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An experiment designed to promote information sharing among U.S. military, government and state organizations has demonstrated that the technical challenges to connecting different groups are easily overcome. The event’s organizers found that the real difficulty lies in changing institutional cultures and attitudes about security and data transfers.

A collaborative planning and information-sharing capability is making a key U.S. military strategic command and control system more flexible and responsive to rapidly changing operations. This family of applications allows planners to create mission templates that draw on real-time data such as intelligence, weather and unit status. This information can be shared with other personnel for input and comments before being presented to commanders for approval.

While the dust has been kicking up around U.S. Defense Department social networking policies, the Defense Information Systems Agency has been actively pursuing one option that could address many challenges commercial sites pose. Hundreds of military and government personnel have been test-driving DEFStar, a commercially developed colleague network that resembles Facebook. From this pilot program, the agency hopes to find the middle ground between classified-only collaboration and the Wild West environment of the World Wide Web.

The latest combatant command to join the ranks in the U.S. Defense Department has set out on a different mission than its well-established brethren. From its very conception, the U.S. Africa Command has been designed to help the nations in its area of responsibility to help themselves. Since its inception two years later, it has been fulfilling that vision with assistance from other U.S. government agencies in an area that comprises 53 countries that include more than 800 ethnic groups who speak more than 1,000 languages. In essence, it is not a typical combatant command.

African nations are overcoming the tyranny of distance posed by their massive continent through an exercise designed to increase command, control, communications and computer capacity. Representatives from more than two dozen African countries met in Gabon at the end of last September through the beginning of October to test technology compatibility. The event helps build relationships and enhance interoperability during disaster relief and peacekeeping missions. The most recent effort built off past exercises and included a variety of first-time occurrences. It also identified new areas of need such as the addition of an information assurance technical working group.

The U.S. Army has ushered in an era of unprecedented information sharing with the introduction and spread of its Warfighters’ Forums. The online collaboration tools enhance communication between operating and generating forces while simultaneously building upon the way young soldiers interact. All three Army commands—Army Forces Command, Army Training and Doctrine Command and Army Materiel Command—are involved with the forums, which provide a proactive means to enhance dialogue.

The total population on the Internet is 1.6 billion. The majority of users engage in social computing, where numerous online services offer opportunities for sharing information. There are currently 156 social computing sites, but that number is growing to meet increasingly diverse interests. Sites with more than 15 million registered users include Digg, FriendFinder, Facebook, Flixster, Flickr, Friendster, Habbo, LinkedIn, MyLife, MySpace, Orkut, Plaxo, Twitter, YouTube, UStream and Wiki. These services had a total membership of 1.4 billion as of last fall.

As we kick off the new year, it is appropriate to give you an update on AFCEA—what have we accomplished over the past year and where we are headed in 2010.

It's almost time for students to head back to school. Don't contribute to the insignificance of human learning by failing to understand Shakespeare. Use the free Shakespeare app for access to the literary genius' complete works. The application features the full text of all 40 plays as well as the Bard's six poems and 154 sonnets.

Harris Corporation has received a $228 million contract order from the U.S.