On December 5th, 2009; MIT researchers shocked DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) by completing an envisioned several day experiment in less than 9 hours. The experiment was to locate 10 red balloons that DARPA placed throughout the United States (see link below). Through social networking techniques, researchers connected to colleagues to find the balloons. I was amazed at the speed at which this was accomplished and can’t wait for the documentation to be published. It further supports the reason why this site is here; the popular notion that “six degrees of separation” connect us with everyone on the planet. I wonder if that holds true for our field of experts. It will be interesting to see the results. I look forward to the day when a member can post a “request for inquiry” in the forums section and within 9 hours have an answer.
DARPA link:
http://www.darpa.mil/news/2009/DARPAnetworkchallengewinner2009.pdf
“DARPA announced the Network Challenge to mark the 40th anniversary of the ARPANet, pre-cursor to today’s Internet, to explore how broad-scope problems can be tackled using social networking tools. The Challenge explores basic research issues such as mobilization, collaboration, and trust in diverse social networking constructs and could serve to fuel innovation across a wide spectrum of applications.” - DARPA
This is great example of the power of social networking! Thanks for sharing Beth.
Jason- glad you enjoyed. I hope that we can harness the sucesses from that experiment to use on this site. If you have any suggestions, feel free to send to me.
Beth,
Great lead. I contacted DARPA. The report mentioned in the News Release will be published in early January. I will get a copy and post it.
Tom
Beth - very nice piece. Remind me of crowd sourcing, or leveraging the global network of cell phones users to provide key data to form a common operating picture. Thanks! - oliver