the word access. This one sentence isn't much to work with, but for those who aren't aware, Robert Carey also operates a DON CIO Blog. His latest post is specific to Embracing Social Networking Tools and there is a lot of good content in the post... this part stood out though.

So what is the real purpose of these tools? What are the benefits? What business problems do they solve? Ultimately, do these investments provide value? I believe they do.

Why do I say that? A few reasons: These tools are fundamental to collaboration. They have the potential to leverage the collective wisdom of this 750,000+ member Department. How many times do we seek someone with specific knowledge in order to complete a task or a project? Unfortunately, we do not always know where to begin that search because our visibility is limited.

These tools provide the basis for searching the intellectual capacity of our people and facilitate our ability to make connections to solve real problems.

The idea behind that last sentence is very smart. Different tools do different things. For example, the reason I'm liking Twitter so far is because it has given me access to new and interesting people, and opens up doors for me to make horizontal connections into new networks for increasing my ability to collect and identify useful information quicker. Twitter is limited, so as a specific tool it only enables access, but I can connect with email for collaboration. Different tools serve different purposes.

Inside large enterprises there are few examples where social media tools are valuable for building internal collaboration, rather I tend to see more community oriented collaboration tools like Community Server or Wiki. However, in building information and networking strategies, the current trend is towards new media tools like blogging, Twitter, and YouTube.

It really isn't about the tools though. I would encourage the Navy to avoid beginning the discussion regarding new media by talking about the tools, because as we all know our technology tool kits evolve quickly. The Navy should begin by discussing what they intend to do, and go from there.

Does the Navy want to network internally or externally? Who is your target audience? What is it the Navy wants to accomplish? If the DoD takes a toolkit approach to new media, they will fail miserably wasting money and people's time in the process. In fact, there is a good case that some of the efforts I see by official Navy on Twitter today is a waste of time and money, but others like @flyboy are very interesting because they actually have an appealing brand they present in a unique brand through the medium: Naval Aviation.

No one develops a business plan based on tools though, there must be an end to strategy in order for the ways and means to be understood for purpose, thus effective.