[MtnGoat]

Great points!! We are thinking the same I feel, just at different waves right now.

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

First thing you can do is get someone that is skilled in the local language or culture, possible even native speaker to get on forums that many people in the target area go to. What you are looking for here is get a feeling for the attitudes and outlook of the local populace. Your best bet in this either in person or on the internet is talking to teenagers and young adults say fifteen to twenty five. They usually do not have the filters that adults do as we all know. Adults tend to be more “polite” and not express their true feelings. While all ages should be talked to and heard this age group tends to be more outspoken. The approach should not necessarily be “Hi I from the US Army” but more like hey my name is John Doe leaving out the fact you are in the military at least at first. The point is to integrate yourself into the “community” on the forum or forums just like we have all done here on PS. The benefits of this are that not only are you gathering data such as attitudes etc about the target area, the soldier is actually interacting with people from that culture and learning many of the nuances of the culture and language as well as hearing about local news and gossip that may not make the news or at least the viewpoint other than the news we all know is so accurate.

I wish we had native speakers, but this is the hardest part of all of this. As a military, our native speakers will be on the battlefield and elsewhere. If we are so lucky to have a guy that is a 2/2/2 and able to pull off fully understanding the written language with all the community "talk" with its dialects, jargons, slang; pidgins or argots, and idiolect to name a few. He would be great, yet would he be behind a computer. The manning and the man hours spent will not add up, No man power equal lack of man hours, which like business nothing gets done. IMO, Sometime your not looking to "learn" from the people on their culture or motivations. Maybe just research on their key viewpoints behind the motivations as a person or group. There are a number of programs that will look at foreign languages within social media a look for your key words for you to research. This is just like what you can do with google alerts. So from this, then I say you can go with the human touch on key "alerts." But keeping in mind that social media may not start or drive a movement or revolution, yet looking at what is going on social media or with social networks can help in many different avenues. Looking at your ENVIRONMENT.

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

A second approach is a targeted approach. Have your S2/G2 shop help you in this. Say there is a local person of importance in the target area where you are going to be. Find out where that person or his loved ones frequents on the internet and go to that forum and join. Again you are looking to join the community and if possible interact with the person or people close to them. From this you get more than the official face and an inside look at their personal side that will help you in your interactions with them if and when you meet them in the AO. You may find out they have a twitter account you can follow of find out they have a strained relationship with their spouse. You can also get a feel for their personality, for instance what could you tell me about Reapers personality just from this forum? Do you think he is a guy you want to convince to help implement gun control in his local community? Did he vote for the current president?

YES, I'm in the same boat here. We need to look at what is going on with the ENVIRONMENT on SM and conduct Social Network Analysis (SNA) to find out who, what, when, where and how "things" are driving, influencing and motivations for the movement/revolution. Looking at what ROLES are contributing to the movement. On the personality side, I don't know how much you can "profile" off of social media. I know people do it, but at our level I don't see it happening. I feel that you can develop a lot based off what post someone has posted and what you have found. I think you could find demographics a lot faster as far as who is who and using what.

But with everything, this takes a team to do this.This is one side we are missing out on, The team. Just like you CA units, the CMOCs and how they are to play into a CATs deployment and execution of missions. If you making Company level or Fusion Cell, you can just have a bunch of ASAP Analyst, HUMINT or CI guys, or Linguists. You have to have people that understand the cyber world. I say you add to add the new 35Q cryptologic network warfare specialist and the 25D cyber network defender to the SF Battalions and to some of the new levels coming up. Yes you can also take the f3ead targeting process and turn it into a cyber one. You can't think you can't "talk" to someone and in turn, why not target them in cyber. Gen McChrystal to this to the best level with Gen Flynn. I think the best team would have to have your INFOSEC guy, journalist, medical field, analysis, CNO (Computer Network Operations) , Geospatial Intelligence Imagery Analyst, Logisticians, maybe even anthropologist just name a few. Big business does this for marketing, pulling different walks of the business to research and come up with a action plan, our engagement plan, for our SM ENVIRONMENT.

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

The next approach is a little different in that you are just looking for contacts there. You meet someone on the forum that is a local business man that may be a community organizer sympathetic to your goals. When you go there he may be a good POC to meet others in the AO and network into the community.

Another approach is networking through places like Facebook etc. You can do this by the usual approaches such as invites etc. One way is to provide a link to your twitter account or Facebook account you want them to see. Just interact normally and openly on the forum with the link in your signature line to places you would like them to look at.

This whole FINDING contact and business side I'll get into what I think we can be using and doing as far as with SM and movements. The SM network approach has so many possibilities, just like businesses do with online marketing. Then to look at the exploitation, analysis and Metadata of SM is just crazy. As far as the RESCOM and those CA issues, I feel for you My Sir.

So how do you communicate online? Your you just a forums person like PS.COM and others? You Facebook? LinkedIn? Have a Twitter account and check you feeds? You SnapChat with your girlfriend, so those pictures are gone in 15 seconds?

So with everything you use and do, post, read, visit online. Do you think something like the Arab Spring could be supported by your activities? Which accounts or Groups do you follow, how could they effect or affect the support base of the movement? Would your activities be conducive through your “channels” of social media to promote a ideology and to communicate with members, sympathizers, bomb makers and even leadership?