Tag Archives: critical thinking

Cognition and intelligence analysis

Posted on May 6, 2013 by | Leave a comment

A couple of stories have been in the press recently that have some interesting implications for intelligence analysis.

First, courtesy of Discover magazine, is this piece summarizing research that seems to indicate that people that sign their documents on the top of documents (before they’ve entered data or made a statement) their information is more accurate than if they sign at the bottom of the document (after they’ve already done the work).

People are often dishonest in little ways on forms, rounding numbers in a beneficial direction or failing to mention a relatively small item as part of a larger list. If they sign a form once they’ve done all that, they don’t go back and correct it; instead, they’ve already woven a story to themselves—consciously or not—about why what they did was perfectly fine.

It’s worth noting that most intelligence products do not have the author(s) names attached.  Now, there’s usually a very good reason for that.  Namely, that the analysis done is supposed to represent the agency’s position and not the individuals.  Additionally, there’s a security issue as well.  Knowing that analyst ‘A’ is the one who writes all the stuff about security issues in Outer Mongolia opens that analyst up to targeting and influence.

That being said, I’ve heard analysts say things like ‘I don’t care, my name’s not on this.’ Anonymity often breeds what I recently heard described as ‘a culture of compliance rather than one of performance’.  Check a box…if you get it wrong, who cares?

This isn’t just an individual issue, either.  Take a look over at Public Intelligence and you can see all sorts of examples of poor analysis (and occasionally good).  Very rarely are agencies held accountable for putting out bad, or just outright wrong, analysis so we can’t just go out and hammer analysts.

There’s got to be a way to address both problems.

The London School of Economics has this podcast about cognitive biases in support of the speakers book titled ‘The Art of Thinking Clearly‘.  It’s a fun, easy to access set of examples that demonstrate the various ways in which cognitive biases cause us to make poor decisions.

One particular point I like to emphasize when teaching critical thinking and analysis that Dobelli mentions is that what we see as cognitive biases today are actually traits that were essential for survive for much of the human (and, I suppose, pre-human) evolutionary process.  When you’re a hunter-gatherer traveling across the savannah and you see a shadow in the tall grass, your buddies to take off running.  Maybe it’s not a lion in the grass but if it is they’ve got a good shot at getting away.  Meanwhile, while you’re trying to analyze the various possible hypotheses explaining the movement, some sabre tooth is picturing you with a nice mango salsa.

Another part of the lecture reminded me of a circumstance I had where I had written a product yet it languished in editing/approval hell for an astounding 13 (!) months.  Finally I suggested officially killing the project since its contents were of dubious relevance any more and I had increasing concerns about the validity of my original findings.  My suggestion seemed to be the spark that was needed for everyone else to decide that the product needed to be disseminated right now!  Lengthy, impassioned arguments discussing my concerns were brushed aside.  After all, I was told:  ‘We’ve already spent so much time on this already…we can’t just let it go.’

When I mentioned the concept of ‘sunk costs‘ I got this sort of look:

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For the record, I’m kind of used to those looks now…

The idea that the time spent on project X is already gone doesn’t justify spending more time on it unless project X makes sense and has value but my overlords at the time saw that past time as some sort of investment and were determined to get some sort of return on that investment.  Getting them to see the sense in the fact that their ‘return on investment’ would, in fact, just leave readers confused about why they were getting a product about an event that was a year old, took some doing.

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A few thoughts in the wake of Boston…

Posted on April 15, 2013 by | Leave a comment

I’m writing this just a few hours after the news about the bombing in Boston.  You won’t see any speculation here about who’s responsible, thoughts on the immediate response or similar things.  Rather, I want to talk a bit about what the larger implications might mean in terms of threat and what how an intelligence shop might best respond in a situation like this.

Ok…first things first.  A couple of rules to keep things in perspective.

  1. We should now know that with events like this, information that comes our way in the first hours is going to be confused, full of inaccuracies and speculation.  Anyone who speaks with authority in the first few hours is likely to be a liar.
  2. The 24 news channels are terrible at covering events like this.  Since there is so little information to report they have to fill their air time with anything they can.  This means your signal to noise ratio will be off the charts.  Once you get the broad outlines of the event and (possibly) see any footage of the event your best bet is to switch off the TV.

Since we’ve not got a few decades of data about terrorism from all around the world, there are some findings that might help us think about what might (might) come next.

First, a good place to look is the fine folks at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).  I’d recommend reading this piece about the (un)predictability of terrorism and its ‘burstiness’.  I’d particularly like to mention this latter point.

As the people at START put it:

But in addition, terrorism has a bursty quality. When it is effective in a particular time and place, we get a lot of it rapidly.

