Yes, it’s been a little quiet here lately (other than comments about 9/11 being an inside job, and who knows what kind of traffic mentioning that will bring?). The reasons are twofold: first, I have been building a new business I started early last year; and second, I just launched a blog that describes my thinking about that business. I’m very excited about both.
That said, PublicOrgTheory has been my first love for over five years, and I always come back to it. This meditation by Tyler Cowen on health care caught my attention this morning:
Over at Twitter, Matt Yglesias asks:
Do rightwingers really believe that US health insurance has no mortality-curbing impact?
I don’t speak for “right-wingers,” but I’ll say this:
1. I genuinely don’t know what to believe. And I often toy with the idea of an “innovation-maximizing” health care policy, so that future coverage is more effective.
2. I am commonly excoriated by people (not Matt) for not supporting government-subsidized universal health insurance, yet few if any of these people grapple seriously with the best evidence.
3. I live in a country where the extension of health insurance is a major issue, and a major budgetary issue, yet much of the discussion is in an evidence-free zone.
There’s more, but it was the evidence-based points that I found most compelling. While I think coverage for all Americans should make for a healthier nation, an economically stronger nation, and a nation better prepared for its own defense, I have to agree with Cowen that no one–including myself–is offering up evidence that would support the plans being discussed. There’s an opportunity to be seized here.
National debate seems to be one of the few areas left in American society–management and medicine being two notable others–in which evidence need not be the basis of an argument or action. ”Proving it” is a big deal among people whose lives and livelihoods hang in the balance. It would be an excellent change to see that kind of urgency to “prove it” in all matters of national interest.
Categories: Current Events
Tagged: Add new tag, evidence-based medicine, Health insurance, insurance, Tyler Cowen, United States, Universal health care
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Useful recommendations for NASA:
An aerospace panel is warning NASA that relying on private companies to send astronauts into space would raise serious safety issues.
The federal watchdog Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said that outsourcing would be “unwise and probably not cost-effective” because private space companies are not yet technically advanced enough to safely put astronauts into orbit, The Wall Street Journal reported.
When has it ever raised safety issues before?
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Add new tag, Aerospace, Astronaut, NASA, safety, Space, technology, Wall Street Journal
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Good post at Warren Ng’s blog:
Corporations exist for a reason. That reason most likely is attributed to the power of many, yet corporations break down when executives make bad decisions and the remainder of the company suffers. Promotions and bonuses are put on hold or worse jobs are lost. Seems that corporations haven’t figured out how to utilize the man power effectively.
My reply:
You’re making some important points here (and adding some much-needed balance to the breathless claims that crowdsourcing will replace the corporation). The reason for traditional organizations to exist is largely based in Coase’s theory of the firm: the transaction costs of using a market are minimized or eliminated when performed internally by a firm. Crowdsourcing shifts some of those activities out of the firm by providing lower transaction costs than the firm, something difficult or impossible prior to social media technology.
Savvy entrepreneurs in the crowdsourcing space are beginning at the point of determining which organizational processes lend themselves to being performed outside of the firm, whether they are viewing their value proposition that broadly or not (incidentally, outsourcing and offshoring were both precursors in the attempt to seek lower transaction costs). There are some processes that will probably always stay within the firm–primarily those administrative activities that cause a firm to cohere. This is currently exemplified by the tendency of most new commercially-focused crowdsourcing ventures to form a company first, then sell the results to another company. At present it is more efficient for a company to seek funding, hire staff, and build platforms within a traditional company structure. That may not always be the case.
It’s interesting to contemplate the evolution of organizational forms as technology enables new arrangements. It challenges a great many of our assumptions. That said, I should probably leave it there lest this comment become a post of its own.
Too late.
Categories: Current Events · bureaucracy
Tagged: Add new tag, business, Corporation, organization, Outsourcing, Ronald Coase, Social media, technology, Transaction cost
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Although positive psychology and its bastard child Appreciative Inquiry have a cadre of Mafia-esque adherents, there’s no need to throw out the baby with the bathwaterc:
In 1998, Dr. Martin Seligman became President of the American Psychological Association (APA) and publicly promoted an entirely new field of study–known today as Positive Psychology. Dr. Seligman argued that for far too long psychological investigation was based on a disease model of human behavior. Essentially, psychology was focused on how to make people less miserable. So, Seligman challenged his fellow psychologists to develop something new – a science which instead placed emphasis on healthy human behavior, how to improve normal lives, and ultimately, how to make life more fulfilling.
The consequences of this emerging field are intriguing, but it hasn’t met with widespread adoption when it comes to corporate employee engagement practices. I’d argue that far too many of today’s corporations operate under a model that is centered on how to make work life “less miserable.” And despite all the money that companies pour into employee engagement tools and surveys, companies are still bad at making work more meaningful, more fulfilling, and more engaging. What if anything can be done? And what can corporations learn–if anything–from the field of positive psychology and other scholars in this area?
