Is GEOINT Too Exclusive?

Dr. Todd Bacastow, PSU, talked with me about geointelligence in the broader business community. See the full interview below.

Time for a Revolution — or Evolution

In July at GEOINT 2015 I was talking with long-time colleague Dr. Todd Bacastow. Many of you may know him as the retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and Penn State professor heavily involved in the Geospatial Intelligence Certificate program and the lead for the GEOINT Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) series focused on GEOINT. He proposed a topic for my column that struck a nerve with me since I and others had danced around the potentially heretical issue — is it time to open and expand the GEOINT community to a larger audience?

As retired military officers, Todd and I share a common overarching loyalty and desire to do what we can to make life better and more survivable for our colleagues on active duty. GEOINT has certainly helped by providing detailed and timely actionable intelligence for those at the tip of the spear. However, can we do even better? Most assuredly yes!

The most advanced tip of the spear is our Special Operations community. Manycivilians picture Special Operations members as knuckle-dragging Rambos shooting up the countryside, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, they are without doubt the most intelligent, observant and capable people on our DOD team. They’ve learned over decades of experience that they can complete their missions and accomplish far more by winning the hearts and minds of individuals they deal with. Doing that requires hours, days and weeks of due diligence reviewing intelligence and any crumb of information that will make a difference.

Gone are the days of just looking at aerial photography. Now we have countless sources and types of imagery, analytics, tracking, social media, signals and human intelligence. Putting that complex slurry of information together into solid actionable intelligence is everyone’s goal, and the business community is no exception.

Looking around the GEOINT Expo, I saw countless three-letter agency reps, military and homeland security personnel. There were an equal number of defense contractors and related business personnel, but everything was focused on military/security applications. Other than Pitney Bowes showing MapInfo, primarily a business-focused GIS, there were few exhibitors showing technology not aimed at the traditional GEOINT community.

Our military and other first responders have tasks and responsibilities that are serious, complex and becoming more challenging. Limiting the talent pool and body of knowledge to only the narrow GEOINT community is not something we can afford to do. The creative talent found in the broader business community is too valuable to neglect.

Watch the video interview I shot at GEOINT 2015 with Bacastow and Dennis Bellafiore, Ph.D., both of Pennsylvania State University.

My chief concern is bringing the business community in with the understanding that this would be an open and sharing environment. My first real use of GIS after retiring from the Navy in 1993 were some business applications, mostly site studies and trade area analysis. In those early days, GIS grew rapidly within the business community. There were trade shows aimed at business applications of GIS, and even a publication called Business Geographics. Much to my surprise, Business Geographics and associated trade shows died out after only a few years. Some said that everyone learned all there was to learn! I don’t think so. A more likely reason was that the geospatial technology gave businesses a competitive edg.e so there was little incentive to expose trade secrets. Everyone wanted to learn about GIS, but few wanted to open their own kimono.

Would an all-inclusive GEOINT organization run into the same fate? Perhaps if we promote it as “we are all in the same boat” and this is your opportunity to help those at the “tip of the spear.” In this age of cyber warfare and corporate espionage, perhaps we might be able to make this happen by promoting mutual aid and security. I think USGIF and most geospatial industry partners would be interested and very supportive of the idea. But most important, can you imagine the explosion of ideas and the benefits to all geospatial users.

Todd, Dennis and I would really appreciate your opinion. Please leave comments below.