Wiki to boost collaboration at DOD

Contractors will be able to access an external
version of a new wiki in early 2009 that
the Defense Department launched last
month to improve collaboration.

The wiki, named DODTechipedia, is
designed to improve collaboration among
agency scientists, engineers, acquisition
personnel and military service members.
DODTechipedia is similar to the online
encyclopedia Wikipedia and the intelligence
community site Intellipedia, said John
Young, undersecretary of Defense at the
Office of the Secretary of Defense,
Acquisition Technology and Logistics.

"Improving collaboration requires a
shift in our ideas, our values, our behaviors
and our processes," Young said. "We
must provide the capability to defeat any
adversary at any time, anywhere in the
world."

DODTechipedia will help reach that goal,
he said.

DOD spends about $10 billion a year on
science and technology, and that money
has to be used effectively to help troops in
the field, Young said. The new wiki site will
help DOD officials using those funds to better
coordinate their efforts, he said.

"You want to do this so all the individuals
out there executing some of that $10 billion
can look elsewhere in the Defense
Department and see if someone else has
already tried an idea," Young said. "That
way we can get to the collaboration, coordination
and reduce duplication. It also lets us
avoid learning the same lesson two or three
time in our enterprise."

DODTechipedia is available to federal
employees and contractors who are registered
with the Defense Technical
Information Center.

External access for the contracting community
is an important part of the initiative,
Young said.