Sofcoast

Should reason prevail?

At a time when the United States is faced with contracting GDP and slow growth prospects on the horizon where will funding for entitlement programs such as Veterans Assistance programs, healthcare and social security programs come from?

Perhaps from another entitlement program?

Sharing an article I found on dodbuzz.com that I thought would (once again) speak to the core thesis behind Sofcoast's business approach that reason should prevail when costs count. 
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By Greg Grant Monday, August 17th, 2009 4:46 pm
Posted in Policy

Speaking to an audience of military veterans, President Barack Obama called for cutting wasteful defense spending and for reforming the way defense industry does business. “Every dollar wasted in our defense budget is a dollar we can’t spend to care for our troops or protect America or prepare for the future,” he said Monday.

Echoing many of the same arguments for defense reform made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Obama criticized a defense establishment that has failed to adapt to the 21st century and remains wedded to Cold War-era doctrine and weapons “better suited to fight the Soviets on the plains of Europe than insurgents in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan.”

He said the QDR “top-to-bottom” strategic review will produce a “new blueprint for the 21st-century military that we need.” Obama then previewed that blueprint: “an Army that is more mobile and expeditionary and missile defenses that protect our troops in the field; a Navy that not only projects power across the oceans but operates nimbly in shallow, coastal waters; an Air Force that dominates the airspace with next-generation aircraft, both manned and unmanned; a Marine Corps that can move ashore more rapidly in more places.”

Obama really let if fly when he talked about the need to reform the “defense establishment,” calling wasteful defense spending an “affront” to the American people and the troops.

“You’ve heard the stories: the indefensible no-bid contracts that cost taxpayers billions and make contractors rich; the special interests and their exotic projects that are years behind schedule and billions over budget; the entrenched lobbyists pushing weapons that even our military says it doesn’t want. The impulse in Washington to protect jobs back home building things we don’t need has a cost that we can’t afford.”

“Think about it. Hundreds of millions of dollars for an alternate second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter — when one reliable engine will do just fine. Nearly $2 billion to buy more F-22 fighter jets — when we can move ahead with a fleet of newer, more affordable aircraft. Tens of billions of dollars to put an anti-missile laser on a fleet of vulnerable 747s. And billions of dollars for a new presidential helicopter.”

“This waste would be unacceptable at any time, but at a time when we’re fighting two wars and facing a serious deficit, it’s inexcusable,” Obama said, speaking at the VFW convention in Phoenix, Az.

He vowed to put an end to “no-bid contracts” and to reform procurement so “weapons systems don’t spin out of control.” Obama said he was glad to have Republican Sen. John McCain as a “partner” in his effort to curtail wasteful defense spending.

Using a similar approach the administration has used in its arguments to pass health care reform, Obama singled out “special interests, contractors, and entrenched lobbyists” who oppose changes to the status quo. “They’re putting up a fight. But make no mistake, so are we.” He vowed to cut any weapons program that doesn’t support the troops in the field or underperforms.

The administration clearly sees a future security environment filled with irregular wars along of the Iraq and Afghanistan variety. “In the 21st century, military strength will be measured not only by the weapons our troops carry, but by the languages they speak and the cultures that they understand.”

The word is out - Unmanned Systems are here to stay

I happened across the website DoDBuzz  and saw the youtube video titled "The Flying Half-Kegg" and thought others might enjoy the video.

I ended up finding other video's on youtube about Small Unmanned Aerial Systems. I'm glad that there is open source information, especially video.  This should give people a better understanding of this nascent industry that was birthed through Federal Gov't R&D contracts and is now a critical technology within DoD. Many people like me believe that there are even larger opportunities via Commercial market opportunities...however these sysems (Unmanned Aerial Systems) cannot legally be operated in the United States National Airspace without permission to waive existing federal aviation administration regulations through what's called a certificate of authorization waiver(COA) process.  We've been working with certain Components within the Department of Defense for establishing a COA in Southeastern Kentucky for Small Unmanned Systems operations.  This process can take time.  We've been working on it for about 2 years.  We are still making progress and are confident that the approvals will come in due time. I'll talk about that more another time.

Robotics and unmanned systems are nascent and growing game-changing industries that are going to be important economic engines for the United States and other countries.  I've shared this with others that obtaining Certificate of Authorization Waivers (COA's) for unmanned aerial systems operations can, will and do have a tremendous economic impact to any region it is associated with and should be viewed and considered to be an economic growth engine just like locating a large company with hundred's of employees next to great schools, great power infrastructure, great communities. 

