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Social Software and Collaboration
The federal government, more than ever, is embracing the concept of connection—government to constituents, agency to agency, civilian to military, and everything in between. This represents a culture shift that takes time, improved technology, and a willingness on the part of people to lower barriers to change. One of MITRE's crucial roles involves helping our sponsors use the power of improved communication and connection for improved outcomes. Researchers throughout the company are working to develop breakthrough technology, processes, and methods for enhancing connection. Say "Hello" to "Handshake" Today, social networking tools have become a game-changing factor in our ability to connect with others when we're not face-to-face with them. But enabling professional interaction in a way that allows a conversational give-and-take to occur in a trusted environment remains a challenge. In response to this need, MITRE has an innovative social software platform called Handshake. It allows vetted members of an online community to bridge the usual stumbling blocks to inter-organizational communication.
Through the Handshake platform, members discuss concerns, offer comments, and trade ideas. The tool lets them interact with each other and with invited Handshake members from government, industry, and academia. The conversations range across dozens of topics. Some are high-level discussions about technology trends, while some dialogues deal with specific problems that benefit from online brainstorming sessions. Besides enhancing the spread of relevant information among group members and people in your network, this ability to connect in an atmosphere of trust—across organizational firewalls—helps builds crucial relationships among colleagues. This in turn leads to broader collaboration and better solutions. A Broad Program in Social Software Research Handshake is only one of the new ways MITRE employees have developed collaboration systems or enhanced existing methods. This work extends across both our government-funded work and our internally funded research. Through our internal MITRE Innovation Program, we also support numerous research projects that investigate improving social networking across organizations. In many cases we use our own internal corporate network as a test bed for social software tools—examining how they are built, what features are most likely to be adopted, and what design, interface, or functionality elements have the largest impact on user adoption. We also use a commercial social software platform as the engine for the MITRE Innovation Program's "Idea Market." Through the Idea Market, researchers submit proposals designed to meet our government sponsors' future technology needs. Anyone in the company can view the proposals and offer both critiques and enhancements. With immediate feedback and input from colleagues, researchers can strengthen their proposals. And by "building up" proposals through these interactions, our government sponsors benefit from the collective knowledge and experience of MITRE's staff. In a related social-networking research initiative called "Measuring and Guiding Engagement," we also study how people use social software around the world. This research includes analysis of sentiment and attitudes in foreign-language media in response to U.S. strategic communication; opinion detection from micro-blogs such as Twitter; Persian-language blog analysis; and the study of health cognitions for emergency preparedness. Related Information Articles and News
Technical Papers and Presentations
Websites Page last updated: January 27, 2011 | Top of page |
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