Info & Intell Sharing-Challenges-ODNI #3-May 2014

Kshemendra Paul: The… At the top of the leaderboard in terms of challenges is the continued unaligned management practices across our different stakeholders. It is an area where we really need to do better as a government. You know and how we engage with our partners in the private sector, our partners at the state and local level. There are things that we’re doing to improve that, but that is really the you know the heart of the issue is how do we build the organizational structures right in the stove pipe world to effectively collaborate to align stove piped appropriations, to drive toward shared services. The key part of the answer is leadership. I , you know, we were talking earlier about I-Sight and Director Clapper, Principal Deputy Stephanie O’Sullivan, their leadership has been incredible to drive what really is quite an amazing transformation across the intelligence community and so yeah I really salute their leadership and I think it’s an example for us as we look more broadly and work, do the hard work of aligning management practices. JIm Flyzik: I do. Kshemendra Paul: We’re talking about the challenges of culture, organizational culture, JIm Flyzik: Sure. Kshemendra Paul: And that’s perennial challenge and I wanted to offer an observation. Where we’ve had success in our homeland security counterterrorism information sharing activities is really working with our state and local partners and helping them bring their voice to the table, and the, I really want to highlight the fact that that’s actually caused culture change at the federal level. We’ve been able to advance initiatives because we went outside and came back in. Things like the national network of fusion centers, the local control. It’s made a difference and I think that’s a model that will be leverageable as we’re looking forward at cyber security threat risk type information and sharing is at, looking for the change if it’s only on the federal side. JIm Flyzik: Right. Kshemendra Paul: Isn’t really I think the right paradigm. The right paradigm is that broader whole of government approach, whole of society approach. Right and… JIm Flyzik: Yeah, they’re excellent points generally. I know when you’re talking about may be highly classified informational start at the federal level. But when you’re looking about unclassified in information sharing things to do with threats, it’s probably going to start at the local level and come the other direction. I mean, you know, most events start local. So it’s going to be somebody seeing something kind of thing, you know. And so you’re right. I think that bi-directional thing there becomes critical. Kshemendra Paul: It’s a fact that the vast majority of information sharing in the public safety space happens within a local region, including potentially federal partners, but in a local region or between regions. JIm Flyzik: Sure. Kshemendra Paul: It’s the smaller component that’s kind of the vertical information sharing, the feds-state-local or vice versa. Even though that’s happening today, we’re sharing classified information with our state and local partners. There’s information coming the other way. JIm Flyzik: Right. Kshemendra Paul: Very effective operational collaboration, but you know it’s important to you know have that outside the beltway view of this sort of stuff. JIm Flyzik: Absolutely.