Alberts Power to the Edge Notes 15 nov 2010

17
“To summarize, the enduring principles of command and control are not about who
accomplishes what tasks, nor how to accomplish them, but the nature of these tasks
themselves. Traditions are often about responsibilities for how tasks are distributed (roles) and
about how tasks are performed. They should not be presumed to be enduring”

notice the emphasis is upon the nature of the tasks themselves, not who or how. Traditions are about
who and how, but the principles of C&C are about the nature of the tasks. This is a critical
difference, and it is probably worth revisiting and rereading at another time

20
six different approaches to C2
“More specifically, the six different approaches are identified (from most to least centralized)
as:
1. Cyclic
2. Interventionist
3. Problem-Solving
4. Problem-Bounding
5. Selective Control
6. Control Free”

44
“Industrial Age militaries decomposed the battlespace, created layered organizations, divided
into specializations, and organized forces into hierarchies. Thinking that this approach
transformed the complexity of war and large operations into a collection of simple, manageable
tasks and problems, the Industrial Age military felt that they were able to focus on the
optimization of processes. A characteristic assumption of the Industrial Age was that every
problem had a “best” solution and every asset had an ideal employment.12”

“These assumptions naturally led to analyses seeking optimum solutions and patterns of
employment. This was most obvious in the design of weapons systems that were optimized
against the set of threats considered most likely and most dangerous to national interests.
However, it was also obvious in the design of command and control systems and the
communications systems intended to support them. Command and control also sought to create
the optimum conditions for employing each type of unit or weapons platform–matching ends to
means.”

it would be rather easy to characterize a number of modern practices and organizations this way. I
am sure that there are articles in the complexity literatrue which describe the structures and models
as based upon linear hierarcheis and structures and how these will not work.

This is akin to the usability models where, like above, the models are treated and regarded not just as
Alberts Power to the Edge Notes 15 nov 2010

if they are linear or causal, but also aif if you can make them simple, clear, and just about the task.
And, in part, it may be the attempt to constantly reduce everything into a series of tasks or staps
which generates so many layers, so many in between points, that decisions become very slow
because there is such depth and the number of tasks is so incredibly high.

However, it does seem that this Power to the Edge approach is about placing decision makers and
not just task completers at the edges of structures which interact with others.

I wonder if you could do this with software design or interface design where the interaction that took
place was not about task completion but was about making a decision. If you created interfaces that,
perhaps, were able to gather data on these kinds of decisions and not just about task completion,
then they might be able to learn more about the users and less about how they actually completed
the task.

In addition, this would give you a clear sense of what actual effect or outcome they were seeking. In
a way, this might be a holistic approach or ends-centered or “what is the end experience that you
want to walk away with” instead of what is the site you wish to visit or what things should you eat or
with whom should you travel.

47
“Military plans always include five elements:
• Missions–what is to be done by the overall force and
each major element of that force (who is responsible for
what);
• Assets–which parts of the force are assigned to each element
of the mission (who plays what role);
• Boundaries–who has which areas of responsibility (what
control measures are in force);
• Schedules–how the effort is organized over time; and
• Contingencies–how missions, assets, boundaries, and
schedules will change under specific pre-identified
circumstances.
Given the limits of Industrial Age communications, plans were the mechanisms by which
military commanders sought to create the conditions necessary for success. Large, complex
organizations in particular depended on comprehensive plans that required considerable time to
prepare and also had to be continuously monitored, adjusted, and maintained.”

plans were the way that people attempted to create success, the attempt to handle or grasp a large
number of confusing variable. In order to make these plans, esp. comprehensive plans, which all of
the different members of the different levels of the different hierarchies need to be told what to do—
what tasks to complete—many people were required to create this.

