« Spy satellites for domestic surveillance: issue should unite right and left | Home | New feature: YouTube versions of my disaster tips! »
Jim Rapoza does Homeland Security 2.0 podcast with me
By WDavidStephenson | August 21, 2007
Wow — eWeek Chief Technology Analyst Jim Rapoza don’t waste no stinkin’ time: he interviewed me late yesterday afternoon for his Emerging Technology podcast series, and it was available for download within a few hours (pardon the nasal voice on my end of the conversation: I’m fighting the latter stages of a summer cold).
The topic was “next generation homeland security,” the result of a series of back-and-forth emails over the past month or so stemming from his tongue-in-cheek “Next-Gen Rapoza column,” in which he poked holes in some of the rhetorical excesses about Web 2.0 (carried me back to Web 1.0, when one of the companies I worked for was more obsessed with “getting eyeballs” than with bringing in $. They, um, went bankrupt.), and a follow-up, “Is the Web 2.0 Bubble Set to Burst,” in which he suggested “…the bubble burst isn’t always a bad thing. For the technologies involved, it can be a cleansing experience. With all the hype and hot air removed, the technology can settle down to doing its intended job. After all, despite the damage of the .com bust, e-commerce is doing just fine.”
That’s fine, because, as I explained when I wrote that I was changing this blog to “Homeland Security 2.0″, I said that I was more influenced by the combination of fundamentals of Web 2.0 such as:
- web-based applications (that could be accessed from anywhere in case your own computer was inaccessible in a disaster)
- and the underlying value of collaboration and the swarm intelligence that could yield innovative solutions in a crisis.
We covered a variety of topics:
- what I meant by “Homeland Security 2.0,” especially how it could empower the public and foster emergent behavior/swarm intelligence
- our shared concern that US satellite and communications surveillance has run amok.
- why government needs to go through a somewhat laborious and time-consuming approval process before disseminating information, while the public can and will share information instantly.
- what I thought the next big Homeland Security 3.0 thing would be (I said location-based services, since they’re of growing importance and value in the private sector, and will become increasingly valuable to terrorism and disaster response as I explained in my post about the value of AT & T’s Video Share and Alyus’ similar work in combining real-time video sharing with voice.
- why I think it’s better that my “networked homeland security” approach be driven more by the market than by direct government intervention (because the market is more dynamic and diversified)
- why I got into the field (because of the need to “connect the dots.”).
- how no single device or application is critical to the networked homeland security approach: as long as it’s IP- and packet-based, the critical message can and should be shared by as many different devices as possible, since we won’t know in advance which devices and applications will still be available.
At any rate, it was the longest media opportunity I’ve had to, how should I say this? — pontificate?? — on this subject about which I’m so passionate, so I hope you’ll enjoy it!
Technorati tags:
homeland security Department of Homeland Security Aylus NetworksWar on Terror terrorism e-democracy crowd-sourcing crowdsourcing smart mobs swarm intelligence emergent behavior networked homeland security government IT collaboration location-based services geo-spatial web web 2.0 homeland security 2.0 disaster management 2.0 disaster management Jim Rapoza eWeek business continuity disaster planning disaster planning 2.0
Topics: empowering public, technology, profitable corporate preparedness, policy and politics, e-gov transformation, collaboration, networked security | |




