innovation | Shepherd's Pi

Pentagon’s New Program for Innovation, in Context

Posted on June 9, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: According to an article in today’s Washington Post, the Pentagon has announced “the selection of six university professors who will form the first class of the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows Program. The professors will receive grants of up to $600,000 per year for up to five years to engage in basic research — essentially a bet by the Pentagon that they will make a discovery that proves vital to maintaining the superiority of the U.S. military.”

ANALYSIS: This new program is an innovation from DoD’s Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E), and since tomorrow I’ll be at Ft. McNair for a two-day conference sponsored by DDR&E on Strategic Communications, I’ll congratulate John Young and his staff for the good idea.

But the Post article falls short in two ways: one immediate (it leaves out key information about next year’s program and the upcoming deadline!) and one longer-term (it ignores the overall context of federal support for R&D). I’ll fill in the blanks below.

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Microsoft, R&D, Technology | Tagged: AAAS, acoustics, adhesives, astronautics, astronomy, astrophysics, atmospheric science, aviation, behavioral science, biochemistry, biological science, biotechnology, Boston University, business, CalTech, chemical engineering, chemistry, China, civil engineering, communications, computer science, computers, countermeasures, CTO, DARPA, DDRE, Defense, Department of Defense, development, DoD, earth sciences, electrical engineering, electronics, engineering, engines, faculty, federal, federal budget, federal government, fluid mechanics, Ft McNair, future, Government, industrial engineering, information science, innovation, internet, invention, investment, John Young, Johns Hopkins, lab, marine engineering, math, mathematics, mechanical engineering, media, medical science, metallurgy, meteorology, Microsoft, military, military science, networks, news, Northwestern, nuclear physics, oceanography, optics, Penn State, Pentagon, physics, prediction, predictive analysis, propulsion, psychology, R&D, research, robotics, science, social network, social networks, social sciences, south korea, space, spectroscopy, statistics, tech, Technology, textiles, UCLA, university, Washington Post, weapons, web, William Rees, WMD | 2 Comments »

At Craigslist, “Traffic just keeps going up…”

Posted on June 6, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Back in 1994-96 I was working for the Mayor of San Francisco (Frank Jordan, “the one before Willie Brown” as one friend persisted in calling him), and among other projects I was working on policies to nurture and promote the emerging Internet economy, particularly the slowly burgeoning culture of Web startups – at times it seemed like the center of the universe was around South Park in the city’s South of Market neighborhood. For the Mayor’s ’95 re-election campaign we put up one of the first political campaign websites, winning an award from “Campaigns & Elections” magazine.

One of the cool people I worked with on innovative ideas for the nascent Web back then was Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist. Like many people in San Francisco, I remember when using Craigslist was synonymous with “finding local S.F. stuff,” and have watched with delighted awe as the site (nonprofit empire!) has grown over the years. The model absolutely rocks, in its simplicity, consistent innovation, and its universality.

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Filed under: innovation, Microsoft, R&D, Society, Technology | Tagged: advertising, business, Clinton, community, computer, Craig Newmark, Craigslist, Frank Jordan, Google, Hillary Clinton, humor, internet, Larry Page, mayor, media, Microsoft, news, newspapers, Obama, political campaign, politics, San Francisco, Sergey Brin, social software, tech, Technology, web, websites | 2 Comments »

War is Virtual Hell

Posted on June 5, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: According to market research compiled by Microsoft, the global market for Modeling and Simulation (M&S) software/hardware platforms across all industries, including the defense industry, has hit $18 billion per year; the cumulative growth rate is estimated at 9.6% annually.

ANALYSIS: The lovely wife and I have been lackadaisically house-hunting down in Virginia’s Northern Neck, the Athens of America and the cradle of our democracy. The Neck is the birthplace of George Washington, the Lee brothers (the revolutionary patriots about whom John Adams used the phrase, “This Band of Brothers,” among them Declaration of Independence signers Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee, not to mention their later nephew Robert E. Lee), James Monroe, John Ballentine, etc. etc.

