Twitter jitters

An Army Intelligence report posted on WIRED Magazine’s defense blog recently identified Microblogging website Twitter this way:

“Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences,” the report said.

Hacktivists refers to politically motivated computer hackers.

“Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives,” the report said. (Source:  Brietbart.com)

Now, I’ve not read the full report, but this is absolutely ridiculous.  Perhaps the authors of the report are not aware that The President of the United States uses Twitter to communicate messages.  Or even closer to home the Army’s Soldier’s Media Center uses Twitter too!  How scary. *teeth chattering*

I’m no expert on terrorists threats, however, it seems that Twitter would not be a really good method to communicating.  A better site for the stuff the Army report talks about is Pownce or maybe Plurk. Though I suspect they could use walkie-talkies, cellphones, or horn honks too.  Hopefully, someday soon the Army will have a much better understanding and integration of Web 2.0.  There is positive news here and here.

A discussion with lots of comments on this subject here.  Funny twitter cartoon here.

Thinking about polling and prediction

I have a few theories hunches on polling this cycle…and here’s how I see the final electoral map (Montana is the only true toss-up in my opinion)  OBAMA/BIDEN=326; MCCAIN/PALIN=209; UNKNOWN=3

Myles' final prediction for election night

1.)  Obama is overperforming on some polls because the people who support him are proud to say “Yes, I’m voting for Obama”; McCain supporters probably are less likely to respond at all to pollsters

2.)  Obama is underperforming on some polls because they don’t take in account cell-only voters. I have a detailed post on this subject on my personal blog.

3.)  Obama is underperforming on some polls because they don’t contact newly registered voters and there are numerous data points that indicate the Obama campaign and Democrats have registered millions of voters across the country.

4.)  The “Undecideds” are mostly McCain supporters who don’t want to admit they support McCain.  Therefore, McCain’s numbers will close on election day.

5.)  Obama will win any state he is currently up by +5% (and polling over 50%)

6.)  Mason-Dixon is given too much credit for accurate polling

7.)  Anytime a pundit says, “A democrat hasn’t won here since…” expect Obama to win that state.

Make your own map at Real Clear Politics.

Stability Operations Doctrine

On October 6th, the Army unveiled new doctrine on Stability Operations (Field Manual 3.07 download).  It’s good to see lessons learned incorporated to update doctrine.  The new manual will be immediately pushed down to officers schools so our leaders operate with the same concept of how we organize and win wars.  Another key element of Army doctrine is standardizing language (jargon) used that transcends from unit to unit, post to post.  Long live the nit-picky SGLs who shout “USE DOCTRINAL TERMS” to students during MDMP briefings.

Col. Stephen Twitty demonstrating his cultural awareness for effective diplomacy

Jack Kem provides a good explanation of doctrine here:

To be useful, doctrine must satisfy a number of criteria. To begin with, it must be vetted, accurate, and acceptable, all of which is ensured by the deliberate process involved in developing doctrine before it is published. Second, it must be well known and commonly understood, which the Army’s training and education programs function to accomplish. When all of these criteria have been met, doctrine forms the common language and shared professional culture throughout the Army. As Mr. Clint Ancker, the Director of the Army’s Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate says, “Doctrine is sound military advice prepared in advance.”

It’s important to understand this doctrine was developed by the U.S. Army inconjunction with a variety of Governmental Agencies and NGOs.  This is a good sign as we long ago realized that Soldiers alone are not suited to win wars and rebuild countries without assistance from the civilian sector.  Here’s an article about the development of FM 3.07 from March 2008.

Here is the link to the Combined Arms Center’s (CAC) page for the rollout of FM 3.07.  Normally, new Army doctrine goes unnoticed by the general public, however, the CAC’s Commanding General is a master of the media and used a variety of dead tree and Web 2.0 strategies to generate buzz.  Ultimately, the goal is to focus all the elements of power on conducting effective integrated Stability Operations.

More news and opinions:  Small Wars Journal, Toby Nunn’s blog, and Mountain Runners thoughts.

Secretary of the Army says Blog, baby, blog!

Back in June I told you my, non-loyal, readers that the Army embraces blogging.  In the news, the Secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, has encouraged more MilBlogging.

Soldier blogging

Secretary Geren said:

We’ve got to embrace every form of media, and this new medium – and particularly blogging, for many people – has replaced traditional media as a way to get news,” said Geren. “And not only to get news, but to educate themselves, the back and forth that blogs offer. So I see it as an addition of what we’re doing, and a mechanism to reach some people who you don’t reach at all through so-called traditional media.

His comments illustrate that Senior Leaders of the Army will begin to embrace Web 2.0. Secretary Geren’s comments were made during the 2008 MilBlog Conference held in conjunction with the Blog World Expo. (I didn’t know about either of these events…)

A video of LTG William B. Caldwell, IV addressing the MilBlog Conference–he is an advocate for blogging and directs all students at Command & General Staff College (Major’s school) to blog.  And here is an article about Secretary Geren’s historic visit to the MilBlog Conference.

I’m working on a two articles on this subject over the next few weeks.  Stay tuned…

Oh and if the Chief of Public Affairs is reading, Sir, I’d like to work on the Army or DoD New Media team. *fingers crossed*