Moving money to the left

Fact: “[Microsoft’s internal] IT organization now spends almost 45% of its budget on new product development, as opposed to maintenance and ongoing support, a notable improvement from 30% in the past.” [source]

Analysis: An increasing challenge for our enterprise IT organization at DIA has been optimizing our performance to the point where we can take money out of operations & maintenance (O&M), and invest it instead in innovation. Why? The intelligence business demands change, reformation, and dramatically improved capabilities. Intelligence isn’t alone; at Gartner’s annual Symposium last December, “driving Innovation” was promoted as an absolute business imperative, and infrastructure consolidation and optimization was billed as a primary enabler to disinvest in tired old-school technology, allowing re-prioritization in innovative approaches.

It all comes down to moving money to the left, earlier in the enterprise IT life-cycle.

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The press of words… in WordPress

Fact: My Requirements & Research Group at DIA was asked to provide an assessment for the Intelligence Community’s Intelink blogging system – whether to stay with the original software adopted in 2005, or move to something a little more capable. We recommended WordPress, which has just been officially turned on.

Analysis: Getting ready to use WordPress as my own personal standard blog software here (used Blogger before)… imported some of the old stuff, yet it imperfectly stalled and wouldn’t cough up all of the old stuff. Came up with nifty new name for the blog. Composed nifty new banner/logo.

Hmmm… now just need to write content!

War-Zone Tourist


Looking out over the DMZ into the drab proto-industrial North Korean villages along the border.

Back Behind the Iron Curtain Again…


Just to see what life is like on the other side of the table, I visited North Korea for a short period of time. Things were pretty quiet over there, though I did get a little hungry.

North Korean Observation

More than fifty years of an uneasy truce have been witnessed from a short distance by intently impassive North Korean soldiers….

"So, picture yourself looking through MacArthur’s aviator glasses…"

Our DMZ guide, an Australian Defence Forces officer serving in the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission, would be great at shadow puppets.

James, Ron and I.

"Try to stay away from that area over there…"

Overlooking the DMZ

King Ripper

“King Ripper” could be a Seventies longhair-band name, but in fact this is James King (L) and Ron Ripper (R), my two local traveling companions and ever-present guides.

"Is that a cloud or a very old MiG?"

Touring the lovely Panmunjeom area, within the DMZ.