Knowledge Advantage
KDE Topic AreaPosts
International Cyber Capacity Building
Principal Cybersecurity Engineer Cynthia A. Wright discusses how MITRE has supported numerous developing countries through international cyber capacity building.
My Path as a Techie to Learning About Equity
Electrical Engineer, Jonathan Rotner, discusses the stories that stayed with him from his research for a website and paper called “AI Fails and How We Can Learn from Them”. He recalls a couple of stories where his first reaction was the AI fails were engineering problems that could be analyzed and fixed, when they were issues of Equity.
Will Quantum Computers Revolutionize My Daily Life? Not in the Ways You Might Think
Quantum technologies frequently appear in popular science articles and can also be a popular speculative conversation topic among interested professionals. This is for good reason: Quantum technologies have the potential to be game changing in many ways, but that fact can be misleading as to how soon, and how direct, those impacts will be to our everyday lives. As a trusted advisor to many government sponsors, MITRE explains these technologies and aims to temper expectations when necessary.
Theodore Wilson: Thinking Like a Turtle
Theodore “Turtle” Wilson has made a name for himself inspiring change. MITRE has never been short on good ideas, but getting others to embrace those ideas is always a challenge. That’s when you need to call in someone who can empathize with the folks you want to help, while seeing the big picture—someone like Turtle.
Taking a Look at Risk
Delve into the history and meaning of risk, and you may be surprised to find that the word risk has an uncertain etymology. Depending on the domain, definitions of risk may be based on probability, danger, uncertainty, or chance.
Applying Design Thinking to Boost Federal Agency Problem Solving
Our world and workplace are increasingly being aided by artificial intelligence, from personal assistants like Alexa to robots working on assembly lines. But, in most cases, people’s needs must remain front and center if…
Acquisition in the Digital Age (AiDA™): A Game Changer in Federal Acquisition
Federal acquisition is easy and straightforward, said no one ever. Rules, regulations, policies, procedures, definitions, requirements, contracts, forms—constantly updated …
Evolving the Electronic Flight Bag
An electronic flight bag (EFB) may typically be used to replace pilots’ paper charts, but with some new developments, it could start to be more of a cognitive assistant. MITRE researchers….
Knowledge Visualization Part 4: Tips and Tools
Knowledge Visualization Part 4: Tips & Tools…
Knowledge Visualization Part 3: How We See and Why It Matters
You’ve likely seen the video with gorilla—the one in which you actually missed the gorilla the first time you watched it? Selective attention is real—hence laws against texting while driving. All of us who aim to share knowledge thoughtfully (outside of cars and monkey suits) learn to develop…
Hand Models
How much fun are you going to have with Howard Gershen’s second post on counting and reasoning? Innumerable amounts. Don’t expect any new rules of thumb, but he does offer some insights where it really counts.—Editor
Designing a Bridge Between Theory and Practice
One practice that Natalie Angier, James Gleick, Jeanne Liedtka, Steven Pinker, and Deborah Tannen have in common…
Knowledge Visualization Part 2: Awakening Your Sleeping Artist
Stanford researcher Carol Dweck has explored the concepts of fixed and growth mindsets at length. Someone operating with…
Down for the Count
When I read Howard Gershen’s riff on counting with his fingers, what came to mind instantly was theory of mind in the way that I heard Alan Alda explain it at George Washington University as a guest speaker for the Smithsonian. We know that words and pictures work...
Many Heads Are Always Better Than One
Time, attention, and craft are among the most beautiful, lasting experiences one professional can share with another. The author, a student investigator at MITRE, reflects …
MITRE Product Libraries Help Staff Capture, Search for, and Manage Products for Sponsors
If staff do fabulous work, but no one can ever reference it again—well, that’s not a good outcome. MITRE always tries to bring our whole company to bear, and our products, when staff know where to find them, bear fruit over and over. MITRE Product Libraries make...
Knowledge Visualization Part I: Recognizing the Value of Empathic Delivery
Herbert Simon wrote that “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information...
From Telewho to Teleyou: Engaging as a Teleworker at MITRE
Brett Profitt’s observation that “MITRE sets teleworkers up for success, but teleworkers must endeavor to be successful” resonated. No matter how many business process tools an organization makes available, staff have to use them to good end. And he does, mentioning...
For scientists and researchers: Rich resources at the ready
MITRE’s knowledge-sharing culture incorporates many kinds of resources, from human, to traditional paper, to digital. For researchers like Melissa Dolph, the wealth of resources enables her to perform on behalf of customers and to network, both of which enrich her...
Recent MITRE publication, Sociocultural Behavior Sensemaking: State of the Art in Understanding the Operational Environment, Demonstrates Value of Collaborative Knowledge Management Practices
Dr. David Foster, a social behavioral scientist at MITRE, faced a challenge when he signed up to field edit Sociocultural Behavior Sensemaking: State of the Art in Understanding the Operational Environment. An anthology of the ideas of 40 people across government,...
Big Data in Knowledge Management
I believe that knowledge management as a discipline developed because technology enabled the deluge of data we began experiencing about 20 years ago. The ways that we used to organize and share our information were no longer adequate to the task and we needed something new. I’ve spent the last five or six years focusing on data, more specifically on helping organizations treat their data as a strategic asset that requires the same stewardship afforded any other valuable resource within the organization.
Communicating the Value of IT Rollouts
Each of our IT service managers is responsible for operating their service, measuring its impact, managing its cost, and evolving the service over time. How the service evolves, or its “roadmap”, is based on changing user requirements, product evolution, technology changes, cost pressures, and industry trends. The service manager must stay informed and continuously question their assumptions as they develop their roadmaps. But almost as important as the ability to develop their roadmap is the need to communicate their roadmap.
The InfoServices Evolution
MITRE’s InfoCenter does not have books, we have 3D printers. Puzzled? I will tell you our story.
Enterprise Social, Five Years in
In 2009, “social” was still a buzzword, Facebook was years away from an IPO, and Instagram has not been invented. Yet a groundswell was beginning – people used to the ease of sharing in their online social networks came to their offices, only to find that exchanging information was difficult at best. Communications flowed from the top of the organizational hierarchy down, flooding the already overflowing email inboxes – while cross-organizational collaboration was severely impeded.