37,000 Contract Employees In IC; Cost 66% More Than Government Employees

Dr. Ronald Sanders, the Associate Director Of National intelligence for Human Capital, held a conference call (transcript of that call here) yesterday to discuss the recent results of an inventory of core contractor personnel. Based on the information in the call (and a little math) it appears that there about 100,000 military and civilian personnel in the US national security intel community along with about 37,000 (or 27% of the total 137,000 workforce) contract employees (Note: The numbers were pretty confusing and there was a lengthy, somewhat disconcerting discussion concerning algebra near the end of the conference but I came up with 37,000 based on what was written and so did the Post, so I feel better). Dr. Sanders went to great pains to explain that this was only the core contracting requirements of the IC. He was not including guys contracted to seal the asphalt at Langley, for example...

Dr. Sanders also quoted a number of interesting reasons for using so many contracted personnel. The number one reason (56%) was "to provide unique expertise to IC missions and functions." Specifically mentioned were scientific and engineering expertise, foreign language and regional and cultural expertise. 11% were hired because of the way the budget was structured. The IC wanted to hire permanent government employees but couldn't but had money to hire contractors. 10% of the contractors were hired because it was more cost effective, in some way, to hire them under contract and 8 percent were hired due to surge or non-recurring projects. (Note: I am not sure I understand all these numbers. For example, if you are hiring someone for "expertise" and it is a recurring requirement, then why isn't that person also someone you would want to bring on permanently?).

It also appears that these contractors cost the government 66% more than the average government employee ($207,000 per year vs. $125,000 per year). These numbers appear to be based on full life cycle costs including salary, benefits while in service, pension costs, health benefits into retirement, etc.

The total number of contractors on the payroll from 06-07 was "essentially a flat line" according to Dr. Sanders. Interestingly, the DNI didn't collect data on the numbers of contracted personnel prior to 2006 and can't speak to the exact trend in hiring though he did admit, "We know – you know there’s been a sharp increase in the number of U.S. government civilian employees in the intelligence community."

New NGA Website Online Now! (NGA)

For those of you who have never visited the old NGA website it was, well, ugly. Really. Ugly. Lots of great people at the NGA and the product is, of course, fantastic but the website did not do the organization justice.

All that has changed with the new NGA site. Very professional and much more logically arranged. Complete with superslick video (that they foolishly made impossible to embed so I can't show it to you) and straightforward links to various important pages within the site (such as jobs and products and services), the re-worked site looks better and is more useful.

I was particularly pleased to see that the NGA has plussed up its history section. There are a number of useful tools there for educators including a nice monograph on the history of the NGA and a useful time line. My only wish is that they would put up some more historical pictures and documents of importance. There is also no FOIA Reading Room like the CIA has usefully established (hint, hint...).

The Future Of Education Is Games (Edutopia via Greenbush Labs Blog)

...or simulations if you prefer. If you don't believe me, watch this very compelling and well-argumented video of Professor James Paul Gee from Arizona State University. While you are at it, take a look around the Edutopia site. Very interesting stuff there (many thanks to the Greenbush Labs Blog for highlighting it yesterday).

A Little Bit Of Pre-term Perspective (Beloit and YouTube)

Beloit College put out its annual mindset list this week. The purpose of the list is to act "as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation." Beloit uses the list as a way to help their faculty get inside the heads of the incoming freshmen and to explicitly recognize that some of the cultural touchstones of a 50 year old professor are not the cultural touchstones of an 18 year old student.

For 18 year olds coming to college this year, Beloit notes, for example, that IBM has never made typewriters and there has always been GPS. Beloit just about killed me last year when they noted that the Soviet Union had never existed for those freshmen. This year, in turn, it suddenly hit me that the incoming freshmen were 11 years old when 9/11 happened. How much do you remember from when you were 11?

If that is not enough perspective for you, then check out the video made by the always incisive Dr. Michael Wesch and his students at Kansas State University:

Intelligence Community, Meet The Future... (Image Metrics)

I just got wind of this video from a friend of mine (Thanks, John and Flint!). Watch it all the way through and see if you can spot the threats and the opportunities. Once you are done, highlight the space between the [ ] below to get the answer (I typed it using white lettering so I wouldn't spoil the surprise. Highlight the white space between the [ ]and the answers magically appear as white lettering on a black background. Steganography on the cheap, as it were...).



[Emily, the girl in the video, is fake. She was generated entirely using computer graphics software. Animation of this quality is coming to your video games next year. There are so many new threats and opportunities generated by this kind of technology that I am not sure where to begin. Post your thoughts to the comments...]