Intelligence Technology, Waiting for Superman

…or Superwoman.

Amid the continuing controversies sparked by Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing defection revelations, and their burgeoning effects on American technology companies and the tech industry worldwide, the afflicted U.S. intelligence community has quietly released a job advertisement for a premier position: the DNI’s National Intelligence Officer for Technology.

You can view  the job posting at the USAJOBS site (I first noticed it on ODNI’s anodyne Twitter feed @ODNI_NIC), and naturally I encourage any interested and qualified individuals to apply. Keep reading after this “editorial-comment-via-photo”:

How you’ll often feel if you take this job…

Whether you find the NSA revelations to be infuriating or unsurprising (or even heartening), most will acknowledge that it is in the nation’s interest to have a smart, au courant technologist advising the IC’s leadership on trends and directions in the world of evolving technical capabilities.

In the interest of wider exposure I excerpt below some of the notable elements in the job-posting and description…. and I add a particular observation at the bottom.

Job Title: National Intelligence Officer for Technology – 28259

Agency: Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Job Announcement Number: 28259

Salary Range: $118,932.00  to  $170,000.00

Major Duties and Responsibilities:

Oversees and integrates all aspects of the IC’s collection and analytic efforts, as well as the mid- and long-term strategic analysis on technology.

Serves as the single focal point within the ODNI for all activities related to technology and serves as the DNI’s personal representative on this issue.

Maintains senior-level contacts within the intelligence, policymaking, and defense communities to ensure that the full range of informational needs related to emerging technologies are met on a daily basis, while setting strategic guidance to enhance the quality of IC collection and analysis over the long term.

Direct and oversee national intelligence related to technology areas of responsibility; set collection, analysis, and intelligence operations priorities on behalf of the ODNI, in consonance with the National Intelligence Priorities Framework and direction from the National Security Staff.

In concert with the National Intelligence Managers/NIOs for Science and Technology and Economic Issues, determine the state of collection, analysis, or intelligence operations resource gaps; develop and publish an UIS which identifies and formulates strategies to mitigate gaps; advise the Integration Management Council and Integration Management Board of the gaps, mitigation strategies, progress against the strategies, and assessment of the effectiveness of both the strategies and the closing of the intelligence gaps.

Direct and oversee Community-wide mid- and long-term strategic analysis on technology. Serve as subject matter expert and support the DNI’s role as the principal intelligence adviser to the President.

Oversee IC-wide production and coordination of NIEs and other community papers (National Intelligence Council (NIC) Assessments, NIC Memorandums, and Sense of the Community Memorandums) concerning technology.

Liaise and collaborate with senior policymakers in order to articulate substantive intelligence priorities to guide national-level intelligence collection and analysis. Regularly author personal assessments of critical emerging technologies for the President, DNI, and other senior policymakers.

Develop and sustain a professional network with outside experts and IC analysts, analytic managers, and collection managers to ensure timely and appropriate intelligence support to policy customers.

Brief senior IC members, policymakers, military decisionmakers, and other major stakeholders.

Review and preside over the research and production plans on technology by the Community’s analytic components; identify redundancies and gaps, direct strategies to address gaps, and advise the DNI on gaps and shortfalls in analytic capabilities across the IC.

Determine the state of collection on technology, identify gaps, and support integrated Community-wide strategies to mitigate any gaps.

Administer National Intelligence Officer-Technology resource allocations, budget processes and activities, to include the establishment of controls to ensure equities remain within budget.

Lead, manage, and direct a professional level staff, evaluate performance, collaborate on goal setting, and provide feedback and guidance regarding personal and professional development opportunities.

Establish and manage liaison relationships with academia, the business community, and other non-government subject matter experts to ensure the IC has a comprehensive understanding of technology and its intersection with global military, security, economic, financial, and/or energy issues.

…

Technical Qualifications:

Recognized expertise in major technology trends and knowledge of analytic and collection issues sufficient to lead the IC.

Superior capability to direct interagency, interdisciplinary IC teams against a range of functional and/or regional analytical issues.

Superior interpersonal, organizational, and management skills to conceptualize and effectively lead complex analytic projects with limited supervision.

Superior ability to work with and fairly represent the IC when analytic views differ among agencies.

Superior communication skills, including ability to exert influence with senior leadership and communicate effectively with people at all staff levels, both internal and external to the organization, to give oral presentations and to otherwise represent the NIC in interagency meetings.

Expert leadership and managerial capabilities, including the ability to effectively direct taskings, assess and manage performance, and support personal and professional development of all levels of personnel.

Superior critical thinking skills and the ability to prepare finished intelligence assessments and other written products with an emphasis on clear organization, concise, and logical presentation.

Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs):

Leading People: This core qualification involves the ability to lead people toward meeting the organization’s vision, mission, and goals. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to provide an inclusive workplace that fosters the development of others, facilitates cooperation and teamwork, and supports constructive resolution of conflicts. Competencies: Conflict Management, Leveraging Diversity, Developing Others, and Team Building

Leading Change: This core qualification involves the ability to bring about strategic change, both within and outside the organization, to meet organizational goals. Inherent to this ECQ is the ability to establish an organizational vision and to implement it in a continuously changing environment. Competencies: Creativity and Innovation, External Awareness, Flexibility, Resilience, Strategic Thinking, and Vision.

…

HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED:

You will be evaluated based upon the responses you provide to each required Technical Qualifications (TQ’s) and Executive Core Qualifications (ECQ’s). When describing your Technical Qualifications (TQ’s) and Executive Core Qualifications (ECQ’s), please be sure to give examples and explain how often you used these skills, the complexity of the knowledge you possessed, the level of the people you interacted with, the sensitivity of the issues you handled, etc. Your responses should describe the experience; education; and accomplishments which have provided you with the skills and knowledge required for this position. Current IC senior officers are not required to submit ECQs, but must address the TQs.

Only one note on the entire description, and it’s about that last line: “Current IC senior officers are not required to submit Executive Core Qualifications, but must address the Technical Qualifications.”  This is perhaps the most important element in the entire description; it is assumed that “current IC senior officers” know how to lead bureaucratically, how to manage a staff – but in my experience it cannot be assumed that they are necessarily current on actual trends and advances in the larger world of technology. In fact, some might say the presumption would be against that currency. Yet they must be, for a variety of reasons never more salient than in today’s chaotically-evolving world.

Good luck to applicants.

[note: my title is of course a nod to the impressive education-reform documentary “Waiting for Superman“]