Now, I think the key word here is the word ‘effective’.  While, on some level, attacks like Oklahoma City, Mardrid, and 9/11 were successful but I’m not sure they would be considered ‘effective’.  After all, in all of those cases the terrorist group (or individual) was captured or killed during or very shortly after the attack.   There was, in short, no one left to follow up on the success and so no follow up occurred.

But, take something like London or (I’m sure) the terrorist activity we see in much of the Middle East and you’ll see a different definition of ‘effective’.  Since a ‘successful’ attack isn’t a requirement for a terrorist to be successful (because, remember, the point of terrorism is to elicit a particular response…not generally to do direct damage) you can ‘fail’ but still be effective.  I’d suggest that much of the Palestinian terrorism over the past few decades falls into this category.

So…if we don’t neutralize (in some way) the perpetrators in some reasonable amount of time, we might reasonably expect additional attacks by the same group or individual.

Conversely, this also means that if we might not need to be too worried about ‘copy cats’ or others being inspired to action.  After all, al-Qaida has been trying to inspire people to take up the cause for years with little success.  White supremacists have been trying for decades with little to show for it.

It also means that the data suggests that the threat is going to be localized in time and space.  Might the perpetrators jet off to Idaho and launch attacks in Boise?  Sure, I guess, but I’m not sure I’d consider it particularly likely.

Also from START is this piece which states that we might see an increase in hate crimes over the coming weeks as a result of this attack.  Based on their data, the people at START have concluded that:

…in the weeks following a terrorist attack, the number of anti-minority hate crimes increased if the attacks were made against symbols of core American values (such as the Pentagon) or perpetrated by groups with a religious motivation.

Does the Boston marathon qualify?  I’d guess definitely in the immediate area.  I’m not sure how much resonance the event has on people further afield.  But, depending on who is identified as suspects, this could be an issue.

Readers of this blog know I often talk about small intelligence shops.  Events like the attack in Boston, because they are so rare, are going to attract the attention of just about every intelligence unit in the country.  Almost every one of them will be expected to publish some sort of ‘product’ about the event.  So, what should a small shop (I’m not talking the big three letter agencies of the federal government but rather the numerous state, local and joint agencies and centers around the country) do in situations like this?

Everything I’m going to write here is for those shops that don’t ‘own’ the territory where the attack took place.  If this attack took place in your area of operations than that’s another story for another time.

First…take a breath.  Look at observation #1 at the top of this post.  You’re highly unlikely to get much of value during the first 24 hours after an event so don’t expect to do more than summarize basic facts.

BUT…everyone is going to want to be seen to be doing something.  This is, after all, the big show.  So, even if there’s nothing to say, there will be incredible pressure to say something anyway.  In some cases this is from a very real desire to ‘help’.  In other cases this is a very real desire to justify ones existence.  It reminds me of a quote from Sir Humphrey:

“Politicians must be allowed to panic. They need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.”

Only politicians aren’t the only ones susceptible to this.  If you don’t have a plan in place you’ll get sucked into the thankless (and useless) task of feeding regurgitated news to various overlords like a mother bird does with her chicks.

Instead of trying to compete with CNN, the New York Times or news agencies (which you’ll never succeed at doing) take advantage of this time to figure out what you need to know for your area of operations.  So, let’s say I was in charge of a shop in…North Carolina (or Montana…whatever) when this attack happened.  What’s going to be important to me initially?  Probably:

  1. Who committed the attack
    1. The specific individual(s)
    2. Any affiliated group
    3. Any linkage to my area of operations
  2. Why did they commit the attack
    1. What was their motivation
    2. Why did they pick that specific target(s)
  3. How did they commit the attack
    1. How did they acquire the explosive device
    2. How did they carry out the attack (emplacement, detonation, escape)

Now, as those questions get answered you’ll have follow ups and more specific ones but even a list like that disseminated to your staff will help them separate the wheat from the chaff during the early hours and days of the story.  Yes, eyewitness accounts may be compelling but if they don’t address those questions your people are really just wasting their time.

Second, if you do not have a compelling reason to call the agency(ies) responsible for handling the emergency do NOT do so before their first press conference at the earliest.  Look, they’ve got a lot on their hands and the last thing they need to do is answer a bunch of questions from a yahoo like you because the leader of your agency 900 miles away wants the latest poop.  Remember, there are now literally hundreds of intelligence shops in the U.S. now…many of them are going to be calling the scene in order to be the first on their block to put out a product with an exclusive tidbit 1 to show how ‘high speed’ they are.  The last thing you would need in that situation is an extra few dozen calls from people essentially saying ‘So…what’s up?’  Let them do their job and you’ll get your information when you need it.

