Straining the info flow…

Posted on 1 October 2009 by SJPONeill

Here’s a tool that might be worth a look, a widget called Gist which sounds like it be one way to start getting on top of all those contacts on all those different networks…I only read the promo stuff on the link and a couple of comments on LinkedIn and obviously I won’t be able to download the beta til I get home: not only do I not have a laptop here but the wireless coverage is dodgy as to say the least though rumour has it that the McDs by the main gate has free wifi…

CLAW continues to go well and I must say what a top job our hosts have done setting it all up from a standing start (all the other nations have reps like me who have already participated in at least two of the three previous CLAWs) in such a top location (less the dodgy wifi coverage which is not really their fault)…our part of the report is well progressed so once I do some tuning to my section tomorrow morning, I will hopefully be able to slip in some time with the camera in the technology museum here…

Another social tonight but less formal than Monday – we’re all off to experience a genuine English pub and a meal as part of the broader ABCA experience…

I will have to do some organising in my room tonight as I have misplaced the paper I acquired the other day which was scathing about the Soviet approach to COIN and which, from my initial scan, I thought totally missed the point re the endurance characteristic of successful COIN…

Checking in….

Posted on 29 September 2009 by SJPONeill

…only a few minutes before icebreaker drinks and dinner so only a quick update on life at CLAW 09.

This morning was a series of admin and intro briefs followed by a couple of very good briefs by the guys who conducted some of the operational lessons collection efforts this year and then a fascinating insight into lessons that the UK is identifying from its time in Iraq, Op TELIC. A ton of great material for some more Thursday-Friday War papers on homecoming…This afternoon saw the first cut of OIL sorting and analysis which turned out to be quite painless so I think that the CLAW processes are slowly osmosing out into the wider community – definitely our hosts have done a top job of setting it all up and have fallen on their feet on Day 1…

They have a assembled a great and very diverse group here for this CLAW and it’s very exciting to see ASIC representatives for the first time – here to observe CLAW processes as part of an air drive into the lessons world as well. It’s also been great to catch up with the old CLAW hands from Oz, Canada and the US and t0 hear of developments and intentions for next year’s International Lessons Learned Conference.

We all had a bit of a session in the mess last night (yep, much as I swore not to this time – well, not every night anyway!!) which was quite quiet but entertaining and certainly sleep was no problem (nor rising this morning!) when we finished up around half 11.

Tomorrow, the real work starts…

London calling….

Posted on 26 September 2009 by SJPONeill

…obviously made it safely to the other side of the world with a painless passage through London Heathrow at 0555 this morning…first thing I need to do is address my my bad from last night and post the link to Josh’s Interbella brief from the other night….and here be the original Interbella paper published in Colloquium in June…[note: in its infinite wisdom, the US Army has taken down the excellent website that was the COIN Center and its journal Colloquium – a great body of work lost…]

Have already developed a healthy dislike for UK roundabouts but other than that have settled into new digs for the next 10 days or so – is quite nice but not a stellar room; the mess is good and the bar looks promising. I expect things will start to warm up once the other contingents arrive tomorrow and Sunday – will be good to catch up with oppos from Aussie and Canada again.

What am I doing here again? It’s this thing called the CLAW which stands for Coalition Lessons Analysis Workshop. What does a CLAW do? Over the next week, reps from the ABCA network review and analyse interoperability-related observations, issues and lessons (aka OIL – yes, it’s all about OIL!) from the last twelve months to identify trends, themes and insights for further work…It’s a pretty good process and has been running since 2005 – it is still the only robust and consistent lessons analysis process which I think really works in evolving OIL into actions required…

Plan A to actually do some real Top Two Inches work in my spare time here is looking pretty good and even having coffee after lunch found a couple of good cues in a couple of magazines for The Thursday-Friday War – they reinforce the idea that success is about being in for the long haul and also of the dangers of allowing old wounds to fester.

In the UK papers today, there is a new spin on the UK MP Troughgate scandal as it has now been linked to the UK Government’s unwillingness to invest in decent kit for its soldiers in Afghanistan – even more embarrassing when it comes out that soldiers have been moonlighting as security guards in the very office responsible for censoring the files on MPs’ accounts and it was apparently their comments over smoko that led to the original leak. This topic takes up the first five pages in one of today’s papers and is in stark contrast to the big front page write up in the DomPost last week or the week before on all the new personal soldier equipment our Government has just invested in…

Churning the grey matter…

Posted on 22 September 2009 by SJPONeill

…it’s been a good day today in every way: forecast rain never turned up, packing has been painless i.e. haven’t had to ransack the house for anything, and have been coming to grips with stringing words together into coherent chains and I re-establish contact with the world post my silent time…as always there was some stimulating new content on both The Strategist and the COIN Center blog…and I have been able to start catching up on all the ‘gunna’ things that I let slip over the last fortnight…

I’m not taking a laptop with me because it is just something else to lug around but I am very keen on using any down time over the next couple of weeks to scope out some papers for fleshing and completion on RTNZ – often it is quite stimulating to rely on the good old long hand drafting techniques to get the creative juices flowing and get ideas down in a logical manner – the whole backspace/delete edit thing sometimes makes me (I’m sure it’s only me) a lazy thinker so this is a chance to get back on track…

Feral is going to get a thumping soon – after being evicted from the bedroom last night after deciding to play mad cat on 1-30, he ferreted a golf ball off the top of the pool table where it had been hidden from the twins (who can’t or won’t tell the difference from a golf ball and the foam ball in their indoor golf set for tinies) and bounced it up and down the wooden floor for 20 minutes…I’d come stomping down the stairs, he’d hide under the couch, I’d put the ball away, he’d find it again – or something similarly hard and not bouncy and away we’d go again – the temptation to let the big dogs in was mega…

Still no Feral for two weeks + I get to miss out of reruns of BSG Series 2 and 3 while Carmie works out where she got up to…

On the road no late than 0530 tomorrow – the journey begins…