The investment of people, time, and money as well as the monitoring of such things can cost a great
deal in terms of resources. This is an incredible expense.
Alberts Power to the Edge Notes 15 nov 2010

56
“All of these initial responses share one thing in common; they rely on Industrial Age
assumptions with respect to the nature of work processes, organization, and command and
control. Because of the complexity of the security challenges faced, modern militaries need to
(1) bring all of their information to bear to make sense of the situation and (2) be able to
employ all of their assets to effectively respond to the situation. The Industrial Age principles
and practices of decomposition, specialization, hierarchy, optimization, and deconfliction,
combined with Industrial Age command and control based on centralized planning and
decentralized execution, will not permit an organization to bring all of its information (and
expertise) or its assets to bear. In addition, Industrial Age organizations are not optimized for
interoperability or agility. Thus, solutions based upon Industrial Age assumptions and
practices will break down and fail in the Information Age. This will happen no matter how well
intentioned, hardworking, or dedicated the leadership and the force are.”

this could easily describe usability and current approaches that are based upon hierarchical
structures and decision making, whether it takes place in terms of tourist businesses and structures
or in the military.

This specific approach/critique could be placed within the discuss of complexity theory and choas
thinking, etc., in the larger culture and environment. First, in terms of the general importance of
complexity studies: the military is using it, and they have tight time frames and lives at stake.
Second, the same kinds of hierarchical structures which are present in the military are also present
in the world. See the professionaliziation, specialization, and siloing of knowledge in academia,
medicine, and the sciences. So this is of value on the larger perspective.

There is also the interdiscilpinary importance of this. Clearly, there are multiple groups attempting
to work on issues which involve complexity and they draw from multiple environments. Since so
many groups are doing it, it would be silly to ignore it—especially when they point out the same kind
of practical and conceptual problems which are taking place.

This might also enable the categorization of this as systems thinking because it is looking for similar
paths, similar issues, similar patterns that are present throughout different circumstances—and
these patterns are identifiabile in spite of, or perhaps because of, the complexity of the systems and
the users who are present.

56
“Two key force capabilities needed by Information Age militaries are interoperability and
agility. Organizations that are products of Industrial Age thinking are not well suited for
significant improvements in interoperability or agility.”
Alberts Power to the Edge Notes 15 nov 2010

56-7
this description could fit many kinds of hierarchies

“As discussed in the previous chapter, Industrial Age military organizations have evolved into
many-layered hierarchies populated with stovepiped organizations and centralized planning
processes. Organizational entities that are not in the same stovepipe do not share information,
nor do they normally work with one another. The systems they acquire independently are not
designed to work together and are often optimized for existing processes and information
exchange requirements. Furthermore, individuals and organizational entities with Industrial
Age mindsets do not see a compelling need for interoperability. Instead they think it is more
important that they or their organization configure their systems and processes to optimize the
tasks for which they are responsible.”

yet another summary on how and why Industrial Age organizations, mindsets, etc. can cause
problems. In particular, pay attention to the section that I have highlighted. Both chunks are
important. First, they are not designed or created in order to work with other systems or
structures—they are created or designed or optimized in order to address or complete
specific tasks. This could be seen, perhaps, in UX or software design where specific tasks are
excellent or capable of being accomplished because they are considered to be a priority, but
the actual overall device or experience or presentation is lost sight of.

Perhaps the same thing could be said about a tourist experience, that if there is only one or
two tasks which the organization or interpreter or tourist has in mind—or each different
operator or level of information distribution has very different tasks upon which they are
focused—then that system is not integrated, not operating well together, and it most likely
will not meet the overall goal is—whatever that goal is and whoever sets it.

Another way to put this is the whole is not the sum of the parts.

58
“Organizations that continue to believe that they can successfully deal with problems by
decomposing them, and that centralized planning will account for any synergies required to
meet the challenges faced, will not value interoperability”

59
Industrial Age approach ito interoperability “is based on the belief that it is
possible to specify the information exchanges and collaborations that are needed in advance. It
is hard for many to accept that this is not amenable to analysis, and that therefore it is not
possible to know who may need what piece of information, when it will be needed, and who
may need to work with whom.”
Alberts Power to the Edge Notes 15 nov 2010

59
since you don't know who will need what kind of information or who will need to talk to
whom, systems and processes should be adaptable to the different kinds and types of people
who may need to use it for different reasons and different purposes

60 Agility and the Industrial Age

lack of ability comes from an IA belief in centralized planning and optimization

optimization discussed/defined:
“Optimization assumes a fair amount of knowledge about the nature of the response surface
involved. A response surface consists of points, each of which reflects the value of an option
given a certain situation or state (set of values for the independent variables that characterize
the situation). An example of a response surface is depicted in Figure 2. Optimization is a
process that seeks to find a solution (a military option, organizational form, process, system
design) that gives the best possible result, a global maximum, as depicted in Figure 3.
Optimization inherently involves tradeoffs. Given a choice between an option that yields the
best result (the global optimum) and another option that may not be as good as the global
optimum, but maintains its value over a larger range of conditions, Industrial Age organizations
systemically have chosen to go with the global optimum. This is because these involve very
narrowly framed decisions taken by specialists.”