Third, remember that one incident is NOT a trend.  Don’t start reorganizing your whole shop based on one event.  If you’re assessments of the threat were on solid ground before an attack like this, they should remain so.  One event should not nullify your analysis.  BUT…this is a good time (well, earlier was a better time but you slacked off, didn’t you? So we need to do this now) to identify the triggers that would cause you to reevaluate your analysis.

For example…I’ve been saying that al-Qaida is a has-been organization for some time now.  Assuming they were behind this attack (for a moment) would not change my opinion.  But I should be able to explain at what point I would say my analysis was crap.  That’ll keep me straight both when my ego is on the line as well as when tensions are riding high and people start making claims that this or that event ‘changes everything!’

Forth…If you have nothing to say about an event…say nothing.  The intelligence community is suffocating on a philosophy of ‘Send it to everyone…just in case they need it.’  This means it’s not uncommon to receive the same message three, four, five times or more.  It’s not uncommon to receive products that have no relevance to your area of interest.  Adding to the noise does nothing but guarantee that when you really do have something to say, it’ll be ignored.

 

  1. That’ll probably be released to the press before the product is even disseminated making the whole thing moot. ↩

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On fauxhawks, cognitive biases and intelligence analysis

Posted on February 4, 2013 by | Leave a comment

I’ve been out of the military now for slightly more than a year but still found myself adhering to AR 670-1 when it came to my trips to the barber.  Over the ears, over the collar…pretty short all over.  Some of that is necessity (my hair is very think and festooned with cowlicks everywhere and if left to its own devices would soon turn into a birds nest) but mostly it was habit.  So, I decided to change that…Here are the results 1:

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Note the Hitler Pillsbury Doughboy in the background. That’s a fuck you to white supremacists, not baked goods, for the record…

Now the reaction from the people I work with was quite interesting.  My close co-workers are used to my hijinks so this was just sort of a status quo but for those a bit further out from the center of our social circle there was some consternation.  My coworkers and I received questions along the lines of:

‘What’s going on? Did he lose a bet? What does it mean?’

In short…none of these people could imagine a scenario in which someone like me (or, at least someone in our community/situation/etc.) would do this unless he was compelled to.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine why I wouldn’t do such a thing.

So, what does this mean for intelligence analysis?  Part of an analyst’s job is to ‘think red’ or, consider what may motivate our foes, what priorities they may have, and what actions they may take.  Part of doing that involves avoiding the cognitive bias of ‘mirror imaging‘.  Now, I’ve been working in this particular office for a couple of years now and many of these people have seen me, heard me, had the opportunity to get to know me and with regard to my haircut they were under no pressure to reach a snap decision.  Yet, these individuals were unable to come up with potential motivations for my actions.  Were unable to put themselves ‘in my shoes’ to understand my actions.  How much more difficult when dealing with people involved in more complex activities, perhaps intentionally attempting to deceive, maybe with different cultural norms, with incomplete information and when under time pressure?

Cognitive biases aren’t something to be addressed once and then considered ‘dealt with’ for all time.  We need to be aware that they are the default setting for our brains and without active measures to control for them, we’ll slip into the same old thinking ruts that can lead to shoddy analysis.

  1. Upon seeing this, my wife said ‘Oh no! Now no one at work will take you seriously!’ I replied: ‘Trust me, my hair is NOT the reason the people at work don’t take me seriously.’ ↩

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Music and intelligence analysis

Posted on January 31, 2013 by | 1 Comment

So, last time I talked about trying to incorporate different sensory inputs in order to improve analytical production.  Now I’m entering into speculative territory here but while I was primarily looking to different types of visual stimuli (the written word, graphics, images, etc.) I’ve been thinking about the possibility of using our sense of hearing to either improve the analytical or production process.

I therefore submit to you, then, this interesting project.  It takes a piece of classical music and, while you’re listening to it, describes it with accompanying text.  In doing so it conveys more information that either the musical piece or the text individually AND more then if you experienced both but separately.  The ‘extra’ value comes from getting the explanation at the same time the music is playing.  That not only reduces the chance of miscommunication (‘Is this supposed to be the teeth chattering or….this?’) but also helps improve the ‘stickiness’ of the information.  Associating the text with the music helps ‘anchor’ it in your mind.  The next time you listen to the music you’ll be more likely to remember the text.

Is there any value in incorporating music into the production process?  Might customers retain more with particular accompaniment?  Could music be used to emphasize particular pieces of information?  How about in terms of explaining probability, risk or threat?  Does the human mind respond consistently to certain types of music and sound or is the process so individualistic that the incorporation of sound is just as likely to hinder the transference of meaning as enhance it.

