[there are two news stories in this post.]
Navy Newstand :: FORCEnet: Delivering Tomorrow, Today
By Journalist First Class Jd Walter,
Naval Network Wafare Command Public Affairs
...NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- To be successful in information exchange and ensure both operational readiness and mission success, participants must learn to leverage technology in the most efficient and effective means possible. To this end, the naval services have engaged in a joint solution, an initiative known as FORCEnet.
FORCEnet was created to develop both the architecture by which Navy, joint and coalition force systems communicate, and the logistics to support such a network. By looking across warfare mission areas to identify and maximize current capabilities, while adapting network-enabled delivery of tactical data in a secure environment, the Navy expects to effectively deliver multiple sources of collected information in a collaborative, at sea environment. In layman's terms, this translates to a communications system employed and delivered to each participating platform within a combat scenario whether joint (U.S. forces), NATO or coalition.
"This is about integrating communications capabilities across warfare networks for streamlined operations," said Head, FORCEnet Innovation and Experimentation Branch Cmdr. Rick Simon. "It's more than just technology; it's being able to use knowledge to better engage the enemy."
This knowledge exists in three distinct forms: raw, unprocessed data; processed data, or information; and archival data, or actual knowledge. Similar to the intelligence process, where information does not become intelligence until it is analyzed, knowledge also requires scrutiny beyond the processing phase. However, whereas only legitimate intelligence or knowledge was once available to combatants, an integrated, network-centric architecture such as FORCEnet makes actual, real-time battlespace knowledge available to the individual combatants concerned. This allows for on the spot updates to battle plans to compensate for unforeseen circumstances or changing battle conditions.
"The first goal of this initiative is a unified Intranet that transfers data seamlessly with the appropriate security," said Capt. Robert Whitkop, FORCEnet deputy director. "Think of it not so much as a funnel through which all information flows, but a mesh, with standards that allows data, information and knowledge to be immediately available and transferred."...
ITBusiness.ca :: Don't talk to me, I only work here
by Shane Schick
...It isn't easy breaking down the barriers in the enterprise. Believe me, we tried.
The set of cubicles we occupy here are set up so that you can't always see the person sitting next to you. After putting up with this problem since the day we moved in here, we decided this morning to get rid of one of the walls. At least, we wanted to get rid of it, but there are a lot of screws and we don't quite know what we're doing, so we had to call the guys who work in our mailroom. This is always slightly embarrassing, and sometimes mildly irritating, in part because we couldn't do it ourselves and in part because it means we have to wait for them. You know, kind of like calling the IT help desk.
In 1964, a French philosopher named Gaston Bachelard published a book, "The Poetics of Space," which attempted to show how our perceptions of houses and other shelters shape our thoughts, memories, and dreams. He took readers on a journey from the attic to the cellar, concluding that the sense of intimacy we feel about our homes is almost completely self-created. In other words, the objective space of a house -- like its walls, doors, roof or individual rooms -- is far less important than the values or emotions we assign to it. This is why some men call their home their castle, or why some teenagers consider their parents' house a prison from which they desperately want to escape. This process of psychological projection is the "poetics" to which Bachelard's title refers.
The poetics of an enterprise can be somewhat similar, and surprisingly strong. Just today a co-worker commented about how another woman in this building has a habit of resting her coffee mug on top of her cubicle and leaving it there while she goes down to another floor. These are the kind of things that get under people's skin, and build up into what often seem like inexplicably complex relationships between people who happen to work in the same general vicinity.
We all acknowledge that technology has changed the way we do business, but we are only slowly realizing how it has changed the poetics of space. In some ways, IT allows everyday workers more control over certain business processes. But the distribution of those resources is often decided for them by someone else, and there can be highly varying degrees of freedom over how the resources they enjoy are used. Unlike a home, which in many cases will be owned by the person who dwells inside it, office space and the technology that goes with it is always on loan to the user.
This may help us understand the challenges around user behaviour and IT/client relations. Imagine owning a home where, if there's a problem with the plumbing, you had no control over who comes to fix it or when. The illusion of control is magnified by the move towards Web-based portlets that seem to give users more input on knowledge management or business-to-employee services, but which are really under the aegis of senior management.
The real test will come as mobile computing takes root among sales, marketing and other executive staff. Today a great deal of the hardware and applications are owned or managed by individual users. As remote access technologies wrest autonomy from workers, expect another clash of hierarchies.
Aristotle once called politics the ability to control your environment, so perhaps it shouldn't be any wonder that technology has a way of turning the poetics of space into office politics. Be it ever so contentious, there's no place like enterprise...
K-Collector