FwHere's How to Stop Squelching New Ideas, Eric Schmidt's Advisory Board Tells DoD

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 2:07 PM
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Here's How to Stop Squelching New Ideas, Eric
Schmidt's Advisory Board Tells DoD
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>


Here’s How to Stop Squelching New Ideas, Eric Schmidt’s Advisory Board
Tells DoD
An exclusive preview of the Defense Innovation Board’s new recommendations
for James Mattis.
By Patrick Tucker
Jan 17 2018
<
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/01/heres-how-stop-squelching-new-ideas-eric-schmidts-advisory-board-tells-dod/145240/
>

“DoD does not have an innovation problem; it has an innovation adoption
problem,” reads one of the new recommendations from the Defense Innovation
Board. It even has an “innovation theatre” problem: the preference for
small cosmetic steps over actual change.

The advisory is chaired by former Alphabet chief executive Eric Schmidt.
Their latest report, to be delivered Wednesday afternoon to Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis, suggests that the Pentagon too often tends to squelch
its new ideas with outdated bureaucratic models and obsolete cultural
notions.

Obtained exclusively by Defense One before the meeting, A draft of several
new recommendations include:

        • Design a fast track for new technology initiatives. Basically,
take the Army’s Rapid Equipping Office, which pushes urgent-need technology
to front lines, and make its processes the norm for some new technology
development. From the report: “DoD should develop a sustainable process, as
opposed to another rapid office, that would act as a ‘fast-track’ for: (1)
identifying and prioritizing the most critical operational warfighting
problems, (2) assembling cross-functional teams that span organizational
boundaries and disciplines to develop rapid solutions.”

        • Start an incubator. In the business and tech world, incubators
help startups turn ideas into businesses by providing management, funding,
office space, and expertise. The board is suggesting that the military take
some of its best and brightest and help them build DOD ‘startups’ related
to specific problem areas, like big data analysis. “The military has to
establish a new approach to empowering its most talented people…allowing
the military’s most intrapreneurial people to work on their ideas to get
them elevated past the usual roadblocks in the system,” it says.

        • Create an innovation + STEM career field. In much the same way
that the military created the cyber operations career field, it should do
the same with science, tech, and innovation. The new career field would
“cover innovation, rapid capability development and acquisition, data
science, and STEM)” and would “will operate in small teams across the Joint
Force.”

        • Establish technology and innovation training for senior DoD
leaders. This would be a sort of camp where leaders can learn how to
recognize, respect, and nurture entrepreneurial ideas and potential among
subordinates – or at least stop accidentally crushing them. “Successful
innovation practices being implemented within the private sector are not
understood or not viewed as acceptable paths by senior Department leaders.
As a result, the Department is not maintaining its once pronounced
technological advantage over its adversaries,” the report says.

A few folks in the Defense Department have already made some progress on
the last recommendation. Last week, a handful of flag officers from the
Marines, Air Force Special Operations Forces, the Office of Naval Research,
and other military outfits participated in a weeklong class and training
event in entrepreneurship. The class was modeled after the Innovation
Corps, or ICorps, curriculum developed by Silicon Valley luminary Steve
Blank and used by more than 80 universities across the United States plus
the National Science Foundation and the intelligence community. The goal is
to roll ICorps training out to a lot more officers in the years ahead,
while also educating leaders and superiors about how to better nurture good
ideas.

[snip]

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