Up to now I’ve been talking about the production part of the intelligence cycle but music might have an easier fit in the analytical part of the cycle.  There’s evidence that distraction can assist in problem solving, particularly in helping identify weak connections between items or when thinking about difficult problems with multiple variables.  Sitting down and trying to force yourself to solve problems doesn’t work well when compared having your subconscious take a crack at it.

The goal is to get into the proper mental state:

It means not actively working on a problem but instead letting yourself happily mind-wander, freely associating and relaxing into a quiet mental state. It is like being okay to feel how you feel when you first wake up in the morning – relaxed, with diffuse, easy attention.

I’ve found that some of my best insights came about when I was most definitely not working on the problem that needed solving.  Running, reading, sleeping or…yes…listening to music.  I began wondering if there was any possibility tapping into that insight potential collaboratively after playing with my latest time sink, turntable.fm.  Is there any benefit to having analysts, working on the same problem, simultaneously sharing something like music playlists and listening to the same songs at the same time?  If you assume that a person’s choice in music is a reflection of their mental state and preferences, would sharing music give you a glimpse into how other analysts are thinking?  If so, would that help to look at problems through a slightly different perspective and, therefore, improve you problem solving skills?

Many questions for which I have no answers but interesting to think about.  Now, time to listen to some tunes….

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Intelligence analysis, avalanches, and Sally Fields

Posted on January 14, 2013 by | Leave a comment

An excellent article by the BBC that uses archival footage to talk about the mutually dysfunctional relationship between Israel, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.  Also demonstrates that while we often think the Arab-Israeli conflict has been unchanging for the last 60 years, there has, in fact, been significant changes in attitudes on both sides…and not for the good.

Speaking of interesting ways to present information, check out this amazing use of video and graphics to convey information about an avalanche that swept up a group of experienced skiers.

These sort of stories are fine examples of how information can be transmitted more efficiently and effectively through the use of mixing media.  We’re all familiar with the trope that people learn information differently and we also know that the more senses we can engage with a piece of information will make it more ‘sticky’.  That’s one reason, for example, that the Obama campaign in both 2008 and 2012 were insistent that campaign people have at least three contacts with voters they were looking for.  Voters that had such contact were more likely to vote for the President.  Now some of that might be a result of voters saying ‘Hey, they like me!  They really like me!’

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Some of that, however, is due to the voters internalizing the positions of the campaign by hearing the arguments repeatedly through different mediums.  A phone call, a knock on the door, an email, you get the point.

So, why not think about that in terms of intelligence products?  Frequently, products come out in one format *cough* pdf *cough* but why?  I’m convinced that a lot of it has to do with ingrained prejudices about what products are ‘supposed’ to look like.  But c’mon, that’s all based on style guides from 50 years ago when people were using typewriters and carbon paper (look it up).  At that time, strict uniformity made some real sense since we’re no longer getting out information primarily from the physical, written word.  Whole new venues have been opened up and yet the conventional wisdom seems to be that we should try to make our digital products mimic paper ones as much as possible.

That’s kind of like inventing the airplane but then only using it to taxi to where you want to go.

But we might want to think about this not just in terms of production but also analysis.  If one of the cornerstones of analysis is trying to understand some aspect of our environment by reducing bias and making connections maybe there are ways to engage multiple areas of the brain at once.

More on this later….

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Kvick Tänkare

Posted on October 17, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Mike Bennett has put his vampire audio novel ‘Underwood and Flinch’ up on You Tube.  This is totally worth you time.  Mike does great stuff.

We’re coming up on Halloween so here’s a cool, creepy vid for you (h/t i09)

We’ll stick with the animal world with this brilliant infographic on cheetahs.  I include it here not only for its intrinsic value but as an inspiration into thinking about how other types of data (yes, I’m looking at you intelligence analysts) could be presented in different and (dare I say it) more effective ways.  Click on the image to see the thing in it’s big, animated glory.

huh…seem to be on an anatomy kick today.  Check out these amazing pics of animal skulls from the NYTimes.  Lesson learned today:  Do NOT screw with the Chinese water deer.

Estragon42 has  put up a bit of fiction asking the questions ‘What if Hemingway deployed to Afghanistan?‘ Check it out.

Finally, courtesy of Discover magazine, is this piece summarizing research that seems to indicate that people that sign their documents on the top of documents (before they’ve entered data or made a statement) their information is more accurate than if they sign at the bottom of the document (after they’ve already done the work).

People are often dishonest in little ways on forms, rounding numbers in a beneficial direction or failing to mention a relatively small item as part of a larger list. If they sign a form once they’ve done all that, they don’t go back and correct it; instead, they’ve already woven a story to themselves—consciously or not—about why what they did was perfectly fine.

