I’ve been thinking a lot about Mike Tanji’s Think Tank 2.0 concept that he has been pitching over at Haft of the Spear. Couple that with the discussion on tools on Mike’s blog, but also on Bob Gourley’s CTO Vision and I was struck with a key realization that while the Think Tank 2.0 concept is sound, what we really need is Think Tanks 2.0 (note the intentional plurality).
Namely, we need to figure out how to get the community of emerging next generation think tanks and colleague bloggers to better collaborate on projects, share information and basically build out a Think Tank Network using the newest tools and technologies available. A good example is the Gray Goose project I just volunteered for. I know two people in the group, yet using the social network of analysts out there, they’ve built a first rate team of participants for a unique research project. Had it not been for this project, I would probably never get the chance to collaborate with members of that team.
We’ve got the basis for this social network already in place with http://network.groupintel.com so we should work to build out the size of the network and then build out communities of interest within the network then use web 2.0 tools to advance research agendas of mutual interest. If everyone on my blogroll joined, and then invited everyone on their blogroll, we’d have 150 top thinkers, analysts, and technologists within the network in a week. The network can serve not only as a place to find colleagues for collaborative research, but can also serve as analytical ground zero in the event of an incident or attack. Given the 30 first responders already on the network, they’d have a great Rolodex to reach back into when the SHTF.
As of right now, there are 44 members of the GroupIntel Network. Can we get to 150 next week? Will you participate and promote it? Join the GroupIntel Network