GM 591
Final Paper

Communication and Collaboration
In Today’s Air Force:

The 561st Network Operations Squadron

A Case Study

1. Introduction

The 561st Network Operating Squadron, with about 200 personnel divided between military, government civilians, and contract personnel, operates one of the two primary network nodes for the Air Force data network. The dynamic of the organization is defined by the relationship between the military, nominally in charge but highly transient with constant rotations and deployments, and the Operations and Maintenance (O & M) contractors, who have the knowledge base and the continuity but are on edge due to contract issues and tenuous job security. Added to that tumultuous mix is my small contract of twelve people who are implementing a methodology of best practices for managing a complex Information Technology (IT) organization. This methodology, known as IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), provides a framework of processes that give shape and order to an IT operation. These three teams, the military, the O & M contractors, and the ITIL improvement team work together to provide network services for the greater Air Force, striving to maintain network availability while keeping the data secure from intrusion or compromise.

2. Problem Statement

In the last four or five years collaborative computing and social networking have rapidly increased both in the business environment and in people’s personal lives. On the home front, the internet sites Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter have seen phenomenal growth: In 2009 the user growth rate on Facebook was 145% (Corbett, 2010), and other social media sites have shown similar growth rates (Owyang, 2010). In business and of late in the military, collaborative tools that allow users to chat from their desktops, collaborate on documents, and hold video conferences from their desktops have come to the workplace. Before this explosion of collaborative computing and social networking people in the Air Force communicated through email, telephone, and more recently Blackberries. Until only a few months ago, social networking sites such as Facebook were blocked from the Air Force Network. Recognizing the potential value that comes from collaborative computing the Air Force opened up their network to these sites in 2010. In addition the Air Force introduced a collaborative chat tool internal to the Air Force, Microsoft Communicator, as well as a tool for desktop video conferencing with collaborative “white boards.”

Have Air Force members in the 561st NOS taken full advantage of these new collaboration tools and are they communicating more effectively now that the Air Force has opened up the network to social networking web sites? How have these new tools and web sites helped people to do their duties and to improve productivity?

3. Literature Review

Traditionally, people in the Air Force have communicated through the chain of command in a hierarchical manner. Vision and directives come from the top down and airmen salute and carry out the orders.. Indeed, in order to accomplish the work there has to be a lot of cross organizational communication, but the hierarchical structure and rank consciousness of the military has limited its effectiveness. While the advent of collaborative computing and social networking has not changed the hierarchical structure of the Air Force organization they have allowed more horizontal interchange between units. Let’s take a look at the literature on social networking and collaboration in the work place, both in the business world and in the modern Air Force.

Email in the work place has become integral to the way business is conducted both in business and in the Air Force. It is not without its drawbacks though as highlighted in an article from Computer Reseller News “Getting the Message”, the salient points of which are: (1) There is a need to retain emails for compliance and other legal reasons, which demands efficient storage and management systems, (2) Businesses are not storing emails efficiently, often resulting in their failure to retrieve essential messages, (3) Spam, security and compliance issues dominate, and (4) Businesses need email policies so that all users have a standard approach. (Computer Reseller News, 2004) Getting beyond these problems with email there is also the difficulty of getting employees to speak out on email to further collaboration in the work place. If employees do not perceive an environment where it is safe to speak up they will be stifled and will not be inclined to be at their most productive. Leaders need to indicate willingness to act on input from subordinates and show an openness to open dialogue on email. (Detert, J. & Burris, E.)
Another area of collaboration is “presence aware” tools such as chat programs that show a green light next to an employee’s name when they are working on their computer. Some people find that to be an intrusion on their privacy because if they walk away from their computer or read a paper document their computer identifies them as idle. Also, they open themselves up to unwanted intrusions from employees attempting to engage them in chat sessions. Proctor and Gamble Director of Computing Services, Laura Heltsey says they are telling their employees that it’s all right to turn off their available status on their computer. (Network World 24)

Another emerging collaborative technology is the use of wikis in the work place. The online encyclopedia, Wikipedia has shown how collaborating on a document among many users can be an effective means to develop a final product. At Xerox they have chosen to allow researchers in their R&D Group to develop high-level strategy rather than only top executives. (Tapscott, Don & Williams, Anthony)

The Air Force uses the document sharing and collaboration tool, Microsoft SharePoint. SharePoint eases communication by instant messaging, email and document collaboration. With an organizational chart built into the program, people can see the workplace hierarchy at a glance and figure out who to approach for certain concerns. It can also be integrated with Microsoft Project or used stand alone to assign and track taskers and assignments to personnel. (Peterson, James) 4. Causes/Analysis

