Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Part 3 -- Events From A Topical Perspective (Mapping The Future)

For the last two days, I have been posting about some excellent research that CSIS has done with their Mapping the Future Project and about some equally interesting work my own students have done along those same lines. In both cases, the goal was to look out several years and identify those events, dates and anniversaries that had potential to have significant meaning or produce significant outcomes of national security interest.

In the case of my students, I divided them into two teams. The first team examined the data from a geographical standpoint and the second team, which I will discuss today, looked at events from the standpoint of specific topics of interest (e.g. political events, cultural events, economic events, etc. -- see full list below and don't forget to scroll side to side as well as up and down).



The list here is much more extensive than the one I provided yesterday (or the CSIS list, for that matter) mainly because the students built this one over the course of the term. They have added a good bit more detail and a number of interesting features including the primary source for information on the event and their own evaluation of how, specifically, the event will impact national security (using the US National Security Strategy as a guide for their evaluation criteria).

I have highlighted those events that were in the CSIS list in boldface. Those that were in both the CSIS list and the geographical list from yesterday are in bold and italics. Events just in italics were on the two team's lists but not on the CSIS list. What amazes me is the way the simple change in perspective results in very different lists. I recommend this two team approach to virtually any intel classroom project. It is one thing to say that what you see and how you analyze depends on where you stand; it is another thing to actually experience it.

Tomorrow -- Other Sources For Event Information

Related Posts:
Part 1 -- Mapping The Future
Part 2 -- Events From A Geographical Perspective

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks for putting this up here, Kris. Everyone has wanted to see the findings that we got and I don't have a hard or digital copy of the final product.

I leave for DC on Friday, I'll be there until mid July. If you make it to town, shoot me an email and I'll see if you can come in and observe the teaching program that I'm doing this summer.