It should also be viewed as an economic incentive for industry.  Imagine being able to locate your technology business next to approved airspace for unmanned systems operations?

For now, I think you'll enjoy some youtube video's about Small Unmanned Aerial Systems.  The Raven is the system that is most widely fielded by the United States Army, which is why you'll see it everywhere.  I've spent lots of time with this system and many other small unmanned aerial systems and consider this system to be the "jeep" of small unmanned aerial systems.

Here's a video about the 152 Battalion, deployed with the 76th BCT in Iraq, who secure logistical convoy routes by flying recon missions with the Raven, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. 

Here's another video that demonstrates the affordability and ease of building your own small unmanned aerial system by integrating commercial off the shelf components that are available (primarily through the RC hobby market). Now, I say this a little bit tongue in cheek because it's not quite that easy (if you want a system that you can depend on when your life depends on it....) The point is a tremendous amount of progress has been made. US Taxpayers have invested heavily in developing these technologies. A promising industry is being born. Promising companies in this industry are now being traded publicly by wall street banks. The technology is advancing. Why aren't more jobs being created?

The problem is that the United States laws that govern Unmanned Aerial Systems operations in the National Airspace System are lagging.  Especially in how the FAA views small unmanned aerial systems and then limits and restricts their legal access and operations in the United States National Airspace System. 

Until very recently the majority of this technology was classified or at least kept very very quiet.  Now with the widening use of general purpose forces to include national guard units (and eventually foreign military sales customers) its becoming easier to inform and educate wider audiences about the profoundly positive impact that Unmanned Systems are having on society. 

In particular and especially small unmanned aerial systems. 

As citizens and taxpayers shouldn't it be our responsibility to ensure that elected officials, political appointee's, law makers and administrators are regulating and enforcing laws that are benefiting humanity and society writ large instead of self-imposing restrictions and limitations with no real argument other than "it's new", "we don't want to take any risks", "let's study it for a decade and then decide".

In an unprecedented time of economic uncertainty when jobs are evaporating and Industries are disappearing, devastating certain regions in the United States, does a "wait and see" approach make sense for such an important young and promising industry?

We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

Cheers,
John Surmont
Founder & CEO
Sofcoast, Inc.

Adm Olsen adds "lost" 5th SOF Truth to doctrine

A post from friend and teammate, Mark Divine's blog.

Posted August 16th, 2009

By Sean D. Naylor - ArmyTimes.com

In a recognition of special operations forces’ reliance on their conventional partners for “enabling” capabilities such as intelligence analysis and engineering, U.S. Special Operations Command head Adm. Eric Olson is rehabilitating a long-lost “truth” that acknowledges the contribution non-special ops forces make to missions.

SOCom and its subordinate commands have long touted four “SOF Truths” that encapsulate the command’s self-image.

These four statements have become enshrined in special operations lore, frequently quoted by special ops officials. But few special operators know that the SOF truths were written by a non-special operator, or that a fifth truth went missing for more than 21 years.

The author of the SOF truths was John Collins, a retired Army colonel who enjoyed a second career in the Congressional Research Service and in 1987 found himself writing a publication titled “United States and Soviet Special Operations” for a House Armed Services Committee subcommittee chaired by Rep. Earl Hutto, D-Fla.

The report “had to do with what special operations are all about,” Collins said. “When we were through, Hutto wrote the forward to this report — I wrote it for him, he signed it. Having gone back through everything I’d done, I came up with the five SOF truths. Those were the tailpiece of what Hutto signed.”

Those “five SOF truths” included the original four, plus a fifth: “Most special operations require non-SOF assistance.”

The details of what happened next are murky, but by 1988 then-Brig. Gen. Dave Baratto, the commander of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, N.C., was wrestling with the challenge of how to codify special operations’ unique “operational considerations.”

“SOF was new and it was joint and my job was to try and incorporate those [considerations] across all services,” Baratto said. That led Baratto and his staff to draw up a list of “SOF imperatives” that sought to articulate what made special operations forces different from conventional forces.

The SOF truths “came up as sort of a derivative of that, and I don’t know exactly where they originated … but they sort of went hand in hand with the imperatives,” Baratto said, adding that his staff “may have” picked up the truths from Collins’s ghostwritten introduction signed by Hutto.

