Client (NGB) needs in 2009: ”We need to get data from the field, where there is low/no bandwidth back to the decision makers rapidly. So they can quickly understand what’s happening onsite”
Client (Private Sector) needs in 2019: ”We need to get data from the field, where there is low/no bandwidth back to the decision makers rapidly. So they can quickly understand what’s happening on site”
This past week I attended the Geospatial Intelligence Conference in San Antonio. In my former life this would not have been a surprise. I have attended this conference 4 times before, but this time, as an outsider. I was representing NorthEastern University, where I teach a few remote sensing and precision agriculture spatial classes. I arrived in San Antonio and with my academic badge in hand, began the conference.
Part of me, a large part of me, misses being part of this community, and the Admiral Sharp’s speech really reinforced that. See, when you’ve been bouncing around industry for a while you realize that “normal” people have a completely different perspective on who these people are, and seeing Admiral Sharp up on stage, getting everyone to “light up their phones” to Peter Frampton’s “Show me the Way” just reinforced that. They’re humans who understand their missions, but who also have a sense of humor about it.
I have a “slightly” dated reference when people, who’ve never been in that world start talking about it, “No, it’s not like 24.” I need to update that reference. But, “ No, it’s not like NCIS” doesn’t sound as good
Narrator: “Todd doesn’t realize that’s also a dated reference”
After a couple of meetings with academics, who I found out volunteer as well as their students, and working the “GeoINT” education booth to talk about NorthEastern, I hit the show floor.
I’m not sure how many times I had my bag searched, each time you entered the show hall it was required. It’s been a while since I had to do that.
I looking for the technologies I could find that would help my current firm with some of the analog problems we have to the intelligence community.
First, it was weird for me to be there. I’ve walked this conference floor before, but normally with someone in uniform, or in a suit with an assistant, but this time I was stag. Running into people who looked at me and said “What are you doing here?” was, well common.
See, there’s a bunch of cross pollination between the “high side” of geospatial and the rest of us. We have similar problems and require similar solutions. That’s one thing we talked about in the education sessions, was how to “Make the skills of GeoINT relevant elsewhere.” For the most part they are. TQ of Spatial Networks likes to say “Geography is the Science of Everything” and those skills that the GeoINT analyst uses verse an Analysts in the Precision Ag, Environmental stuff or Oil and Gas are very similar, just applied differently.
Anyway, I was able to talk to people about their technologies, and how they can help me and my team over at my current job. I found multiple remote sensing and “AI” firms whose technology and data collection to increase the accuracy of our models and methods. Also learned about gaps the “high side” has that we also have.
During the sessions I did notice a recurring theme, and this might be just because I was an insider, and now an outsider, but the decision makers were talking about the same problems we had when I was active. “We need to share data effectively” or “We need real time data to reach the right people.” In my private sector life I have those problems as well, but when we encounter them, we fix them — quickly.
I know the amount of bureaucracy put on this community is heavy, and security is the primary concern. So there are testings, audits and documentation, and those processes need to be streamlined. Anyone from a contractor to a General would tell you that, but I’m not sure that’s the problem — I think it’s just baked into the bureaucracy.
You’d think after 8 years and billions of dollars these problems would be at least not the decision maker’s major concern. So, it seems to be a cultural thing, and not so much a technology thing. Either the bureaucracy, or the politics or just the fact people are cycled in and out as a duty station, and they don’t have a fully baked long term vision. Dunno, I’m an outsider now, but we’re light years beyond collaboration being a Sharepoint site on JWICS.
Note, if you ever want to bury data where no one will find it, a Sharepoint site on ANY govie server is a good place.
After the conference I was talking to some straggler attendees who I know, and the following is not a direct quote, but the gist of the conversation.
“When there is a leadership change, the voice changes but not the narrative. They talk about the advances in technology, but we still have the same problems, andwe can’t seem to technology our way out of.”
I enjoyed myself at the conference, interacting with people I hadn’t seen since I left DC, and generally freaking people out.
“This isn’t your scene anymore”
Do I miss the community, you betcha, but it’s not in the cards for me to go back, at least not yet.
Addendum:
There is one thing that is stuck in my head that I can’t get out. I forget which speaker said this, but “You think it’s hard getting a group of people to agree to a solution. Imagine what’s going to happen when there’s machines in the mix”
