WHAT’S CANADA BUYING? Social networks, intelligence and COIN research

Here’s the government-ese version via MERX :

“TITLE : STUDY OF SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS, INTELLIGENCE PREPARATION OF THE BATTLEFIELD/INTELLIGENCE PREPARATION OF THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT AND COUNTER INSURGENCY

The objectives of the work are:

The identification of intelligence analysis requirements to use Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques and methods in a counter-insurgency (COIN) context.

The production of a Reasoning Requirements (RR) Inventory for Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield/Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (IPB/IPOE).

The production of a State-of-the-Art (SOTA) study of:

• SNA technology and tools
• Visualization technology and tools to support SNA
• Visualization technology and tools to support IPB/IPOE
• The production/gathering of relevant scenario and datasets relevant to automated reasoning in IPB/IPOE ….”

Here’s the plain language version:

H0w can we improve social network analysis (maybe automating some of the analysis) to better prepare to work or fight in a counterinsurgency environment?

A bit more detail in the Statement of Work from the bid documents here (PDF).

Deadline for bids to do the work:  5 Nov 10, 1400 EDT

My favourite verb from the bid documents:  “sensemaking” (what analysts appear to do re:  environments)