It’s worth noting that most intelligence products do not have the author(s) names attached.  Now, there’s usually a very good reason for that.  Namely, that the analysis done is supposed to represent the agency’s position and not the individuals.  Additionally, there’s a security issue as well.  Knowing that analyst ‘A’ is the one who writes all the stuff about security issues in Outer Mongolia opens that analyst up to targeting and influence.

That being said, I’ve heard analysts say things like ‘I don’t care, my name’s not on this.’   There’s got to be a way to address both problems.

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The Structure of Analytical Revolutions

Posted on October 11, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Dan Drezner had a piece up recently noting that 2012 is the 50th anniversary of Thomas Kuhn‘s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It’s been more than 20 years since I read it as a young undergraduate and my memory at the time was that Kuhn took way to long to make a pretty simple point but I suppose he had to actually present some evidence for his central thesis (go figure).

Even though the book is geared towards scientific revolutions I’ve thought it’s just as relevant to the field of intelligence analysis. After all, fundamentally intelligence analysis and science are both about understanding the world around us. It doesn’t matter if we’re using a telescope or some social network analysis technique.

And just as in the physical sciences, the routine and incremental progress of understanding can take place and be valuable for extended periods of time (think the Cold War) but eventually the small inconsistencies, cognitive biases and errors begin to accumulate and eventually leave you with a description of the environment that no longer resembles reality.

Like Ptolemy’s successors you can keep postulate more and more bizarre orbits to celestial bodies so that they conform to your visual observations or like old CIA hands you can continue to come up with explanations for why a parade of geriatric Soviet leaders and signs of a crumbling economy and military don’t mean the USSR is about to collapse. Eventually, however, reality will catch up to you.

You can wait for that to happen to you (as we did with the Soviet Union) or you can consider alternate (often radically different) explanations for the observed phenomenon.

If you haven’t read the book, I encourage you to do so. Be warned, it’s not exactly a page turner. Rather it’s one of those books that’s ‘good for you’ 1 but it really is worth your time.

  1. Shorthand for pretty boring and you’ll be looking for excuses to do just about anything else ↩

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Social media, intelligence analysis and deception

Posted on September 17, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Courtesy of a reader comes this piece from openthefuture.com. Social media is the ‘new’ thing in many circles 1 and while I am amazed at the prodigious amount of creativity it has unleashed from the minds of the masses, it isn’t likely to be the panacea some think it will be in terms of identifying trends and combing through masses of information quickly.

The fabulous city of gold that our modern conquistadors are searching for is based on the legend of the Wisdom of Crowds. That legend may or may not have a basis in truth but it’s sunk into the consciousness of some to a degree that isn’t really warranted at this point. Part of its appeal is the realization that subject matter experts can be so myopic that they fail to see dramatic changes in their environment 2. Getting a broad range of opinions from people of widely varying backgrounds, so the thinking goes, can reduce that bias.

There are aspects of this argument that I find highly appealing and suspect there is real value there. But (and it’s a big but) I also believe that differentiating between real gold and pyrite involves a lot of work establishing parameters and processes to avoid swapping one set of biases for another. I’ve written about my experience with prediction markets already and think there’s a real danger there of mistaking the ‘wisdom of crowds’ for the ‘regurgitation of the average opinion of the punditry class’. Unfortunately, it’s very easy to get swept up in the infatuation of the whole concept without understanding what’s required in order to get a reasonable chance of success from your efforts.

Case in point: In the financial industry, there is money to be made by making transactions just a few seconds faster than everyone else. In order to squeeze out every ounce of potential, some companies have developed ‘algorithmic trading’. This (as I understand it) hands off trading decisions over to software. When certain criteria are met, an order to buy or sell is put through. That whole process can occur without human oversite. Some companies have begun to incorporate things like news feeds and twitter streams into their software. Set certain parameters like “buy when company X releases a statement which contains the words ‘profits exceed’ and you’re off to the races.3

As data mining gets more refined, there’s no real end to this sort of thing. I suppose there may come a day when someone develops an algorithim which follows the facebook pages of the children and spouses of Federal Reserve members. An increase in posts from them talk about mom or dad being ‘snappy and grumpy’ might indicate bad economic news is coming down the pike.

Sounds cool, right? A brave new world in which we can not only sort through the incredible amount of data which is being created now but can actually derive understanding from it. Easy. Once we tweak the right algorithms we won’t even need analysts anymore. The great computer can tell us what’s going to happen. 4

That, of course, requires someone to create the right algorithims. Good luck with that.

