Via FederalTimes.com -
The intelligence community is turning to programs familiar to any teenager as a way to better share information and mitigate problems caused by a shortage of midlevel analysts.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is launching variations of Wikipedia and MySpace on its intranet and building online libraries to better distribute data and make the most of the analysts it has.
Senior intelligence officials told Federal Times on May 2 that relying more on interactive intranet programs, along with a renewed emphasis on recruiting and training, are part of a strategy to mitigate an analyst shortage, which has its roots in the downsizing of intelligence agencies after the Cold War.
As baby boomers retire, the analytical work force will lose vast amounts of institutional knowledge and expertise, said Tom Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.
The weaknesses run across the board, he said, but the 16 intelligence agencies are especially short on expertise on Africa, science and technology, Latin America, South Asia and Southeast Asia.
At the same time, a new generation of analysts in their 20s and 30s, hired after the Sept. 11 attacks, is helping agencies improve their analysis by devising variations of the online programs they are comfortable with, Fingar said. This is transforming how the intelligence community is managed, Fingar said. In addition, the intelligence community is moving away from top-down management reviews of intelligence data and toward peer reviews that a “wiki” environment encourages.
“This is management from below,” said Robert Houdek, Fingar’s adviser.
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