If adoption can be promoted without the oppressive, “my way is best and everything in organization development that came before is worthless” mentality, there are benefits to be realized. I haven’t seen these ideas taken forward that way, and their adherents–who putatively value inclusion–are notoriously dismissive of that significant portion of the human experience that is not sunshine and puppies. It’s time to view positive psychology in context.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Add new tag, American Psychological Association, Appreciative Inquiry, employment, Human behavior, Martin Seligman, Mental health, psychology, Social Sciences
Interesting, especially the advice to think like journalists:
American intelligence in Afghanistan is broken, says the top U.S. intelligence officer there. That’s because it focuses too much on whacking Taliban, and not enough on figuring out Afghanistan’s social and cultural landscapes. But the report from Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the top intelligence aide to International Security Assistance Force Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, raises lots of other issues, too. Like, what happened to the military’s “human terrain” programs to map those landscapes? Can spies really perform better if they think and work like journalists? And why is this report being publicly distributed through a think tank?
Flynn’s report — which was prepared for public release by the Center for a New American Security – begins with a stunning admission. “Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy,” the report states. “Having focused the overwhelming majority of its collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, the vast intelligence apparatus is unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S. and allied forces operate and the people they seek to persuade.”
I have some opinions on OSINT that generally center on organizations’ ability to absorb it in useful, credulous ways. OSINT is essentially old-school journalism, the difference being that news organizations value it.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: afghanistan, International Security Assistance Force, Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, military, OSINT, Stanley McChrystal, Taliban, War in Afghanistan
This post describes the methodology used to map Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s online communications:
Given our specific interest in the online behavior of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, we were most interested in analyzing the direct and indirect communication network associated with the handle “Farouk1986” (aka Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab). Therefore, it was necessary to filter the broader universe of communication on Gawaher.com to the relevant subset.
A portion of this information is contained in publically available NEFA dataset. While useful, we determined that this dataset alone did not include the information necessary for us to construct the Farouk1986 secondary/indirect communications network. In order to obtain a better understanding of this communication network, we retrieved every “topic” in which Farouk1986 participated at least once. Each “topic” is comprised of one or more “posts” from one or more users. Each “post” may be in response to another user’s “post.” The NEFA data contains only posts made by Farouk1986 – our data contains the entire context within which his posts existed.
The table of the ten most frequent participants in his network is interesting; I suspect I would be soiling myself if my handle were “Crystal Eyes” or “property_of_allah”.
Categories: Current Events · bureaucracy
Tagged: Abdulmutallab, Gawaher, network analysis, terrorism
Image by Diez Photography via Flickr
A New York Times editorial today reviews what happened in the terror incident two weeks ago on Northwest Airlines Flight 253:
The report implicitly acknowledges all of this, saying that the system failed “to identify, correlate, and fuse into a coherent story all of the discrete pieces of intelligence held by the U.S. government” about both the Al Qaeda group and Mr. Abdulmutallab. It also makes clear that this was not a single failure by one agency but was a cascade of failures across agencies and departments and the bureaucracies that are supposed to coordinate them.
It says that once the government learned of a possible plot in Yemen, the intelligence community failed to devote more analytic resources, and it failed to put one agency or official in charge. John Brennan, the senior official responsible for figuring out what went wrong, said on Thursday that only after the failed plot did the intelligence community recognize that the group, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, actually posed a direct threat to the United States. [emphasis added]
This is a fairly straightforward explanation of the problem. The problem is not individual, but rather systemic. There are never enough analytic resources to adequately process the overwhelming volume of data collected by the IC, but that is not the primary problem. The overarching challenge to the IC is that authority, budget, and power are spread across its agencies with no clear leadership or accountability. Every 8-year-old kid knows what happens when one kid is in charge of building the treehouse and another kid has all the lumber and nails. If there is to be reform–and it has yet to happen in the past eight years–consolidating budget and accountability is the most powerful lever.
Categories: Current Events · Unintended Consequences · bureaucracy · foreign policy · leadership
Tagged: Add new tag, al Qaeda, Arabian Peninsula, John O. Brennan, New York Times, Northwest Airlines, United States, Yemen
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It appears the forthcoming terror report will implicate the young National Counterterrorism Center:
Without naming the agency, he put the National Counterterrorism Center, the new entity formed after 9/11 to do precisely this function, squarely in his crosshairs.
Until the report (to be released today) has been fully dissected and cross-examined, it is impossible to say whether President Obama is pointing his finger at the right culprit. Of all the parts of the complex system and of all of the post-9/11 reforms, I would have considered the NCTC to be one of the better functioning.
