Talk about serendipity! Within less than 24 hours of singing praises for Dick Heuer's Psychology Of Intelligence Analysis here on SAM, it shows up again but this time listed on the world's 5th most popular blog -- Boing Boing. That ought to drive some traffic to the CIA's website...Boing Boing get nearly 7 million viewers per month.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
NGO Intel: Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Groups Map (SPLCenter.org)
One of the trends I have been noticing for some time now is the increasing use of intelligence by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) to accomplish their missions. The Southern Poverty Law Center is a long time producer of intelligence on hate groups in the US dating back to 1981 and the old Klanwatch Newsletter. As the Klan became less of a focus, the SPLC changed the name to the Intelligence Project in 1998.
The SPLC publishes a monthly Intelligence Report and a weekly INTSUM. Most recently they put out a product that is almost certainly to be of interest, at least, to intel studies students and academics and law enforcement intelligence professionals -- the 2007 Hate Groups Map. The picture below is just a screenshot (Hint to NGO's: Please make interesting content embeddable in blogs!) so you will have to go here to find the interactive version but it is worth the trip. The SLPC has mashed up the Google Maps API with their own data to create an easy to navigate and use product.
"New" Version Of Psychology Of Intelligence Analysis Released (Pherson.org)
I don't know how I missed it but Dick Heuer and Randy Pherson (of Pherson Associates) apparently teamed up some time ago to come out with a re-print of Dick's classic, The Psychology Of Intelligence Analysis. We use it (along with Clark's Intelligence Analysis: A Target Centric Approach and Lowenthal's Intelligence: From Secrets To Policy) in our freshman classes as a textbook and have had to rely on the web version of the text on the CIA's site since the original version is out of print.
If you are not familiar with this book, then you owe it to yourself to read it immediately. Our students really enjoy it as it is easy to read, interesting and informative. Most of them are only vaguely aware of how their cognitive biases can impact their analysis and the book is a real eye-opener. It also contains the most lucid description of the Analysis Of Competing Hypotheses method available.
I have heard a rumor that Dick is working on a updated version of the book but until that one comes out you can order individual copies from Amazon or Pherson Associates and bulk orders from Pherson (You'll need to get in line behind me, though...).
Related Posts:
What Do Words Of Estimative Probability Mean?
Monday, May 5, 2008
New Intelligence-related Wikipedia Articles (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia has become the de facto tertiary source of choice for many researchers. Like any tertiary source, some of Wikipedia's content has to be taken with a grain of salt, but, in many cases, the articles are well-written and researched and provide a useful place to start.
One of the things that has always bothered me, however, is the quantity of intelligence related articles. While I am generally able to find at least something of use on even the most obscure topic using Wikipedia, I have often been surprised at the number of intel topics that came up, well, not just short, but missing entirely.
In order to try to rectify that but, more importantly, to give students in my Intelligence Communications class an opportunity to become familiar with MediaWiki software (the same software used by Intellipedia) as well an opportunity to learn to operate in an environment with strict style guidelines and intense editing, I asked them to put together the articles below (in no particular order):
Eberstadt Report (aka First Hoover Commission)
Schlesinger Report
United States Intelligence Budget
1985: The Year Of The Spy
Analysis Of Competing Hypotheses
Intelligence Collection Plan
National Intelligence Strategy Of The United States Of America
US Commission On National Security/21st Century
US Intelligence Community Oversight
Target Centric Analysis
Failure In The Intelligence Cycle
Words Of Estimative Probability
Dulles-Jackson-Correa Report
I let them select the topic as long as it had not already been covered by another Wikipedian. I also had the great good fortune to have an experienced Wikipedian in our second year grad class to help out (Thanks again, Pat!).
All of the articles have already been noticed by the swarm of people that contribute their time to editing and adding to Wikipedia and some of the articles have already changed from their original format or content (if you are thinking of trying this with your classes, you can easily use Wikipedia's history function to see where a student's work ends and an editor's begins. You can also see how other Wikipedians view the work by clicking on the "Discussion" tab. Articles are often ranked by other Wikipedians using a standardized ranking scale).
All in all, I was very pleased with the work the students did. They had to climb a number of difficult learning curves and while, undoubtedly, the pages will change over time as new editors and writers add detail and nuance to the articles the students started, they have made a contribution of which they should be rightly proud.
Related Posts:
Non-State Actors In Sub-Saharan Africa: Likely Current And Future Roles
Jihadist Use Of YouTube, Second Life Over Next 12-24 Months
The Impact of Chronic And Infectious Diseases On US National Interests
A Wiki Is Like A Room...And Other Lessons Learned
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Sunday Funnies: Computer Generated Joke Recommendations (Jester)
Jester, from the brilliant minds at UCal Berkeley, gives you a few jokes and asks you how funny you think they were on a sliding scale. Based on your input, the program then sends you jokes that the computer thinks you think will be funny and then continues to hone its selections based on your input until you are rolling on the floor...or something like that. It worked pretty well for me.
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Sunday Funnies: Save The Antelope!
Sunday Funnies: Trunk Monkey
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