I just got back from 1.5 days of meetings with members of the CIA’s intelligence analysis community who are interested in what social software can do for them. There were six of us “experts” and about 50 CIA folks. These are the people who put together analyses and “estimates” about what’s going on in the world so that our leaders can ignore them and do what will get them re-elected (or, in some particularly Oedipal cases, do what will make Mommy love them more than Mommy loves Daddy). In short, these folks are among the few representatives of the Reality Principle in our government. I would like them to be able to do their job ever better.

We weren’t given any confidential information (well, except that Mrs. Wanda Appleton of 123 Elm St. better stop what she’s been doing…you know what I’m talking about, Wanda), but we agreed to blog only generalities so that discussion could be frank. Here are my generalities:

This was a totally fascinating set of sessions. The CIA folks there included visionaries (e.g., Calvin Andrus), internal bloggers, the people behind Intellipedia (an in-house wikipedia), folks from the daily in-house newspaper, and some managers not yet sold on the idea of blogs and wikis and tags.

It sounds like there’s a fairly vibrant blogging community already, including some senior people. But, there’s cultural tension over, for example, whether a blog that contains any personal information means that a government employee has been misusing tax payers’ computers. It is a culture in transition, as you can imagine.

It began with an informal presentation by one of the analysts (first-name only, no email address) who took us through a typical day. He gets evaluated on the basis of the written reports he produces. There is some collegiality — more than I encountered as an academic — but the back-and-forth of commentary isn’t captured. It all comes down to the finished written document. (No document is ever finished, the panel said.)

The panel overall stressed that the issues were social, not technical. Also, we pushed for building memory by capturing more of the work-in-process and by linking linking linking. I personally would like to see the Agency get past the cult of expertise, moving instead to a view of knowledge as social. That means showing work in progress and capturing the discussion during and after publication. But that also means changing how analysts are evaluated and promoted. One of the participants said that already one’s “corridor reputation” affects one’s career. There should also be — and will also be — an e-corridor reputation that helps advance you because you’re a great commenter, a frequent contributor to the wiki, or have a blog that’s getting read.

The people we met with are serious about understanding the opportunities, experimenting, piloting, and evangelizing. I liked them. I would like them to get better and better not only at understanding what’s happening in the world but also at not being “spun.” [Tags: cia blogs ]

Keep in mind that we met with the report-writing analyst side of the Agency. As for that other side where they engage in “operations” — unrepresented at this meeting — I sure would like them to stop torturing people. But, hey, I’m just a crazed Boston liberal.

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Here’s some interesting CEO-blogging. Richard Edelman of Edelman PR (which is a client of mine (disclosure)) writes about his mother’s bipolarism from a very personal point of view. [Tags: richard_edelman blogs bipolar>]

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For years, Richard Sambrook, the BBC’s Director of Global News and World Service, has been one of the most popular bloggers inside the BBC. Now he’s started SacredFacts, a public blog. As Euan Semple points out, how Richard balances his private views with his journalistic position will be fascinating to watch. This is especially true because, despite the fact that he inhabits a position that is the exemplar of what people mean by The Establishment, Richard is open-minded, clear-headed about what’s happening to journalism, a born little-d democrat, aware of the power of the media to make the world better, ready to experiment, and in love with the Web. I’ve gotten to know him personally a little, so I’m willing to go out on a limb and add that there’s no one better to have a beer with. [Tags: media journalism richard_sambrook bbc blogs]

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After my presentation at the Scottish Learning Festival, I wandered into a bloggy-wikiful session—TeachMeet—in a very warm room, but with wine. I walked in on a demo of JumpCut, an online video editing program that lets people share clips. It looked very cool.

Next an English teacher talks about transposing “process writing”—students commenting on students—into blogs with coments. (It might be a good use of the document commenting system at www.quicktopic.com.)

Another 7-minute presentation is on using Flickr’s annotation tool in a classroom. Why in the classroom reenactment of a Viking raid does one child not havea shield? Because he has a two-handed axe. He points to BubbleShare.com as a fun site for kids.

A couple talks about Kids Connect, an island in secondLife for kids. There they taught basic Second Life skills, including script pet rocks with sounds.

