Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »
June 17, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM U.S./ET (GMT-4)
Larry Bonfante, CIO of the U.S. Tennis Association, will discuss the skills and approaches that your rising IT leaders must learn to be effective in an executive capacity.
How to Handle Your New CEO: Managing Turnover at the Top
June 18, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM U.S./Eastern (GMT-4)
Turbulent times have increased turnover at the top. Find out what Council CIOs have done to "break in" new CEOs—build relationships, set expectations, educate on the role of IT.
Mid-Market CIO Panel: Tips and Techniques for Improving Vendor Relationships
July 15, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM U.S./Eastern (GMT-4)
We'll highlight relationship priorities and best practices identified in a Council study, and we'll interact with a CIO panel on the approaches they've used to improve strategic vendor partnerships.
Executive Competencies Assessment Tool
Assess Your Business Leadership Skills with the Council's new benchmarking tool. Rate yourself in change leadership, strategy, customer focus and more.
Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »Apply today for a FREE subscription to CIO Magazine!
June 10, 2008 — CIO —
The two CIA officials who lead the Intellipedia—a wiki set up by the CIA for disparate intelligence agencies to collaborate on key topics—delivered a keynote at the Enterprise 2.0 conference this morning. When it comes to social software implementation, they stressed the importance of administering access, starting small and moving information out of narrow channels like e-mail and into broader platforms like wikis .
The presentation was delivered by two leaders of the CIA's Intellipedia project, Sean Dennehy, who's title is "Intellipedia Evangelist," and Don Burke. Intellipedia was founded in April 2006 and it is used by 16 agencies in the U.S. government, according to a Wikipedia article citing several government sources and media reports.
Because most people associate wikis with Wikipedia, you need to establish that there will be access controls about who views (and just as important) who edits information on a wiki. With Intellipedia, for instance, there are three different versions. One is generally viewable by most agency employees, another is secret, and a third is top secret. Within each of those versions, some people have editing access and others only are allowed to view. Some aren't allowed writing or viewing access depending on their security clearance.
The beauty of the wiki model, Dennehy says, is that all edits can be easily tracked and made available in version history. "We're often asked in the intelligence community, what did you know and when did you know it?" Dennehy says. "We're not dealing with facts; we're dealing with puzzles and mysteries. If we get something up, we can debate it and talk about what to do. We can have a page that says analysts believe x and some believe y, and we make that transparent so people can look at what documentation supports what viewpoints."
According to Burke, implementing social software is more of a cultural challenge than a technical one. Many of the disparate intelligence agencies had held onto their own data and didn't share it with one another for years, so changing that paradigm can be difficult, he says. Given this reality, it's important to start small. At the CIA, the first wiki page they created was a list of acronyms. Since the intelligence community is riddled with them, it became a page people were willing to update (and saw immediate value from). "It's very simple, and gets to people who are uncomfortable with the tools to quickly make and edit and publish it," Dennehy says. "If you make those barriers small, they're more likely to adopt."