60-62
“The complexity and uncertainty inherent in real world situations has been systematically
forced out of consideration by the decomposition of the mission and the force.”

this could most likely be applied to usability as well—the striving to optimize for specific
tasks instead of for the overall experience or UX.

62
centralized planning is an expression/result of belief in the ability to optimize
centralized planning also prefer deconfliction over synergy, that is, to keep different elements
from within from interfering with each other, and prevention of this conflict is more important
than developing sysnergy

74
making/creating sense in a situation requires these 3 elements:
“Furthermore, to make sense of the situation requires that we are able to quickly bring to bear
(1) information from many sources, including new sources, (2) a wide variety of expertise and
perspectives (to understand, filter, and integrate the available information and knowledge), and
(3) synchronized effects over multiple domains.”

perhaps these could be compared to Albers or Redish's approach to working with

information. It would be interesting to see how handling information is treated/regarded.
Alberts Power to the Edge Notes 15 nov 2010

I'm not sure if this can/will fit in the work that I am doing, but being able to appraise and
value specific kinds of information seems to be pretty useful. I could probably do a broad
reading on those three things and consider them from a tourists angle: the ability to
continually gather and review information from a broad array of sources, to be able to draw
on different perspectives in order to filter, and to synchronize the effects, the outcomes, over
multiple domains.

If the pruposeful tourist's goal is to make sense of a sacred place, to have a maximal
experience, they, in part, know what kinds of information they will want. However, it is not
possible for the user to always predict what kinds of information they may want to have.
Similarly, there is no single solution that a site can generate or have on top in order to meet,
in a guaranteed ways, the needs or desires of purposeful tourists. There will need to be an
array of different kinds of information, different sources from different perspectives so that
the user can select those sources which are of greatest interest to them and thus create their
own experience out of the the site/situation and not just how or what the site managers or
guardians think the user should have.

74
“The information revolution in progress is all about the amount of information richness and
reach and the quality of interactions between and among entities that are possible as a result
of advances in technology. The roles that entities can play in an endeavor depend on the natures
of the interactions that can take place between and among the entities. The natures of these
interactions that are practical to contemplate have everything to do with the economics of
information. The economics of information depend, in large part, on the state of the art and
practice of information technology.”

This could potentially be read just in terms of the interactions between people. It might also
be read that if the users have more sophisticated or different types of information, then they
may have an increased array or different types of understanding of a site—the architecture,
weather, geography, tribal groups, etc.--and thus actually have more information about the
site and place and be able to ask more intelligent or useful questions. Different kinds of
information also help to determine the different types of relationships which take place—just
how much information and what type of information is provided to the non-believer or the
casual user and in what langauges.

If the technology is not present in order to avail certain kinds of information or in specific
langauges or enhance the understanding, background, and experience of certain visitors
and users, then it is unlikely that the users may get along as well with the locals or come
away with as significant an understanding of the place and experience than if they had had
more information or at least a bit more data about the history of the time and place.
Alberts Power to the Edge Notes 15 nov 2010

76
smart smart push
“Smart smart push via telephone requires that the pusher understand what information is
needed by whom, plus how to get it there, and when the other party will be available to
receive it. This is a nontrivial set of requirements that is difficult if not impossible to meet as
missions become less traditional and more complex.”

76-82
telephone exchange vs. broadcast exchange vs. email exchange vs. network
richness vs quality of interactions vs reach

82 post and smart pull

“Moving from a push to a post and smart pull approach shifts the problem from the owner of
information having to identify a large number of potentially interested parties to the problem
of having the individual who needs information identifying potential sources of that
information.”