We’ve seen a couple of (potentially) catostrophic failures from algorithmic traiding which should give us pause before going too far down this road:

In September of 2008, Google News posted as current a six-year-old article about United Airlines filing for bankruptcy; as a result the value of UAL stock dropped by 75% but recovered as the error was spotted.

Looks like we don’t need a guy in a cool leather jacket to break the stock market.

Now, that was an accident. Imagine the possibilities if someone is intentionally attempting to deceive the market (or the intelligence community). So, combine that with….

…this post where a bunch of wily Swedes, hoping to learn about how information quality is evaluated as it passes through the interwebs, demonstrated how an anonymous (unverified and incorrect) piece of information can quickly spread throughout the public consiousness and outpace the truth.

They did this by posting a picture of a (fake) screw on Reddit with a cryptic comment about it being associated with Apple. The implication being that Apple was about to build its hardware so that users could no longer access the guts of their gadgets (note:  some users care about this sort of stuff).

The story was picked up by a variety of tech reporters and bloggers, the majority of who clearly stated that the information was unconfirmed and generally treated the story with skepticism.

Then, the interesting thing happened.

Commenters and those who reported second hand on the screw increasingly dropped the ‘unconfirmed’ portion of the story and treated the story as fact, leading to speculation and adding assumptions upon assumptions.

Now imagine a campaign intended to deceive those trading algorithms.  Hit upon the right piece of information and you’re not just one lone voice in the vast information universe but you can get picked up, retweeted, rebroadcast, commented upon with ever greater speculation as everyone scrambles to get page views.  Sure, eventually things will get sorted out but remember, we’re talking about making profits based on price swings that can occur over just a few moments.

And that, of course, assumes you care about profits.  Perhaps you just want to demonstrate the fragility of the system.  You want the market to go through wild swings just to create the impression that someone (maybe the 1%, maybe that junior vice-president just down the street) is rigging the system to screw you.

The possibilities are endless 5 my friends.

So, what does this mean for intelligence analysis?  Well, hopefully you can see but a reliance on social media to determine trends or ‘do the analysis’ can be easily deceived, either intentionally or accidentally.  For every real trend that can be uncovered by tapping into the wisdom of crowds there are a dozen Kony2012, LOLCats and other flotsam and jetsam that will be forgotten with the next sunrise.

  1. Hey, have you subscribed to my twitter feed? Check it out here </shameless self promotion> ↩
  2. The frequently used example is the fall of the Soviet Union. ↩
  3. My understanding is that it’s more complicated than that but you get the point. ↩
  4. And we’ll be right back where we were in the 1990s when the intelligence community thought satellites and remote sensors could tell us everything we needed to know. ↩
  5. and, channeling my inner super-villian here, quite delicious as well ↩

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Kvick Tänkare

Posted on September 12, 2012 by | Leave a comment

A little while ago I wrote about the power of fonts and that Baskerville was the most trustworthy font.  Well, Errol Morris has an excellent follow up to that piece about the originator of the guy who made the font.  My favorite quote:

Voltaire, when asked on his deathbed by a priest to renounce Satan, famously replied, “Now is not the time to be making new enemies.” And when a friend tried to convince Baskerville that the plague of flies inflicted on Egypt was proof of the existence of God, Baskerville argued that all that it proved was a shortage of spiders.

Anyone who thinks socialism failed in America has never spent time on a military base.  Rosa Brooks is off to a good start in her new FP blog.

Lunghu provides some indicators to let you know if you’re working in a dysfunction organization:

  • Management places special emphasis on their purported role as “leaders.”
  • The enterprise “strategic plan” merely describes what the organization is already doing, not how it intends to respond to unexpected challenges.
  • Every level of the organization uses the complexity of the operating environment as an excuse to avoid planning for likely contingencies.
  • Hackneyed business cliches are used as a replacement for substantive communication.

I tempted to give up the internet forever after reading this headline.  After all, I think it’s pretty clear we now have, literally, seen everything.

Gordon Ramsay’s dwarf porn double Percy Foster dies in badger den

Sounds to me like these should be the default cars in congested urban areas.

Sadly, these vehicles do not function by farting out a loud stream of gas that propels them forth.

The author makes it sound like this is a bad thing but I suspect the manufacturers realized that their target demographic shouldn’t be 12 year old boys.

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Valve-like intelligence

Posted on August 31, 2012 by | 1 Comment

You probably remember that a little while ago I gushed over the employee ‘manual’ from the Valve corporation. Following up on that is the attempt, by a Valve employee, to place the company in the context of economic theory and history. Ok, I can’t tell you how much of this is self-congratulatory navel gazing but contained within it is an interesting view of modern corporations.

…there is one last bastion of economic activity that proved remarkably resistant to the triumph of the market: firms, companies and, later, corporations.