But Baratto, who retired as a major general in 1995, remembers discussing the SOF truths “and whether we ought to codify them and embrace them as an institution” with Wayne Downing, the general who took command of Army Special Operations Command in 1991. Downing, who died in 2007, was receptive to the idea, Baratto said.

However, Collins’ fifth bullet about most spec ops missions requiring “non-SOF assistance” made an early exit in the debate.

The first Collins knew of SOCom’s adoption of four of his five truths was in 1993, while he was researching another special ops report, this time for Sens. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Bill Cohen, R-Maine.

“The first stop was Fort Bragg and the Army Special Ops Command,” where Downing was still in charge, Collins said. “And Wayne gives me a dog-and-pony show of slides and ... very proudly he pops up a slide with the ‘SOF Truths’ on it — four of them.

“I said, ‘I think they’re great — I wrote ’em.’ ”

“The fifth truth got dropped simply because ... it said special ops needs some help,” he said.

“I have told everybody I can get my hands on since then that it’s too bad the fifth truth got dropped,” he said. “Its omission encourages unrealistic expectations by poorly tutored employers and perpetuates a counterproductive ‘us versus everybody else’ attitude.”

Olson apparently agreed with Collins, because after a December e-mail exchange between the retired colonel and the four-star, the admiral said that he was re-instating the fifth truth into the SOCom canon.

Olson explained his reasoning in a statement e-mailed via Col. Tim Nye, the SOCom spokesman:

“The SOF Truths have provided time-tested guidance to the special operations community for daily activities as well as long-range planning. When they were originally penned, there was a fifth truth that was never published — ‘Most special operations require non-SOF assistance.’ It’s being included now so that we all understand the importance of force enablers and the contributions they make to mission success. To think otherwise would levy unrealistic expectations as to the capabilities SOF bring to the fight.

“The operational effectiveness of our deployed forces cannot be, and never [has] been, achieved without being enabled by our joint service partners. The support Air Force, Army, Marine and Navy engineers, [explosive ordnance disposal] technicians, intelligence analysts, and the numerous other professions that contribute to SOF, have substantially increased our capabilities and effectiveness throughout the world.”

New Pentagon Priorities Reshape Defense Business

I wanted to publish a recent Wall Street Journal article titled "New Pentagon Priorities Reshape Defense Business.  Smaller Contractors Benefit Amid Shift From High-Tech Weapons to More-Basic Arms Meant for Quick Deployment"

By AUGUST COLE

GREENVILLE, Texas -- In a cavernous hangar here, L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. is working around the clock to turn ordinary turboprop aircraft into spy planes that hunt insurgents.

The so-called Project Liberty program delivered its first batch of the aircraft to Iraq this summer in less than a year -- a breakneck pace for the defense industry.

"This program went from contract to combat in about eight months," said Michael Strianese, L-3's chairman and chief executive. Plans call for more of the modified Hawker Beechcraft Corp. planes -- which cost around $20 million apiece -- to be sent to Afghanistan this winter.
Pentagon chief Robert Gates, visiting L-3 Communications' Greenville, Texas, plant in August, told workers the best solutions are sometimes the fastest.
Department of Defense

Pentagon chief Robert Gates, visiting L-3 Communications' Greenville, Texas, plant in August, told workers the best solutions are sometimes the fastest.
Pentagon chief Robert Gates, visiting L-3 Communications' Greenville, Texas, plant in August, told workers the best solutions are sometimes the fastest.The fast tempo is a sign of changes sweeping some parts of the defense industry. Early this year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates began overhauling the Pentagon's proposed $634 billion fiscal 2010 budget, slashing many high-tech weapons systems that had been under development for years and spending more on basic weapons that could be deployed quickly in Iraq and AfghanistaThe shake-up has begun to alter the way many defense contractors do business. During the Cold War, contractors and the Pentagon spent as much time and money as they needed to perfect new weapons systems. Now, in a reflection of the new defense priorities, some contractors are scrambling to meet tight cost ceilings and deadlines.

The Pentagon and the defense industry were "completely divorced from economic reality," said James Hasik, chief of defense consulting firm Hasik Analytic LLC. "That is slowly giving way to a more vigorous effort on the part of the industry to get ahead of the Pentagon's problems."

Mr. Gates tried to drive home the importance of quick turnarounds during a recent visit to the L-3 factory here. He told workers that "the best solution isn't always the fanciest or the most expensive," but often the one ready for the battlefield fastest.

