Offering a timely example of how collaboration tools may be present, but not used, Ozzie related the experience of the U.S. Joint Forces Command, an intelligence and military branch of the U.S. government, during the investigation of the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Oct. 2000. The Joint Forces Command had created a number of online information portals where its workers and investigators could go to access research materials and enter new information about the investigation, he said. These portals weren't widely employed, however, "because the tools ... weren't natural to use for people," Ozzie said. Instead, investigators used phone, fax, and e-mail to conduct their investigation, he said.

The interesting part is that the Joint Forces Command recently bought a package of software to create a network of Radio weblogs for use on their Intranet.  The simplicity, low cost, and information sharing potential of the package obviously intrigued them.  Weblogging allows them to quickly post information sorted by time and by person, archive it on the Intranet where it can be quickly searched, and distribute that information via an ad-hoc network to desktops using RSS subscriptions.  Nice.   Hopefully, the one two puch of P2P collaboration represented by Groove and K-Logging represented by Radio will help them improve their planning activities in the future. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
4:55:45 PM    comment