Wait, what? Aren’t corporations the engines which drive our capitalist machine? Aren’t they the ‘job creators’? 1 Explain yourself, young man! 2

…firms can be thought of market-free zones. Within their realm, firms (like societies) allocate scarce resources…Nevertheless they do so by means of some non-price, more ofthen than not hierarchical, mechanism!

Really, it’s quite a simple idea and I’m kicking myself for not thinking about it before like this given all the ranting and raving I do about the inefficiencies and general bone-headedness of hierarchical decision making and resource allocation that I’ve seen.3 Perhaps I get a point or two for realizing the problem is institutional rather than that of individual decision makers but thinking about it this way does provide a bit of additional insight to the problem. Just because corporations make money – exist to make money – doesn’t change the fact that within their borders they are essentially little Stalinist/Lenninist states with a command economy and centralized decision making. If that system contains inherent contradictions and must inevitably collapse, why don’t corporations?

English: Company logo for Valve Corporation. E...

English: Company logo for Valve Corporation. Extracted from http://www.valvesoftware.com Note:Words and short phrases such as names, titles, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering or coloring; mere listing of ingredients or contents; are not subject to copyright. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, don’t they? Certainly the financial crisis of 2008/2009 looked an aweful lot like the collapsing superstructure of a capitalist system described by Marx (as I understood it) with the exceptions that the state propped up the old system through a huge influx of wealth (mostly coming from…the working classes) AND there still doesn’t seem to be a replacement system waiting in the wings to replace capitalism. And, of course, there’s little reason to think that the troubles are over and that American or European problems won’t continue to hemmorage and accelerate towards collapse.

But, back to the original question. Why haven’t corporations collapsed under the weight of their internal contradictions? I think the answer the author is making is essentially the same one Marx made, because they’re subsidized by the differential between the pay employees get for their labor and the actual value those employees provide. The difference is what Socialists would (I think) call the exploitation of labor. Valve still extracts that extra value from employees to some extent but that revenue stream (at least if I understand what the author is getting at) is limited because Valve itself has to function as a market internally. Employees pick what projects they will work on and can switch if things aren’t working out. This should push down the exploitive component of the firm towards labor and (I suppose) that is recouped at the back end by being able to sell the product for a premium. In short, the internal functioning allows you to resist the constant downward pressure of prices caused by competition by offering a superior product that can demand a higher price.

Ok, so you probably aren’t particularly interested with my growing skepticism of 21st century American capitalism, what does this mean for intelligence analysis?

Right now, the labor market for intelligence analysis is highly inefficient. There are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of government agencies in the United States 4 who employ personnel with an ‘intelligence’ function. The vast majority of those agencies employ a very small number of intelligence personnel (in some cases only one) and moving around between agencies can be very difficult. Within those agencies there are a limited number of types of functions that are conducted. While, in the past, I’ve spoken about the plethora of titles with intelligence personnel can have there are a limited number of skill sets to master, at least within the law enforcement/homeland security fields. The bottom line is that most positions could be filled by people with a broad set of backgrounds supplemented by some reasonable (not onerous) amounts of training.

What might a Valve-like intelligence community look like?

So, imagine a system where intelligence analysts are selected and hired into a large ‘pool’5. Perhaps this would be contained within a state or region but, let’s say large enough to encompass one or two hundred analysts and a number of agencies at various levels of government. Each agency that wants analysts would then issue out an initial statement of mission, scope of work, etc. for specific projects and programs and analysts would select which programs they want to work for and they could (at any time) leave one program to work on another that is open.

What? Are you crazy?

No. I don’t think so. Think of the benefits.

You would reduce (perhaps eliminate) the greatest problem faced by intelligence agencies today: lack of focus and purpose. Too frequently, those in charge of intelligence shops are unable to articulate what their intelligence priorities or information needs are. Once you get beyond the insufferable management speak 6 you frequently end up with a blank stare and a fall back to bean counting. If you can’t articulate what a particular program is for then you wouldn’t get any analysts sign up for it. At that point you’d either need to figure out what the hell you’re doing or come to the realization that the program doesn’t have much value after all. Analysts (perhaps like many) don’t like to spend their careers like hamsters on a wheel. They want to do something.

What about programs that are important that can’t attract analysts?

I don’t think that situation would exist. Regardless of the work required, there will be analysts who will want to do it provided it can be demonstrated to make some sort of positive impact. Whether it’s getting bad guys off the street, solving cold cases, identifying future threats in international terrorism or ways vulnerable populations may be exploited, analysts will flock to those jobs. If, instead, the purpose is to garner promotions, count beans or justify grant funding, good luck. Unless you define ‘important’ as something other than the good of the public (like institutional empire building, career progression, etc.) shortages of analysts won’t be your problem. If you can’t articulate why a program is important, it probably isn’t.