82-3
“To make this new information dissemination strategy work, organizations need to adopt a
policy of post before processing. Such a policy serves to make certain that the network is
populated with information in a timely way. Moreover, information originators will not
necessarily stop with posting “raw” information. Many of them (for example, intelligence
organizations, intermediate command centers, and entities outside of the DoD12) will also offer
value-added services in which they put information into context, track information over time,
and merge information with existing knowledge to produce richer products. These products
will be posted so that they are available to users throughout the system.”

91-92
a criticism of network approach is that a lot of bandwidth is needed for the interactions;
however, that assumes that every node will connect and communication with every other node
—this rarely if never happens. Instead, what occurs is that very few nodes have majority of
activity, a larger number of some activity, and most nodes have relatively little activity. This is
unlike hierarchy where there is usually a constant flow of communication and interaction up
and down the structure.

100
framework for network centric warfare—visual model/structure
107 chapter 7: Interoperability
interoperability is “the ability to work together”
Alberts Power to the Edge Notes 15 nov 2010

119
forms & representations of data
“Despite the fact that information sources could post date information in any one (or more) of
these ways, interoperability can be achieved if the user of the information is aware of the
different representations and their mapping to each other. The burden for this is shared between
posters and pullers. If posters wish for their information to have value, then they need either
to post the data in a widely recognized form or post it with metadata that provides the mapping
to a recognized standard. If pullers wish to utilize available data, then they need to educate
themselves regarding the various forms of the data element used by sources that they consider
potentially valuable.”

120
“Thus, the move from smart push to post and smart pull not only solves previously intractable
problems by identifying important information and getting it to the right persons, but also
facilitates the creation of the interoperability necessary to bring all relevant information and
all relevant assets to bear. Power to the edge is therefore an inherently joint and coalition
concept.”

125
important combination of two factors is the need to engage being “properly meshed” with the ability to
engage at that point in time

128
6 key attributes of agility:
“1. Robustness: the ability to maintain effectiveness across a range of tasks, situations, and
conditions;
2. Resilience: the ability to recover from or adjust to misfortune, damage, or a destabilizing
perturbation in the environment;
3. Responsiveness: the ability to react to a change in the environment in a timely manner;
4. Flexibility: the ability to employ multiple ways to succeed and the capacity to move
seamlessly between them;
5. Innovation: the ability to do new things and the ability to do old things in new ways; and
6. Adaptation: the ability to change work processes and the ability to change the
organization.”

perhaps these same traits could be seen in terms of information delivery or information delivery
systems—that is, making sure that this content is delivered in a specific way. Is what I am doing
about information delivery? In some ways, it certainly appears to be about making sure that
information delivery to the proper people under the proper conditions is done in a viable way.
Alberts Power to the Edge Notes 15 nov 2010

An interesting aspect here is the post before processing, especially in terms of providing information
to users. As such, however, this power to the edge has not worked or asserted how users will be able
to sort throught the information and identify that which is useful and those things to ignore.

Perhaps part of that can be accomplished in Edge organizations by having highly trained
individuals who are used to working with oceans of information. They have the skill, experience,
and ability to work solo as well as to collaborate with other people. That is, they have developed an
information management skill and they are able to recognize the nature of their experience and
what is around them.

This user group varies vastly from the normal tourists, because many tourists (at least according to a
number of studies) are not as into pulling information as in consuming information and
experiences. A large portion of tourists are interested in happenstance, chance, and encountering
sights and experiences that do not require too much forethought, planning, etc., and I do not know
how this approach could possibly apply to them.

However, my work does not focus on the general tourist or the accidental cultural tourist. Instead, I
am interested in the purposeful cultural tourist, the person who seeks out specific sites, the person
who may return to an area or multiple lcoations multiple times. That is the person that I am working
on/with, and it is also the person who works to search out information ahead of time, and often that
information can be located from an array of sources.

One example model of some of this could be some famous site, say the Taj Mahal, and then look at
all the different ways in which that site is presented, modeled, and represented based upon the
agency creating the content as well as the expcected and suspected audience.

I am not sure that we even know what kinds of information purposeful cultural tourists (PCT)
actually want or are interested in. That is a pretty important question: what kind of information do
that want? If we have some idea about that, then we might be able to actually get some more work
done.

129
graphic of the 6 aspects fo agility in domains of warfare