Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Cruising for Pirates

With so many East Africa Piracy attacks and with recent near miss attempts on Cruise Ships, I have to wonder why anyone would knowingly take a Cruise through those waters.   Could you really relax?

This is a map of where NOT to vacation cruise.    Or maybe…

I came across some Maps earlier regarding Somali Piracy.   They open in Google Earth or Google Maps.   This link contains the map links along with some additional summary info on historical attacks.

In addition, UNOSAT has some maps and historical attacks as well. (like the one above) Link here.

Danger Room has written on two related items that got me thinking.

1. Cruise Ships=Pirate Bait article here.

2. Blackwater Hits the High Seas article here.

So here’s an idea.   What if instead of escorting Cruise Ships off  Somalia,  Blackwater turns their battleship into a Cruise ship for pirate hunting?   Instead of skeet shooting off the deck of the cruise ship, you would be called up to man the .50 caliber when pirates begin to swarm?   Adventure Cruises by Blackwater.

Do you think it would sell out?

Beware of your Privacy in the Cloud

As cloud computing becomes more pervasive,  I wonder what the privacy aspects are long-term.    Personally, I like the ease of use and free aspect of Google services.  But have you noticed that if you are reading a gmail message you’ll see targeted ads displayed that contain key words from your email?    I’m not sure how deep the packet inspection goes in order to read your messages.  At the very least Google is reading your titles and headers.  There is nothing to stop them from reading the entire contents of all your messages.   Of course machines are reading the contents but they are saving this info forever.

Writing for O’Reilly Radar, Nat Torkington summed up his presentation on Cloud Privacy in this slide show found here.

He notes the important difference between Constitutional and Statutory law as they relate to Cloud Computing.    Essentially, Statutory law protects you less than Constitutional does, and the Cloud is under statutory rules.

State Dept plans to use Business Intelligence to measure “country sentiment”

Many businesses have been using customer sentiment analysis to gauge customer opinions for years.   I noted in my post “Technology Gap Lessons” that it’s time for the US to begin working with new media to fight terrorism at its core ideologies.

State Dept is now working on measuring anti-Americanism opinions through Business Intelligence methods.   Time will tell if it’s effective, but you don’t get improvements on anything unless you measure them.  Good move.

Read the full article here.

The Shrinking Competitive Advantage

Your competitive advantage may be shrinking.    What can you do about it?

Additional information has been trickling in following the Islamic Terrorist attacks in Mumbai.   Reports say:

1. that the attacks were very sophisticated
2. the terrorists may have used Google Earth to plan routes and targets
3. they may have used Blackberry’s
4. they used GPS
5. they could have possibly monitored Twitter  (yes, that’s being reported)
6. they used AK-47’s and grenades
7. they came via the water on a fast boat
8. they were highly trained to hold off so many police for days
9. there were 10, and maybe 15 of them

Peter Buxbaum, writing for ISN Security Watch, writes about Normalizing Unconventional Warfare–making Special Operations the Norm.    The only problem with this viewpoint is that we end up training people and groups who may one day use the training against us.  Like Al Qaeda.  Blowback.  There is no easy answer to this dilemma.   The reality is secrets and methods are hard to keep these days with so much information available to everyone.  Because of this, the competitive advantages of weapons, communication gear, and transportation will continue to shrink.   What’s true in warfare may also be true in your business, and maybe for you personally.  Is your competitive advantage shrinking?  If so, what can you do about it?

Navy SEAL Commander William McRaven, in his book “Spec Ops”, reminds us that there are three basic keys to success of an operation.

1. Plans need to be simple

2. Preparation and Practice need to drilled over the over again

3. Execution of the plan takes courage, speed, and purpose

The most important one in this context is preparation and practice.   This is the hardest and longest road to success.  Whatever you are preparing for, if you practice enough, again and again, you will hold a competitive advantage when it comes time to execute.  Yes, even if your opponent uses Twitter.

Sorry that this isn’t a sexy simple answer you wanted to hear.  But maybe it’s time to get to work training harder. I know I need to be reminded of the basics every so often.