I wouldn’t, but Dr. Feaver (great name) will likely know more than I on the matter. The reasons I wouldn’t expect it to be one of the better functioning organizations in the IC are
- The organization is new, and was created in a relative panic;
- Its function is merely coordination–admittedly a tough job–without authority; and
- The turf-protectiveness of the IC almost guarantees that the NCTC’s analysis would be incomplete.
I harbor a great deal of respect for the many talented individuals who labor within dysfunctional, unnecessarily competitive intel organizations. Intel reform has clearly not worked–in fact, there really hasn’t been reform. Adding layers of bureaucracy, especially without real power, is not reform at all. Pointing fingers and sacking people is often the politically astute path, but it almost guarantees that we’ll have this discussion again.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Add new tag, Barack Obama, bureaucracy, Complex system, National Counterterrorism Center, NCTC, United States, War on Terrorism, Warfare and Conflict
Perspicacity points to Doyle McManus:
“By shining light on organizational dysfunction that’s hard to dramatize, the attempted bombing has highlighted a problem that desperately needs to be solved.”
Finally.
Categories: Current Events · bureaucracy · foreign policy · leadership
Tagged: counterterrorism, Doyle McManus, intel, reform
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Just a quick break from vacation to observe the friction between the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of Central Intelligence:
The White House this month issued a classified order to resolve mounting frictions between the nation’s intelligence director and the CIA over issues including how the agency conducts covert operations, U.S. officials said.
The intervention reflects simmering tension between the two most powerful players in the U.S. intelligence community: Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair and CIA Director Leon E. Panetta.
The memo maintains the CIA’s status as the nation’s lead spy service on covert missions, rejecting an attempt by Blair to assert more control. But the document also includes language detailing the agency’s obligation to work closely with Blair on sensitive operations.
…
The White House memo, signed by National Security Advisor James L. Jones, was an attempt to settle a collection of disputes that have plagued the relationship between the director of national intelligence and the CIA director for years.
I’ve been interested in this for a long time (dates of the links are August 2004, June 2009, December 2008, and April 2009). Here’s what I wrote this time last year about the conflict:
Why “putative”? The DNI was created in much the same way as the Director of Central Intelligence was originally intended; that is, to be the point of the intel spear. “16 other intelligence agencies”, most of them within the Department of Defense, indicates how diffuse the community has become. Budget authority for most of the intel community lies outside of the DNI’s scope, resulting in a role that is heavy on its need for influence, short on control, and highly susceptible to the caprices of a complex political environment. Creating new organizational entities to compensate for dysfunction among other organizational entities often brings unintended consequences. A “joined-up” intel community continues to be no more than a diluted aspiration hovering over a cluster of moribund silos.
The DNI is a position created without the benefit of systemic analysis and diagnosis of the problems it was designed to create. It is political organizational hackery at its worst. This is what happens when you move the boxes on the org chart around without understanding what they mean. This is what happens when you do not strive for a view of organizational and trans-organizational interdependencies. This is what happens when you fail to acknowledge that budget represents strategy more than does title. This is what happens when you replace an opportunity for inquiry with an abundance of certainty.
I don’t intend to continue banging the “I told you so” drum on this. There’s almost six years of analysis on intel reform in the archives of this blog, which in turn build upon a century each of organizational scholarship and solid reporting on the origins and evolution of the intel community. There are a handful of articles in the last month alone that describe the turf wars between DNI and CIA in Washington and abroad, as well as a pile of archives stretching back to the summer of 2004. For those who remain unconvinced about the hot mess the new arrangement has created, there’s little more I can offer.
Intelligence reform was taken up in the early part of this benighted decade to address a failure to connect dots and staggering deficiencies in coordination and cooperation, the two fundamental concerns of organization theory. The urgency of a nation newly returned to war combined with the momentum of aligned political will should have brought forth an intel community with (internally) clear accountability, budget authority, processes, lines of authority, resource availability, methods of cooperation, etc. The fact that we read about this in major newspapers indicates that that has not happened, and is almost certainly not in the process of happening.
We are at the inception of a fresh new round of political posturing about “connecting dots” and “chatter in the system”. Another young punk with some shadowy connections tried to bring down a plane, much like the hapless Richard Reid a handful of years before him. Absent a total ban on luggage of any sort and duct-taping passengers naked to their chairs, this will almost certainly happen again. This would be a good opportunity to put the nature and extent of the threat in context, perhaps moving from the blunt-force approach of war to the precision approaches of solid international law enforcement. Alas, the conversation will almost certainly be driven by loud voices spending yet another fortune on yet another doomed run at intel reform–we love our sound and fury, but we seem unable to remember what they signify.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Add new tag, Central Intelligence Agency, Covert operation, Dennis C. Blair, Director of Central Intelligence, Director of National Intelligence, National security, White House
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