Anyway, recently we toured the historic 1859 house at Braehead, an 18-acre estate actually located within the Civil War battlefield in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The house is for sale, and while it’s likely overpriced (like everything else on the market these days) [this observation has been energetically and somewhat persuasively disputed by the listing agent, who read the post], but we enjoyed the tour. I’ve posted many (too many) photos of our little tour here. My interest in the house is the historic angle: it’s actually where Robert E. Lee visited and took breakfast on the morning of the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862, one of his successful efforts against U.S. forces. Here’s an article about Braehead’s history and historic preservation.

It was in fact at Fredericksburg that Lee spoke the words which would sum up the entire war, nay all wars, as he witnessed thousands of Union soldiers falling in battle to Confederate guns on the hills above the Rappahannock River: “It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it.”

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Microsoft, R&D, Society, Technology | Tagged: about.com, America, American history, Army, battlefield, battlefields, Braehead, Camp Pendleton, Civil War, computer, Confederacy, confederate, Declaration of Independence, Department of Defense, DoD, education, Flight Simulator, Francis Lightfoot Lee, game, games, gaming, George Washington, history, James Monroe, John Adams, John Ballentine, Microsoft, Microsoft ESP, Microsoft Research, military, modeling, MSR, national park service, Ninja Gaiden, peace, politics, R&D, rappahannock, Revolutionary War, Richard Henry Lee, Robert E Lee, simulation, social computing, software, soldiers, training, US history, USA, Virginia, virtual, virtual reality, virtual worlds, VR, war, Wikipedia, Xbox, Xbox 360 | 3 Comments »

How to Run a State-of-the-Art Technology Program – Quietly

Posted on May 29, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: In the new movie “Iron Man,” defense-contracting billionaire and engineering genius Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) designs and builds a suit capable of individual flight (highly engineered control surfaces powered by an “arc-reactor” – it is Hollywood after all). During his first test flight, zooming straight up from Malibu and stressing the system to its max, he asks his onboard computer, “What’s the altitude record for the SR-71?” His computer responds back, “85,000 feet,” whereupon he zooms past that ceiling.

ANALYSIS: Funny moment, and excellent movie. In its honor, below I’m going to give you access to a remarkable, recently declassified document describing one of America’s boldest Cold War technical achievements. If you’ve ever run (or wanted to run) a high-tech company or program, like Tony Stark in the movie, you’ll appreciate the startling scope of the work – and if you’ve recently worked in DoD or the Intelligence Community you’ll marvel at how they did it “in the good old days.”

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Intelligence, R&D, Technology | Tagged: A-12, A12, Air Force, aircraft, airplane, airplanes, Area 51, astronaut, astronauts, Blackbird, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Clarence Kelly Johnson, computer, computers, Defense, Defense Department, DIA, DoD, DVTC, Eisenhower, espionage, F-117, Government, history, IC, Intelligence, Intelligence Community, Iron Man, ISR, Kelly Johnson, Ken Collins, Langley, Lockheed, Lockheed Martin, management, managing, Michael Hayden, Microsoft, military, NASA, news, OXCART, Pentagon, pilot, pilots, project management, R&D, reconnaissance, Robert Downey Jr., science, secrecy, secret, SharePoint, Skunk Works, Soviet, Soviet Union, space, space program, spacecraft, spies, spy, spying, SR-71, stealth, tech, Technology, Tony Stark, UFO, USAF, VTC | 2 Comments »

Required Reading on Innovation and Patents

Posted on May 20, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: If you’re a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s tremendous books (“The Tipping Point” and “Blink“), then you probably read the New Yorker magazine just to get his articles. He has a new piece this week, “In the Air: Who Says Big Ideas are Rare?” in which he describes the phenomenally appealing work of the legendary Nathan Myhrvold and his current gig running “Intellectual Ventures,” often mistaken for a VC firm. Gladwell recounts the facts that Myhrvold “graduated from high school at fourteen. He started Microsoft’s research division, leaving, in 1999, with hundreds of millions.” It is what he’s done since then that grabs the mind, particularly if you’re interested in invention and innovation:

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Microsoft, R&D, Society, Technology | Tagged: Antonin Scalia, appeals, appeals court, Atlanta Journal Constitution, author, authors, blog, bloggers, blogging, books, Chief Justice, court, courts, education, engineering, engineers, federal, funding, Government, high-tech, ICT, information technology, innovation, intel, intellectual property, intellectual property law, invention, inventors, IP, IP law, IT, John Roberts, judges, judicial, judiciary, Justice Scalia, KSR, law firm, law firms, legal, magazine, Malcolm Gladwell, Microsoft, money, Myhrvold, Nathan Myhrvold, New Yorker, patent, patent law, patents, poetry, poets, Robert Browning, Scalia, science, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, tech, Technology, Tipping Point, VC, venture capital, Wired | 4 Comments »

