Never Forget – Never Quit – Semper Fidelis

Interesting presentation and ideas by Chris Fuller about the changing nature of Al Qaeda (AQ) in this Ted Talk titled “How Does The War On Terror End?”.  He talks about the different phases of AQ, the characteristics of what he refers to as AQ 3.0 and how the existing conditions in Northern Africa are facilitating that change.  He introduces an idea that climate change, which has modified the landscape in Northern Africa, has caused many to migrate further south, creating tension between Muslims and Christians in countries that have corrupt governments and an abundance of weapons – the ideal recruiting ground for radicalization and extremism.

To an extent, his view is not one that I had considered before, so I cant say if I agree with him or not, but it certainly raises questions about some higher-order conditions that are leading to the recruitment of AQ’s next generation.  Definitely some food for though on a Friday.

Is the distinction between a terrorist act and an active shooter scenario an irrelevant distinction?  I asked this question to a group of graduate students at John Jay College last week during a presentation that I was giving about violence prevention in the public sector.  All but one student raised their hands to say that the Boston bombers were terrorists, while none raised their hands indicating that they thought they were active shooters. One student raised his hand saying that it didn’t matter.  My guess is that many people would respond in a similar fashion. Would your answer be different though if the Boston bombers chose to use a different weapon in their attack instead of using IEDs?

Personally, I’m with Continue reading »

As members of the military, law enforcement officers and security providers decide to leave their industry, there are always going to be questions about how their experience relates to success in the business world.  This translation of experiences isn’t always clear to a human resources manager who is comparing your resume to that of someone with years of business specific skills.  Because leaving a career in the military or law enforcement for the private sector isn’t like going from a sales job in one company to a similar position in another, the job search can appear to be riskier than it really is.

A few weeks ago I was reading an article written by Reid Hoffman, one of the founders of LinkedIn, about assessing risk when it comes it comes to your career. Continue reading »

Last December, I wrote a series of posts that discussed the Green-on-Blue threat that our servicemen and women face while overseas. I wrote those posts after losing a friend in an insider attack and wanted to provide methods to identify the Afghans seeking to attack their American partners. Those articles quickly became our most read series.

After deciding to consolidate the articles into a single e-book, we took the time to not only do some much needed editing, but also to expand upon on the topics and provide additional examples of how these concepts can be used to reduce the risk posed by insider attacks.  The goal of this to book is to prevent violence from occurring through early recognition.

I once heard former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine General Peter Pace say that if you don’t like your environment, you can either change it or learn to operate better within it.  The Green-on-Blue threat that our nation’s military faces requires that we do a little of both.  While we can’t completely eliminate the threat our military faces when they are outside the wire, learning to work within the constraints inherent when collaborating across cultures can help us reduce the threats inside the wire.  This e-book is designed to tell you how you can set the conditions needed to reduce the risk of these attacks and the observations you can make to take charge of your own safety.

These concepts are not limited solely to military life overseas either. Our nation’s law enforcement officers, corporate security directors, and those responsible for protecting our neighborhoods, schools, office buildings, and malls can apply the concepts and principles discussed in this book to improve the quality of safety they provide. Understanding what type of behavior causes people to stand out from the crowd, how to observe and communicate those cues, understanding what might cause a person to respond that way and techniques to bring that behavior to the forefront are applicable across the security industry.

To download a copy of the “Threats Inside The Wire – Preventing Green On Blue Attacks” e-book, visit the CP Journal Library

One of the challenges that vets face as they transition from active duty back to the civilian world is overcoming the perception that they don’t have experience that their civilian counterparts have.  One way to overcome that is to earn the certifications required for certain positions.

Syracuse University has a great veterans support program and has teamed up with JPMorgan Chase to offer vets certifications in IT, project management, and operations.  The certification classes are free to vets, all offered online, and can help you overcome the challenges of getting your foot in the door.

Their next session starts in July and they are currently accepting applications.

Update:

Since this was a post from April 2013, I don’t know if SU still runs this specific program, but they are still doing a lot of incredible work for vets and you can find their homepage here: http://vets.syr.edu/

A couple of weeks ago I listened to a presentation given by a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security about terrorism and domestic threats.  Because the presenter had a long career in the military and federal law enforcement, many of the questions after the presentation were about his opinion on our state of readiness to deal with future threats.  Eventually the conversation came around to the risk of cyber attacks, and he was asked what his about was about how we should be preparing for this new risk and vulnerability.  His answer actually astounded me. He replied by saying that everyone in America needs to minimize their online presence and America needs to unplug our nation’s utilities and mass transit systems from the Internet. There was an uncomfortable silence in the room while the audience waited to see if he would continue talking and discuss an actual plan of attack, but that was it.

That was his plan: just disconnect everything and everyone.  This answer is absurd for at least three reasons: Continue reading »

There are currently opportunities for veterans and student veterans on the New York Stock Exchange both in New York City and Chicago.  The program links veterans with paid-internships on the exchange and runs for 10 weeks over the summer.

It looks like there are 20 spots available and in addition to the internship opportunity, veterans have access to educational seminars, workshops and mentorship not available to others.

Even if you are not a veteran or don’t qualify for the program or it is not what you are looking for, many of the readers on the site are connected to veterans seeking jobs, so please pass this on.

For more information, view this website (there are even videos) and download the PDFs here.