Such a program would also ensure analysts are more effeciently paired up with the programs that best suit them. Some analysts love doing very ‘in the weeds’ stuff. Case support, court prep, ‘tactical’ stuff. Others like the more ‘Strategic’ aspects of the job. Still others like a mix of varying degrees. Unfortunately, since intelligence positions are so fragmented and tied to one agency none of that matters. That, in turn, means that you frequently have analysts doing projects that they aren’t particularly interested in. You may want to say ‘Wah, just be happy you’ve got a job you whiner.’ but all else being equal, isn’t it better to have people working on things they have an interest and desire to do? Especially if it’s in the knowledge field? With intelligence work you aren’t sitting at a bench making pins and it’s not a position where you want people to simply go through the motions as if the process was on some sort of checklist. So, keeping people on projects that fit their inclinations and abilities will go a long way to improving performance.

Programs would have lifespans. When a particular program is no longer relevant becaue the threat has become obsolete or a better program is coming into play, analysts will leave and the old program will wither. Institutions can still try to make the case that this or that program is important and relevant but if they can’t make the case in a way that keeps asses in seats they’ll have a tough time when it comes to budget requests.

It would reduce (but by no means eliminate) institutional turf wars. Programs need not be agency specific (although they still could be). The ability of analysts to move between programs would mean that analysts could work with many different analysts and agencies throughout their career with the compositions of those groups shifting all the time. Despite the cliche, I think familiarity here would breed acceptance and cooperation rather than contempt. In part that would be because this system would build a real community among analysts which doesn’t (and I don’t think can) exist the way they’re organized today. Analysts are really creatures of their agencies, even though that results in them often acting in ways that are counter to their professional interests.

So, how do we prevent the analysts from becoming just another interest group that tries to assert power and influence selfishly?

Well, in part by not giving it any structure. There’s no ‘Chief Executive Analyst’ and no ‘Analyst Queen’. Analysts are able to exchange information between themselves and individual decisions will result in benefits to the community. Agency X is run like a tyranny with abusive working conditions? Word will spread throughout the community and that agency won’t get any talent to work there. 7

Are analysts really the best to decide if a program is worthwhile?

I eagerly await a reasonable alternative. But, snark aside, if a program is worthwhile, someone should be able to articulate why and then, as I say above, getting analysts to cooperate won’t be a problem.

It would allow both top-down and bottom-up projects. While initially I stated that agencies would make proposals and solicit analysts to work them it could work the other way around. An analyst could suggest a particular project for an agency (perhaps a groups of analysts working cooperatively) and agencies (particularly those that don’t have a good grasp of how to integrate intelligence into their operations) could adopt those programs or not. For agencies these could function as pilot projects that would avoid (as we have in the existing system) the cost of implementing a program only to find it doesn’t work and then being stuck with it. For analysts, this would be a positive by (potentially) expanding the numbers of agencies looking to incorporate intelligence into their operations or in the expansion of their use. Greater demand for analysts may lead to increasing the size of the analyst pool and/or increasing the working conditions of analysts (more of that capitalist competition from the beginning of the post).

Does anyone have any questions or see any flaws to this scheme from a practical (rather than political) perspective?

  1. And, according to a certain cyborg running for high political office, aren’t they just people, like us? ↩
  2. For the record, I have no idea if the author is young or male. In the interest of dramatic reading, please forgive the gender and age bias inherent in that exclaimation. ↩
  3. While this article talks about for profit businesses I think there are some interesting things that might be said in some (but I’m not yet convinced all) aspects of government activity. After all, there are times when the benefits of hierarchical decision making does convey some advantages and may, in fact, be essential. I suspect, however, it doesn’t apply universally in government generally or in many aspects of intelligence analysis which is one reason I’m writing this post ↩
  4. at the local, state, and federal level ↩
  5. The selection process, just like at Valve, would be very important. Currently the selection and hiring of intelligence personnel is atrocious ever for the current way of doing things. MUCH work would need to be done in this field which is why a new process that actually identifies the qualities needed for good intelligence analysis can be identified and selected for needs to be developed ↩
  6. ‘Look, I want to create a paradigm where we leverage the synergy of information sharing into an intelligence-led environment that foster collaboration that detects, deters and defeats our foes.’ ↩
  7. So what’s to prevent the converse from happening? Why doesn’t Agency X offer analysts who work for them incredible perks? Well, since we’re talking about government employment here, there just isn’t much wiggle room there. What you might get are things that are probably good employment practices anywhere. Perhaps the ability to telecommute…flex time, etc. A net plus really. ↩

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