Update on Facebook-in-Egypt

Posted on May 18, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: According to a Sunday Washington Post front-page story today recounting the events leading up to May 4, a “day of strike” called for by social-networkers as a protest against government policies, “By late afternoon, of the 74,000 people who had registered on the Facebook protest page, only 15 – three men and 12 women – were still eager to gather for a protest.” [Note: the Facebook page had only been launched in late March.]

ANALYSIS: Last week I wrote about media coverage of Egypt’s Facebook affair, and noted that the Post and others had only covered it on media blogs, not in the actual newspaper.

This morning I picked up my Sunday-morning Post and saw the story, “Fledgling Rebellion on Facebook Is Struck Down by Force in Egypt,” right on the front page, which means that across Washington this morning, and other capital cities through clipping services, many in the foreign policy elite and punditocracy may be reading for the first time about the Web 2.0 facet of these events.

Reporter Ellen Knickmeyer also posted today a related online “Field Notes” column about the challenges of covering the Facebook activists.

Filed under: Government, innovation, Society, Technology | Tagged: blog, bloggers, blogging, blogs, Cairo, computer, computers, democracy, Egypt, Egyptian, Egyptians, Ellen Knickmeyer, Facebook, free speech, Government, internet, media, news, newspaper, newspapers, politics, reporter, reporters, social, social network, social networks, Society, Washington Post, web, Web 2.0, youth | 1 Comment »

Social Networking in Egypt Takes a Political Turn

Posted on May 16, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: In the past two days, reporters for the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have each written accounts of the ongoing confrontation in Egypt between the government and online activists – the “Facebook Revolution” as the Post reporter terms it, hyperbolically. One interesting aspect: the two accounts are not carried as actual news stories in the “newspaper” (real or virtual), but as blog posts by the reporters on dedicated foreign-correspondent blogs. The Washington Post account is on the “PostGlobal” uber-blogsite, under Jack Fairweather’s “Islam’s Advance” blog, while the L.A. Times account is on the “Babylon & Beyond” blog, which carries a sub-head of “Observations from Iraq, Iran, Israel, the Arab World and Beyond.”

ANALYSIS: Up to now there’s been little coverage in traditional American media outlets of the emerging political tenor of some social networks in Egypt over the past several months. Major newspapers and the cable-news channels have not explored the topic, but I just returned from some time in Egypt and I learned that of course it is a widely covered and discussed topic there. One young woman in her 30s, an urban professional, told me “I’m on Facebook all day long!”

Every morning outside my hotel room I would find an English-language newspaper, and for many days in a row it was a different paper – often because they were weekly editions. That gave me the opportunity to read a variety of opinions from a somewhat broad band, as measured in “distance to/from the government position.”

Helpfully, on May 6 2008 the Egyptian Mail included a summary of the raging controversy over Facebook, noting that “In Egypt, Facebook is the stage for the latest twist in the generation gap, playing host to politically hungry young Egyptians eager to take on their ageing leader.” Only at the end of the article did I notice that it was reprinted from a New-York-based Egyptian blogger, the respected Mona Eltahawwy.

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Society, Technology | Tagged: Al-Ahram, Barack Obama, bloggers, blogging, blogs, Cairo, campaign, computer, computers, Democratic, Egypt, Egyptian Gazette, Egyptian Mail, Egyptians, Facebook, George Saunders, Government, Howard Dean, internet, Jack Fairweather, jail, Los Angeles Times, media, Meetup, Mona Eltahawwy, MySpace, Nabil Abdel-Fattah, news, Obama, police, politics, Republican, Roy Medvedev, Russia, samizdat, social, social network, social networks, socialist, Society, Soviet Union, tamizdat, Twitter, Washington Post, web, Web 2.0, World Politics Review, youth | 2 Comments »

Predicting the Future: Bob Gates and IEDs

Posted on May 14, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: There’s been significant media interest in yesterday’s address at a Heritage Foundation conference by Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. Today’s Washington Post story says Gates “implored the U.S. military Tuesday to prepare more for fighting future wars against insurgents and militias such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than spending so much time and money preparing for conventional conflicts.”

