LandWarNet 2010, Part I

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Each year, the Army's chief information officer, known as the CIO/G-6 because he is also a member of the Army staff, partners with the Armed Forces Communications-Electronics Association (AFCEA) to stage a forum concerning LandWarNet, the Army's portion of the military's global information grid.  It is a premier forum of its kind, bringing together key government and industry leaders---and interested parties, like me (I am in industry, but I'm not a leader, at least not according to the leaders)---to openly communicate the latest in commercial best business practices and government implementations of commercial solutions for it communications and information networking requirements.

This year's conference will be in Tampa, Florida.  Its theme will be:  LandWarNet: Providing Global Cyber Dominance to Joint/Combined Commanders.


The US Army Signal Center sends me to the LandWarNet conference (and other like forums) to gather intelligence.  Actually, since they have programmed dollars into my company's contract for travel, they send me---and another writer or two---to gather information relevant to the development of emerging Signal Regiment conceptual and doctrinal publications and to keep the Signal Center abreast of the latest government and industry news and activities regarding military communications and networks.  Members of the Signal Regiment make up a very large part of the audience that attends these conferences every year.

The conference always features high-ranking military officers on its speaking roster.  Since 2008, I've been privileged to hear the likes of George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff; Pete Chiarelli, the Vice Chief of Staff, Casey's deputy; James Mattis, Commanding General, US Joint Forces Command; Carter Ham, Commanding General US Army Europe; Kevin Chilton, Commanding General, US Strategic Command;

This year's lineup of speakers includes Keith Alexander, the very first Commanding General of the brand new US Cyberspace Command; General Chiarelli again; Martin Dempsey, Commanding General, US Training and Doctrine Command; and Mr. Louis V. Gerstner, former CEO of IBM Corporation.  Lieutenant General Jeff Sorenson, Army CIO/G-6, will also speak and act as master of ceremonies, as he has for each of the past three LandWarNet events.

I am intrigued by the invitation to Mr. Gerstner to speak at this year's conference. Gerstner is credited with saving IBM from going out of business in the early 1990s. In his memoir, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? he describes his arrival, in April 1993, when an active plan was in place to disaggregate the company. The prevailing wisdom held that IBM's core mainframe business was headed for obsolescence. The company's own management was then in the process of allowing its various divisions to rebrand and manage themselves—the so-called "Baby Blues."  But Gerstner reversed this plan.  He refocused IBM's core business, information technology, and embraced the Internet-as-a-business phenomenon.  His decision to keep the company together was the defining decision of the year and the IBM turnaround is counted as one of the most remarkable in business history.

I find this interesting because, in April, I was sent to cover the AFCEA Tactical C4 Conference in Atlanta (actually, East Point) Georgia, home of the US Army Forces Command.  At that conference, the FORSCOM commander (now retired), Charles Campbell invoked a contemporary of Lou Gerstner, Andy Grove of Intel Corporation.  One of the many things Mr. Grove is notable for is his articulation of something, in the life of organizations, called strategic inflection points.  A strategic inflection point, according to Grove, occurs when a change (comes along that) is so powerful that it fundamentally alters the way business is done.  It is a point in the life of an organization from which it will either recognize the challenge, adapt to it, and go on to a condition of increased relevance--higher productivity, for example, increased market share, and industry dominance.  Or, it will enter a period of decline and increased irrelevance, going in just the opposite direction. The general gave three examples, Wang Computers, Motorola, and Eastman Kodak, each of which failed to adapt to a strategic inflection point, and each of which dwindled in industry relevance.

The reasons behind these companies' failures were many, but chief among them were these---

• They left their basic assumptions unquestioned and failed to develop correct ones.
• Their core beliefs went unchallenged and viewed the future through yesterday's eyes.
• They demonstrated inflexible behaviors and undervalued emerging, alternative technologies.

Bear in mind that both General Campbell's audience, in April of this year in Atlanta, and Mr. Gerstner's audience in August in Tampa, are similar in that they each contain a larger contingent of US Army Signal Corps members, past and present.  A significant difference is that Gerstner's audience will be larger.  About five times larger.  And there is much angst of late among the Signal community.  The Department of Defense has activated a new sub-unified command, USCYBERCOM.  The Army will establish, by October of this year, its Service component command to USCYBERCOM.  The Army's new command will be known as US Army Forces Cyber Command (ARFORCYBER).  It will be comprised of existing elements from both the Signal and Intelligence branches.  It may redefine long established roles and responsibilities within the Signal Regiment.  Coupled with the standing up of ARFORCYBER, the Army is revising its capstone doctrine, FM 3-0.  Already, in drafts that have been circulated for comments from the field, significant changes to Signal's core competencies have been made.  A council of colonels has met to haggle over who really does--or will do--what.  And a general officer review board will convene in July to settle remaining issues and make decisions that could affect the Signal Corps ... to its core.

The Signal Corps has reached a strategic inflection point.  The drama, over the coming months, will be to see which way the Regiment will go.  I don't know if anyone was in Wang's face, or Motorola's, or Eastman Kodak's, challenging them to reassess their basic assumptions about the way they did business, about the inflexibility rampant in their cultures, about adapting to the future and embracing new technologies, new ways of thinking.  But the Signal Corps sure hears a lot of concerned voices preaching these things.  Will we take the right fork in the road?