(Damn. The bloggers and Net geeks are going out to dinner but I’m committed to a speakers’ dinner. Oh well. That’ll be fun, too.)

[Tags: education scottish_learning_festival blogging]

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For the past couple of weeks, I’ve done little except revise my book. All day, every day. Well, I’ve had a couple of events I’d committed to, including a keynote at the Scottish Learning Festival that I leave for tonight—I was supposed to be done with my revising by now—but basically I’ve been head-down in my book.

Which means I haven’t had time to read other people’s blogs.

The blogosphere and its local eddies are often thought of as bubbles, little hermetic worlds unaware that there’s a bigger world with bigger ideas beyond them. But not reading blogs now feels to me like being in a bubble. I’m cut off. I don’t know what’s going on, what people are talking about, who’s on a high, who’s on a roll, who’s just keeping on.

The truth is that we humans always live in bubbles. While our ideas and ideals may strive for the universal, we are embodied locally. So, living in a bubble isn’t an objection; it is our condition. The question is whether we seek to expand our ideas and—more important—our sympathy or we think our local bubble is the one that’s figured it all out (as per Mel Brooks’ immortal caveman anthem: “Let ’em all go to Hell, except Cave Seven”). Even the best intentioned of us still live locally—damn bodies!—so we’re talking here about trying, about a dialectic, about a failed awareness. But, that failure keeps our bubbles honest.

I look forward to breaking out of my bubble of self-involvement pretty soon now. I hear it’s been a mild September. [Tags: bubble blogosphere mel_brooks]

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The Boston Globe today endorsed Deval Patrick for governor of Massachusetts so strongly that it ignored the customary writings-off of the other candidates, as in: “Chris Gabrieli has shown himself to be a straightforward leader with some new ideas, and we remain impressed by the precision and resilience of Thomas Reilly’s comb-over.” I’m glad. I’m a Deval Patrick supporter, too, and have the lawn sign to prove it.

But I don’t understand why newspapers take editorial positions. Doesn’t that contradict everything newspapers believe about the value of a neutral point of view? Alternatively, if expressing a point of view gives the reader valuable insight into the inevitable bias of the paper—as I think is the case—wouldn’t it be at least as helpful to allow reporters to state their own stands, in blogs if not in the stories themselves? [Tags: journalism deval_patrick]

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You want to hear a strong voice saying what he’s seen? Get over to Michael Totten’s blog where he’s writing from the Israel under fire. Lots of photos, too.

Is it the whole story? Of course not. There is no whole story to be had. But it is just what we hope for from the Blogosphere: The real as seen by a person we’ve come to know.

Lively discussion afterwards. [Tags: israel lebanon michael_totten citizen_journalism blogs]

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Sept. 9-10 there will be a BarCamp-style unconference in Boston about podcasting, blogging, etc. It’s called PodCamp and it looks like fun. Wish I could go. [Tags: podcasting conferences podcamp boston]

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Technorati’s posted its quarterly State of the Blogosphere survey (Disclosure). There’s been a slight slowdown in the growth rate, but nevertheless there are two blogs created each second. There are 1.6M posts per day, about double last year’s volume. About 70% of the pings Technorati receives (i.e., alerts that a new post has been posted) come from known spam sources. MSM continues to dominate as the sites to which bloggers link.

Lots more in Dave Sifry’s analysis… [Tags: technorati blogosphere ]

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Pew Internet has a new report on a national survey of bloggers. It’s the usual great stuff from Pew.

Eight percent of internet users, or about 12 million American adults, keep a blog. Thirty-nine percent of internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs – a significant increase since the fall of 2005.

37% say their favorite topic is their life and experiences. 55% blog under a pseudonym. 52% blog to express themselves creatively. Only 27% say they blog to influence how other people think. 87% allow comments. Only 18% say they have an RSS feed.

Bloggers are racially and genderly diverse.

34% consider their blog to be a form of journalism. 56% spend time fact checking. (Let’s assume that the 56% includes the 34%, or else much merriment shall ensue.)

Lots and lots in the survey…

[Tags: blogging blogosphere pew]

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