Enterprise 2.0 at CIA – and what’s sabotage got to do with it.

One of the most inspiring cases at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston this week was by CIA, Sean Dennehy and Don Burke. They introduced Intellipedia to the CIA and did some great work. The greates stories was this: 

Question: Does your organization have these characteristics?

1. Insist on doing everything through “channels”. Never permit shortcuts that would expedite decisions.

2. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.”

3. Haggle over precise wordings of communications.

4. Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments.

5. Question whether a decision lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

Well, these instructions are real, coming from the “Simple Sabotage Manual” by the CIA, 1944. (obsolete by now, see section 11 :-).

David Weinberger, whom we are delighted to have as a guest Sunday/monday postet also a blog post about this: here

PS: Don statet in his speech, that we have to be aware that “collaborator” in his world still means something else as in the  e.20 world :-)

PPS: They did a great job introducing this tool (intellipedia) into the agency. Cool guys. Think of Scully and Molder…