Net-Centricity — Utilizing Communities of Interest to Exploit Information Overload

The U.S. Department of Defense is currently architecting enterprise-level services capabilities to facilitate the future Net-Centric information sharing paradigm. But according to Booz Allen Vice President Art Fritzson, the enterprise capabilities under development are not enough to guarantee that this wealth of data will be effectively exploited. He believes that Communities of Interest (COIs) are a vital part of ensuring that the information available can be readily discovered and used by those who need it the most.

Fritzson led a workshop titled "Net-Centricity Survival Guide — Utilizing Communities of Interest to Exploit Information Overload" at the January 26-27, 2005, Network Centric Warfare conference held in Washington, DC.

The Stakeholders

Warfighters, intelligence analysts, program managers, developers, and operators who share common subject matter experiences and interests will comprise the Net-Centric COIs. "If you get people who face the same mission challenges but are not within the same traditional organizational boundaries to start talking, agree on how they use information, what they use it for, and what the language of the community means, you can actually lay the foundation for better information sharing," explains Fritzson.

The Value of COIs

"What we have to do is create an environment that is conducive for people to create communities on their own where they can develop a common vocabulary; create shared data standards, service specifications, and interfaces; promote reuse and commodity buying among members of the community; and build a repository of shared resources," said Booz Allen Vice President Art Fritzson. "COIs are about getting people to realize that if they act together, there's a lot more to be gained than if they acted separately."

Changing the Culture

Fritzson believes that it is easy to get people to leverage existing communities because there is so much value to be gained from them. The biggest challenge lies in getting people to give back to that community. "I tend to reduce Net-Centricity to two questions that are both addressed by community," he said. "'Have you asked your community for help?' and 'Are you helping your community?' If you get positive answers to both those questions, you've got 80-90% of what Net-Centricity promises just through behavioral changes."