The Air Force is a conservative organization and this is why they came late to the social media and collaborative revolution that has been sweeping the country in the last three to four years. I still don’t quite understand why they decided to open up the Air Force network to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The ostensible reason given was because this is how young people are staying touch and collaborating and that these web sites can provide space for collaboration in the Air Force. I think the jury is still out on this decision and the vulnerabilities to the network introduced by opening the network to these sites may well outweigh the advantages gained. I think there is more value gained from “closed” collaborative environments that are only available on the Air Force network and that allow collaboration only between Air Force members, civilians, and government contractors. Email, SharePoint, and Microsoft Communicator (an internal chat tool) provide highly effective tools for collaborating across the Air Force network.

As the text Organizational Behavior states, lateral communication in the workplace is important for the promotion of collaborative environments (p. 266). The SharePoint document sharing and collaboration web site gives employees an effective way to share documents But there is resistance to the new tools by old guard employees. For example one senior employee refuses to allow his subordinates to use SharePoint because of alleged “back-up” concerns that are unfounded in reality. His employees are put in an untenable situation where they have to maintain their documents on two sites just to appease him. This same senior manager barely uses email, only looking at emails if they are from a superior, greatly diminishing collaboration amongst his staff. With this senior manager the upward flow of communication from his staff to him must occur only in face-to-face meetings or by telephone, which means that there is substantially less interaction. Often he obtusely complains when he is not informed on subjects that he needs to know about. This is a problem that will diminish as the old guard retires out of the work place, but for the time being in a conservative organization like the Air Force it will be a detractor to productivity.

Meanwhile, younger energetic military and civilian contractors are embracing the new productivity tools and forging a new collaborative environment. SharePoint and chat tools allow people to collaborate across work sites, even allowing a unit of the 561st NOS to move out to Schriever AFB because of space limitations on Peterson AFB. Through email, chat, and SharePoint the distance between sites does not present a distinct disadvantage.

5. Solutions

We have seen here in this short look at the state of networking in the Air Force that they have adapted slowly to the collaborative computing environment, but though late to the table they are coming around. What would happen in the Air Force in 3-5 years if nothing were done differently and no actions were taken to address the problem? The Air Force would continue to do business, but would fall behind the modern world and young people might be reluctant to join up and those that were in the service would be discouraged and would not want to stay in. If the recent gains in collaborative computing are sustained and built upon the Air Force will approach parity with the rest of the business world and enjoy productivity gains and the advantages that come with being closer to the cutting edge in the computing world.

6. Reflection

Though the Air Force is conservative and slow to join the new game in town of collaborative computing, the world moves ineluctably forward and we are dragged slowly in its wake. There are many advantages from the collaborative computing environment, especially through document availability and the ease of collaborating in the production of documents. Something is also lost though with the computing environment and this must be taken into consideration. Email and other forms of computing collaboration are impersonal and mostly one-way communication. They remove non-verbal communications that may add important context to a situation. People are often unable to identify tone from email communications and they often come across as harsh or inflammatory, hindering communication and bringing about misunderstandings. In this light, perhaps the “go-slow” adaptation of collaborative computing by a conservative Air Force is not such a bad approach.

7. References (Appendix)

Computer Reseller News, Getting the Message, October 25, 2004
Corbett, Peter (2010), Facebook Demographics and Statistics Report 2010 – 145% Growth in 1 Year, IStrategy Labs, Retrieved from: http://www.istrategylabs.com/2010/01/facebook-demographics-and-statistics-report-2010-145-growth-in-1-year/

Detert, J. & Burris, E., Leadership Behavior and Employee Voice: Is the Door Really Open?, Academy of Management Journal 50(4), 2007, pp. 869-884.

Network World 24 (1), Four Presence Potholes to Avoid, January 8, 2007, p.28

Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Uhl-Bien, Organizational Behavior, 2010
Owyang, Jeremiah (2010), A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2010, Web Strategy, Retrieved from: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/01/19/a-collection-of-social-network-stats-for-2010/ Peterson, James, Improving Workplace Collaboration on SharePoint 2010 with Social Computing, Ezine Articles, Retrieved from: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=James_M_Peterson
Tapscott, Don & Williams, Anthony, The Wiki Workplace, Business Week Online, Retrieved from: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/mar2007/id20070326_237620.htm