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A newly established government agency is helping the U.S. Defense Department transform the way it does business. The organization is charged with improving how the military tracks and valuates its many assets and how it purchases equipment. Reporting directly to Congress, the agency is mandated to meet tight deadlines and to maintain maximum transparency in its operations.

This year's Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration was just as much about evaluating the event itself as it was about evaluating technologies. Although the 2006 format mirrored previous years' activities, the lessons learned during the first time the execution phase was hosted outside the United States could help improve the annual undertaking by broadening the focus to boost international interoperability. Event leaders are recommending several changes for future demonstrations, including increasing the number of countries that participant; linking the demonstration to Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics programs; and improving the coordination between the U.S. and NATO's Allied Command Transformation.

Despite years of discussion on the topic, the U.S. Defense Department is keeping its focus on interoperability. However, the department has undergone a shift from efforts directed primarily at developing the technology necessary to make broad intercommunications possible to work that concentrates on establishing the policies and doctrine necessary for communicators to use available resources.

Succeeding in the new strategic environment requires levels of responsiveness and agility never before demanded of our forces. The U.S. Defense Department must transform from its historical emphasis on ships, guns, tanks and planes to a focus on information, knowledge and actionable intelligence.

Six decades ago a band of signalmen and combat photographers returned from the battlefields of World War II to form the Army Signal Association (ASA), adopting a goal to "perpetuate and strengthen the ties that were fashioned in battle" and to "maintain and improve cooperation between the armed forces and industry in the design, production, maintenance, and operation of communications, electronics, and photographic equipment."

The past 10 years have hosted an explosion of technology that has revolutionized productivity, shifted priorities and transformed communications from words to keystrokes. The cultures of play, work and even warfare have been redefined repeatedly-so much so that it is hard to remember a lifestyle before Google, the iPod, razor-thin cell phones, voice recognition and personal digital assistants. Ten years ago, most people still used paper maps to find directions and looked up telephone numbers in thick, cumbersome directories.

In the history of the U.S. Defense Department, no date is perhaps more infamous than that of September 11, 2001. On that day, al-Qaida terrorists slammed a jetliner into the Pentagon-exactly 60 years after the day the Pentagon's construction began.

Try to identify the source of the quotes below and the year in which each statement was made:

During the past two years, SIGNAL Magazine has asked military command and government agency chief information officers (CIOs) to share with its readers their insights on technologies that could have the biggest impact on their organizations in the future. This column has been a forum for them to communicate-in their own words-the paths they need capabilities to travel so they will be better able to achieve their objectives.