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Wired 11.06: 'If We Run Out of Batteries, This War is Screwed.'
I was just catching up on an issue of Wired on a recent trip and got into the article about how technology is being used in the US military. Of course, the things that caught my interest were how they are using social online communication tools to speed the decision making process. From what I can gather from the article, chat and instant messaging were used for the first time in the Iraqi war as a means of communicating with soldiers in the field.
One example they use is when a convoy came upon a some dead sheep by the roadside- a possible sign of a chemical attack. They used MS Chat to send a message to an Intelligence Officer 200 miles away and got an immediate response.
If this had been Gulf War I, the convoy would have lost a full day - calling in the incident by radio, describing it to three or four rungs up the command ladder, and waiting for a crew of specialists to arrive, test the air, and give the all-clear. But this war is different. An email gives the sheep's coordinates to a chemical investigation team, and the convoy just keeps moving.
It’s a little surprising to me that the military is using chat, but it does make sense. I guess it’s surprising because so few businesses have used IM/chat as a business communication tool. Like so many innovations before them, online communication tools may need to pass the military test in order for the conservative businesses to see them as something other than social tool. Perhaps the military’s successful implementation of these tools will spur business leaders to take a new look.
Swarm theory is also moving online - into chat rooms, an application Mims is pioneering for military purposes. When a problem develops on the battlefield, a soldier radios a Tactical Operations Center. The TOC intelligence guy types the problem into a chat session - Mims and his colleagues use Microsoft Chat - and the problem is "swarmed" by experts from the Pentagon to Centcom. Not only is the technology changing the way we maneuver, Mims notes, it's changing the way we think.
Again, thinking about business in these same scenarios, I wonder why businesses haven’t jumped onto these technologies more quickly- especially with offices being more distributed, travel more expensive and technology more available. My guess would be that it’s a little “too risky” for business to spend money on new ways to communicate without tried and tested return on investment analysis. Hopefully the business case is being made by the military now.
Also, this made me laugh…
"What's funny about using Microsoft Chat," he adds with a sly smile, "is that everybody has to choose an icon to represent themselves. Some of these guys haven't bothered, so the program assigns them one. We'll be in the middle of a battle and a bunch of field artillery colonels will come online in the form of these big-breasted blondes. We've got a few space aliens, too."