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Creating Value with Speed
by Tracy Sharpe, DISA Corporate Communications

John Garing, DISA's chief information officer and director of strategic planning, focused on the need for information sharing and collaboration throughout the Department of Defense and with industry and coalition partners during the opening plenary session of the conference.

"Who controls and deploys Web 2.0?" Garing rhetorically asked the audience. His answer: "No one." The rapidly changing Internet usage has changed users' expectations at home and at work. Requests for information require answers that arrive faster than ever before.

Garing highlighted three forces that are converging congruently in the Web 2.0 environment: (1) an unquenchable thirst for collaboration, (2) a highly mobile workforce, and (3) ensuring that the network is always available.

The first force, the thirst for collaboration, is illustrated by recent examples of people using new technology for rapid information sharing, Garing said. He recalled how students at Virginia Tech alerted each other through text-messaging that a gunman was loose on campus.

He noted how democratic protesters in Tibet used cell phone cameras to alert the world about Chinese government's brutal response to the protests. He told of how Los Angeles Fire Department employees used Twitter with their BlackBerries® to communicate during the wildfires in California. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service.

The second aspect of the changing environment is the highly mobile workforce, a society connected around the clock.

The third of the convergent congruent forces is making certain the network is available all the time.

Not only should private industry prepare for DISA's future needs, but DISA must determine what the troops require even before they ask for it.

"You can't outsource intuition," said Garing, noting that DISA and its partners need to figure out how to focus the power of Web 2.0 in their everyday work.

"It's a shame that we are so good at deploying in five years information technology systems that are four and a half years out of date," lamented Garing. "We find that every software program is held hostage by its most complex component."

"[If] we want to achieve speed, mobility, agility, availability, and elasticity through innovation and ingenuity," said Garing. "DISA and industry must meet the changing demands of DISA customers with speed."

In his closing, Garing articulated his hopes that the conference would create a dialogue between DISA, its industry partners, and its customers — a dialogue that would enable DISA and industry to better serve DISA's customers. "Our job is to create value where there is none, and to do it with speed," he said.

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