ANALYSIS:The Post story isn’t inaccurate in characterizing Gates as using “unusually strong language” in the speech, but it is still better to go to the original text than to rely on a filtered media account, so here’s the actual transcript of Gates’s remarks.

One thing I’ll note about his main point is that he gets right to it: “I have noticed too much of a tendency towards what might be called ‘Next-War-itis’ – the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict,” as opposed to what we need in the here-and-now. In his eyes, what we need now is counter-insurgency tactics, capabilities, and mindsets.

He doesn’t argue that other large nation-states will never be our adversaries, or that we’ll only face roving bands of anarchic terrorists. On the contrary, he argues that “even nation-states will try to exploit our perceived vulnerabilities in an asymmetric way, rather than play to our inherent strengths.”

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Intelligence, Society | Leave a comment »

IARPA and the Virtual Long Tail

Posted on May 2, 2008 by lewisshepherd

FACT: This week, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, an arm of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), launched its new unclassified website. What’s there is initially fairly minimal, but they’ll be adding to the public information posted there regularly.

ANALYSIS: I spent the week in Orlando, as a Keynote speaker at the IARPA “Incisive Analysis Conference.” I’ll be writing a little more about the conference in the near future, as I saw some great demo’s and spoke to the principal investigators on many excellent and far-sighted advanced research projects sponsored by IARPA. It was great to be there and to see so many old friends from the intelligence community, the national labs (PNNL, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Livermore), DoD, and innovative commercial R&D outfits. Also, as the first IARPA conference since the organization’s launch, it was an opportunity to hear new director Lisa Porter communicate her vision and principles, which she did well and I’ll discuss those soon as well. (She also kidded me about my efforts to make her a cultural phenomenon, but I blamed it on WIRED magazine.)

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Intelligence, Microsoft, R&D, Technology | Tagged: analysis, analyst, analysts, cloud computing, computer, computer science, computers, computing, DARPA, data, Defense Department, DNI, DoD, geospatial, Government, IARPA, IC, innovation, Intelligence, Intelligence Community, IT, Lawrence Livermore, Lisa Porter, long tail, longtail, mashup, mashups, Microsoft, Microsoft Research, mirror world, mirror worlds, modeling, MSR, national laboratories, national labs, Oak Ridge, OODA, Pentagon, PNNL, R&D, research, Rita Bush, robot, robotics, robots, Sandia Labs, science, scientific, security, semantic, semantic analysis, semantic computing, semnantics, simulation, Society, tech, Technology, virtual world, virtual worlds, visualization, Wired, WIRED magazine | 3 Comments »

“Legally Blonde 2.0” – SoCal Spook at Harvard

Posted on April 23, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Shout out to Chris Rasmussen, a former colleague in the intell biz who emails that he’ll be speaking on uses of Web 2.0 approaches in the Intelligence Community at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in June…. as he put it in his email, “I’m pretty sure Danish dudes from southern California have been blacklisted from Harvard for hundreds of years. Well the times are changing.”

Chris has been involved in social-networking and other 2.0 efforts in the IC, both at the enterprise level and in grass-roots form — accomplishing the latter and encouraging the former (strongly). The Kennedy School program, “Web 2.0: Taking Action in Government” is advertised as “examining the lessons learned from first movers in both business and government and distilling what actions government leaders must now take to harness the power of these new tools and business models.” (more info here)

I especially like that the conference is being organized with the help of Don Tapscott, co-author of an excellent book: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.

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Filed under: Government, innovation, Intelligence, Society, Technology | Tagged: blogging, blogs, Chris Rasmussen, citizens, collaboration, computer, computers, crowd-sourcing, Dan Tapscott, Don Tapscott, e2.0, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise computing, Government, Harvard, IC, innovation, Intelligence, Intelligence Community, kennedy school of government, KSG, new politics, politics, public, R&D, reform, social networks, Society, software, tech, Technology, Web 2.0, wiki, wikinomics, wikis, wisdom of crowds, wisdom of the crowd | Leave a comment »

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