Looking back, were there existing programs that the Intel folks were using that could’ve been helpful that you weren’t aware of at the time? Something akin to a CRM? Perhaps those were too bulky to be useful in your austere environment anyway?
Connecting the past to the present, are there programs for guys on the edge of connectivity that provide this service and doesn’t require so much entrepreneurial spirit?!
This was years ago, and most of the systems we used are retired now. We used ASOMS and HOT-R. They weren't bad per se, but they were heavily focused on a narrow range of intel, and they were also very clunky and slow. My NCOs that had to use them would often be the only ones still up at night in the JOC as I sat down to write my SITREP.
I didn't even know about CRM until this decade, but it would have been a very helpful tool. As for bulky, this is a common problem that needs to be solved for all military forces: sometimes we can connect to the cloud, sometimes we can't. Our systems need to a\be designed with this condition in mind.
A friend sat down with some Palantir folks a few years back and explained, while their software was helpful, we needed a way for it to work when weren't online. The sales rep asked, 'Why would you disconnect from the internet?'
Obviously, it'd work at a diminished capacity, but if it doesn't cache anything, it's no help. Google Earth has a decent autocache, so when we first got to an area the people pulling guard would 'lawn mow' the map, moving it screen by screen till it cached the imagery. OneNote also has a good way of working online/offline, which I'll talk more about in 2.07.
Looking back, were there existing programs that the Intel folks were using that could’ve been helpful that you weren’t aware of at the time? Something akin to a CRM? Perhaps those were too bulky to be useful in your austere environment anyway?
Connecting the past to the present, are there programs for guys on the edge of connectivity that provide this service and doesn’t require so much entrepreneurial spirit?!
This was years ago, and most of the systems we used are retired now. We used ASOMS and HOT-R. They weren't bad per se, but they were heavily focused on a narrow range of intel, and they were also very clunky and slow. My NCOs that had to use them would often be the only ones still up at night in the JOC as I sat down to write my SITREP.
I didn't even know about CRM until this decade, but it would have been a very helpful tool. As for bulky, this is a common problem that needs to be solved for all military forces: sometimes we can connect to the cloud, sometimes we can't. Our systems need to a\be designed with this condition in mind.
A friend sat down with some Palantir folks a few years back and explained, while their software was helpful, we needed a way for it to work when weren't online. The sales rep asked, 'Why would you disconnect from the internet?'
Obviously, it'd work at a diminished capacity, but if it doesn't cache anything, it's no help. Google Earth has a decent autocache, so when we first got to an area the people pulling guard would 'lawn mow' the map, moving it screen by screen till it cached the imagery. OneNote also has a good way of working online/offline, which I'll talk more about in 2.07.