How Blogging is Transforming the Defense Department

Lt. Col. Mark Tribus discussed the role blogs are playing in sharing knowledge and in transforming the Armed Forces. CompanyCommander.com is helping the Army become a more flexible institution that can share information easily, in and out of the field and across borders, without the bureaucracy slowing it down. Perhaps most remarkable of all, the blog was conceived and developed in an institution that is famously rigid, hierarchical, and not open to sharing information.

Company Commander.com is the most dynamic blog the Army is using today, according to Tribus:
- CompanyCommander.com is an ongoing electronic discussion forum in which company commanders share information, enhance the way they learn, transmit experiences, identify the learning curve. It is an Integrated Learning Model.
- The site enhances the speed at which knowledge is transmitted. Commanders now have a medium for disseminating knowledge without having to go through a 12-month chain of command process.
- The forum is self-policing. If someone posts unsound advice or inaccurate information, other people correct it.

CompanyCommander.com has taken off in a new security and institutional environment:

- During the Cold War, a rigid military structure worked well. Institutional procedures and expertise was the best way to combat an organized, outsized enemy.
- In the post 9/11 world, this model will no longer work. The Army faces threats from across the globe, threats which are very unstable and dynamic. For example, what worked in Kosovo may not work in Afghanistan.
- Today we need a flexible army that can disseminate knowledge quickly and learn quickly. Expertise resides in the field, not in the institution. Informal “expert leaders” can and should be the formal “institutional leaders.”

CompanyCommander.com has developed a number of other functionalities, and offerings include:
- A virtual library for commanders.
- Live video steaming with experts (for example, General Barry McCaffrey).
- Recommended reading list. For example, field officers in Afghanistan tell troops in training what to read about the Taliban; and troops in training can then interact with and seek expertise from officers in Afghanistan over the site.
- Quick production of informal “training guides” that are based on individual stories/experiences.
- Lessons Learned are more readily disseminated through the site.

An audience member asked how an officer in the Marines might access this data on CompanyCommander.com, which is restricted to Army personnel? Tribus argued that this is a key issue that the Department of Defense must address in its effort to promote knowledge sharing and make US forces more effective. This problem of information sharing drives to the heart of the transformation that must take place in the Armed Forces, and which is just beginning to take place at the DoD.