Social Software and the National Security Discussion

Despite some limited success, isolated pockets of bottom-driven informal pilot projects are not the same as a coordinated top-down effort to determine appropriate government uses for social software. Such broad uses include balancing security with transparency, writing policies for use of social software, training personnel to be ready to use the tools, conducting research and acquiring private sector materiel as appropriate, understanding its uses for intelligence and public affairs applications, and assessing the strategic implications for the USG and other countries.

Social Software and National Security: An Initial Net Assessment (PDF) by Dr. Mark Drapeau and Dr. Linton Wells II

The assessment of current social media engagements by the authors of this report in regards to the military services is pretty much on target. Only the Coast Guard can walk chin up with these technologies, and I think even they would admit they have a ways to go before getting where they want to be.

I have read a lot regarding how social media works for business environments, but I don't think I have seen any descriptions as well defined and easy to understand as how this report presents social software to the military services. The report includes a good summary of how social software can work for the military services.

The first function is Inward Sharing, or sharing information within agencies. This includes information sharing not only during military operations, but also within offices for budgets, human resources, contracting, social, and other purposes, and coordination between offices and other units of an agency.

The second function is Outward Sharing, or sharing internal agency information with entities beyond agency boundaries. Outward sharing includes coordination during the Federal interagency process; sharing information with government, law enforcement, medical emergency, and other relevant entities at state, local, and tribal levels; and collaboration with partners such as corporations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), or super-empowered individuals (billionaires, international CEOs, etc.).

The third function is Inbound Sharing, which allows government to obtain input from citizens and other persons outside the government more easily. Inbound Sharing includes gauging public sentiment on issues in real time (not unlike instant polling), allows government to receive input on current topics of interest, empowers the public to vote or otherwise give weight to other people’s opinions to reach some consensus or equilibrium about online discussions about government issues, and provides a mechanism for crowdsourcing, which is effectively outsourcing projects to a group of people whose membership is not predefined (not unlike a contest or challenge).

The fourth function is Outbound Sharing, whose purpose is to communicate with and/or empower people outside the government. This includes a range of efforts such as focused use of information and communications technology (ICT) during stabilization and reconstruction missions, connecting persons in emergency or post-disaster situations, and communicating messages in foreign countries as part of public diplomacy efforts. It also includes functions like using multimedia and social media for better communication with citizens as part of public affairs.

I think this report would be valuable reading for anyone who thinks social software technology can improve their organization, for example, a maintenance wiki for ships or a way to build collaboration internally or that connect to external organizations. This is an excellent beginners guide in my opinion, perfect for the culture of large organizations that want to be adaptable, but are slow to change. I also think the content in this paper scales very well to private business.

There are two sections I think are missing from this report.

First, the report doesn't provide much intellectual context for information warfare with social media, both at the national security level or for corporate use. Oh yea, there is tremendous value yet to be leveraged with information operations utilizing social media to shape opinions and perception towards specific products. There are already several examples in the idea space that largely go unnoticed.

For example, it is only a matter of time before the other think tanks decide they are tired of being flanked in the idea space by CNAS, who already leverages social media to conduct information operations every single day in regards to the Army and the national security debate. Good ideas from other think tanks are being ignored in favor of crowdsourced ideas that folks in the field contribute to and believe in as part of the CNAS social media presence. Folks like CSBA, Heritage, CAP, CDI, AEI, and CSIS spend a fortune producing reports with new ideas, then may spend even more putting on a symposium to spread these ideas, only to often find a limited follow-up activity has left a small sample of individuals understanding the content. The buzz generated quickly becomes the hum of background noise, and the impact is steadily lost in favor of a new idea before the information was able to develop purpose.

A single think tank research report could be an investment of $50,000 in research hours alone, and yet most of the time when I ask, most analysts don't know what happens with their information except among certain circles. In the future, social media will be how researchers measure the return on investment of ideas, because when information sharing is inward, inbound, outward, and outbound you get as much out of your information as you put in, and you know who your information is reaching. Information has value, and yet, if I have linked a think tank report, I know how many people and who those people are who go to a report from ID, which is more information than the writers of the report themselves probably know about their own information.

Second, while this NDU report discussed branding, it did not discuss identity. If you want to see a great discussion in the Army about identity, this discussion is fantastic. Information warfare through social media is often described as asymmetric warfare. Identity is information, a shaping operation for information context, so when you give your identity in cyberspace you do so for the tactical purposes of shaping information. By saying you are Captain Jim Smith, US Coast Guard, you have taken a symmetric warfare tactical approach in information shaping operations for your strategic communications in a social media engagement. Does the US Coast Guard social media policy even recognize this? I hope so.

Content that is published consistency in social media (including comments) is considered branding. A disclaimer is the brand. If you want to build your online brand you have to know how all your activities work together. You need a consistency and congruency. Each part of the social media puzzle builds into a picture people have of you, how they imagine you to be relates to how you really are to the degree you get this stuff right. From an organizational perspective, the complexities extend to how a military service brand comes together when multiple individuals are posting all with the same disclaimer. The impact of this on any information in the social software space will have a shaping effect. If you follow any number of Navy news folks on twitter, the only shaping effect one finds is chaos.

I see the NDU report as very well written and thought provoking in several ways. I can already see where some of the ideas promoted will need explanation or be dismissed as trendy absent context for how the methods can be effective. If you work in media, new media, public affairs, or you are simply looking for more efficient ways to crowdsource project development and idea collaboration, this report is a good place to start.