Wednesday 22 August 2007

The USA is launching A-Space, a social networking site for spies, in December. This follows the CIA using Facebook as a recruitment tool earlier this year.

I am sure a number of eyebrows will be raised - one in the case of Roger Moore's James Bond. Where will all this lead? Virtual secret agents in Second Life? The "War On Terror" being executed in World of Warcraft? Or maybe mission (if you choose to accept it) instructions on self-delete iPod downloads?

I am equally sure this will trigger commentary about government organisations jumping on bandwagons. Investing in items of young people's fashion rather than in tried and tested resources that will get the job done. But it is this awkward thing of getting the job done that deciphers any mystery about why the US Director of National Intelligence has contemplated taking this step into social networking. The nature of the "War On Terror" means that conventional, tried and tested, tools have already proven themselves to be leaden footed in connecting the relevant pieces of information to, for instance, identify the relevance of people training to fly aircraft without concentrating on the taking off or landing bits.

So in your business, in your career, are the conventional, tried and tested, tools still sufficient? I suspect not and if my suspicion is correct and you are not naturally drawn to the likes of Myspace, Facebook, and Bebo, then I strongly suggest you push yourself to them. Not to establish a double identity or to spy on those people you know or used to know but to learn and to earn your equivalent of double-O rating.



Sean would, of course, no longer wear a hat!