Download the Veteran Associate Program Overview here.

Download the Specific Opportunities that can be applied to here.

Paul Shinkman from the U.S. News & World Report wrote an article this week discussing a report published by the Center For Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) and General Michael Hayden, the former Director of the CIA and NSA. This report highlighted Al-Qaeda’s efforts to recruit and attack from within the United States.  During the discussion, General Hayden made some observations about the state of terrorism and how Islamic extremist groups are beginning to reflect the qualities of gangs. While the General noted some of the challenges that our nation’s law enforcement officers will face as they attempt to prevent socially isolated and violent kids from being recruited into terrorist groups, there are also some benefits to terrorism behaving more like the “Bloods and Crip” than the “Koran and Hadith.”

I believe that the fact terrorist organizations are beginning to reflect the qualities of a street gang makes combatting terrorism a more predictable effort. While gang activity can be characterized as violent and criminal; the hierarchy, purpose, and actions of a gang are designed to satisfy two primary goals: Continue reading »

“I started writing a blog but, after a few months, no one was reading it, so I gave up on it.”  I’ve heard this excuse from countless people as they explain why they quit writing for the site or blog they started.  Unless you are a celebrity and have a few thousand Twitter followers eagerly awaiting your every blog post, you probably won’t have very many people who even know your site exists at the beginning.  It is going to take some time for the number of viewers to grow to the point where you feel like someone is actually reading your articles, but many people stop just short of that prize.

There is really only one solution to grow a base of followers that are going to stick around for the long term and continue returning to your site just to see if you have posted a new article.  You just have to keep writing. Continue reading »

“Business is the art and science of providing uniquely attractive opportunities for other people.”

– Greg Glassman

I dont have the ability to embed the video here, but this is an awesome video of Greg Glassman presenting his thoughts about how he started CrossFit and built a brand that changed the game for the fitness world.   If you’ve read the articles that have been posted the last couple of Fridays, you know that these are geared towards starting your own business.  Starting a business gets you closer to recognizing the behavior and actions that criminals take.  Recognizing their behavior means you become more effective.  If you’ve taken the challenge to start a website or start a business to see the world through their eyes – listen to what Greg says in this video.  Create value for your customers and strive for excellence and the rest will fall into place.  Simple and straight forward.

Here is the link to the video – it is definitely worth the 12 minutes to hear his thoughts on running a business and creating value for others.  I can’t take credit for finding the video, Rick Gonzalez who writes for us and has a great article about how to learn more effectively in the soon to be released CP Journal sent this to me and I couldn’t keep it to myself.  Take a look.

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”

– Stephen Hawking

Last week I put out the challenge to members of the military and law enforcement officers to find a way to gain similar experience to insurgents or criminals in order to begin thinking like them.  I’ve had some feedback from a few readers who are interested in starting a webpage to create their own grassroots movement, and there have been others who want to start an online retail business so they can better understand how drug networks work.  The question has come up though, where do I begin?

Let’s start with the platform you need to reach viewers – the website.  I recommend using WordPress because Continue reading »

I was reading the recent issue Fast Company on the train yesterday and have to pass on that they have created a great digital magazine.  I do most of my professional reading (magazines, research papers, reports, etc.) on my iPad for convenience and found that not all magazines have made the transition to digital very smoothly.  Digital is not just about copy and pasting the print version onto a website.  Fast Company has made their magazine interactive and done it in a way that that lets you get engaged without getting distracted.

Do you remember those books you would read as a kid where you would have to open a door or window on a page to see the giraffe or monkey hiding inside?  Kids love them and the only reason adults don’t read books that way is because we eventually lose interest in how an elephant got into the house in the first place.  Fast Company recreated that concept in digital form, and made it cool for adults. They use a single picture with different touch points to expand the content they are explaining.  This lets you only have one window up reducing clutter and lets you interact with the magazine beyond just swiping and scrolling.

On the same line of thought as swiping and scrolling, their magazine is pretty user friendly.  They put entire articles on a single page, so you can scroll down through an article without having to keep swiping and turning the page.  It lets you read without moving your eye.  You scroll down smoothly through the article so the entire page doesn’t turn at a time.  It makes reading fluid and takes out the choppiness of turning the page, requiring less eye movement from one side of the screen to the other that slows the reading process.

Some newspapers and magazines are struggling to figure out how to survive in the face of changing technology and a customer that demands their needs are understood.  Fast Company showed that they have figured out how to reach their reader in new ways.

The best cops know how criminals think, how criminals act, and where criminals go.  They have the ability to continuously predict a criminal’s future actions. I am convinced that the best police officers must have been criminals in a past life.  A person with a great deal of experience doing a task is more likely to identify someone else doing the same task than a person without that experience.  Recognition Primed Decision Making (RPD) is based in this concept, that a person’s ability to recognize patterns of behavior is dependent on the size of their “database” of experiences that is stored in their brain.

Because RPD and accurate intuitive decision making is the goal of police officers seeking to become effective in their field, the question of how can a new officer gain these experiences in the shortest amount of time?  This is the same issue that members of the military face when it comes to identifying insurgents hiding amongst the local populace.  Of course, it isn’t practical for Marines to actually become insurgents to gain the experience needed to recognize their behavior, but there are experiences that can be gained to further understand how insurgents operate. Continue reading »