Oshkosh Corp., based in Oshkosh, Wis., is hiring hundreds of employees as it races to produce blast-resistant all-terrain armored trucks to protect soldiers in Afghanistan against roadside bombs. It won the Pentagon contract for the vehicles in June, beating out bigger rivals such as BAE Systems Inc. and General Dynamics Corp., for what has so far been $2.3 billion in orders. By the end of the year it aims to be churning out 1,000 trucks a month.

Many of those trucks will be tracked by armed, unmanned planes made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., which has accelerated production in recent years of its Predator and newer Reaper drones, which ply the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan. It is gearing up to sell as many as 375 of the $10 million to $12 million Reapers to the Air Force.

Mr. Gates's reordering of the Pentagon budget has improved the fortunes of many smaller defense companies, which account for many of the department's nuts-and-bolts technologies, as well as weapons systems used on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. Smaller companies focused on a narrower range of products can often react more quickly than the industry's giants, in part because they tend to be less bureaucratic.

" Smaller companies have been more responsive; that puts pressure on the big companies," said Jeffrey Roncka, a vice president at Charles River Associates, a consulting firm that advises defense contractors. At the same time, some of the cutting-edge weapons systems designed by the industry's biggest names are being sidelined as irrelevant and too costly.

The F-22 Raptor, for example, is considered the most advanced fighter ever built, and has earned bragging rights for its maker, Lockheed Corp., the largest defense contractor by sales. Lockheed and subcontractor Boeing Co. began work on the F-22 in 1991, and 16 years elapsed before the fighter became combat ready in 2007.

But Mr. Gates has insisted that the Air Force not buy any more of the $143 million fighters. As a result, Lockheed says its advanced assembly line that builds the fighter in Marietta, Ga., could shut down after 2011.

Meanwhile, Lockheed and some other big contractors have joined in the bidding to fill the Pentagon's more-immediate needs. Boeing and Lockheed are pursuing a $5 billion, 10-year logistics-and-services contract to support the U.S. Special Operations Command by performing tasks ranging from helicopter and weapons maintenance to supplying bases.

Lockheed is also joining forces with Hawker Beechcraft, which plans to bid on supplying the Air Force with an armed version of the small Hawker turboprop planes used to train military pilots. The government may order 100 of them as soon as next year, with deliveries expected possibly within 24 months, according to a preliminary contracting document.

Dennis Muilenburg, who heads Boeing's defense unit, said the company must deliver on big, existing contracts, while being responsive to the Pentagon's urgent needs. "Business agility is one of our keys for the future," he said.

Inciweb - A Tool for Incident Response

I am sharing this link to inciweb for several reasons. It shows a tool that is in wide use for coordination and information dissemination on a large scale using things like google maps and a variety of social media tools and technology to get information out to incident cooperators. Following incidents from start to finish provides knowledge about those we wish to support. Finally, perhaps you have a family somewhere near a wildfire and want to see what is going on.

http://www.inciweb.org/

Should someone what to see how incidents start, grow, and then scale back, this is a fun site to follow.

Inciweb begins to show the scope of interagency response. How will ASAP fit into fire response? Some possibilities include providing robust communications at certain staging areas and perhaps some spotting or other surveillance. For wildfire, the question is, would ASAP provide a new or additional capability (Do we already have something doing this?) or would it provide the additional capability at such low acquisition, operation, and maintenance costs that I would trade existing equipment for ASAP?

Possible opportunities for ASAP – interoperable communications (some type of airborne comms gateway or repeater), surveillance (provide a way for the various bosses/chiefs to see the big picture though planes to the same thing), thermal imaging (go up high with thermal imager – identify and pinpoint hotspots 24/7, freeing manned aircraft for other tasks), and connectivity to rest of world (internet and/or 3G types of communications for crews and evacuees to rest of world – The “I’m okay/we are okay" factor).

I’ve seen fires where the cooperators list was three times the size.

Just some random thoughts. Share as you see fit.

Preston

A note from my past

I found a short "slice of life" I had written in February of 2002 while I was in Qandahar, Afghanistan. Be forewarned that it does have a bit of "off color" humor and the whole topic just stinks..... ;)

Cheers,

John Surmont, founder & CEO
Sofcoast, Inc.

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February 24, 2002
Qandahar, Afghanistan
Operation Enduring Freedom

It was pretty much like any other day, any other Qandahar day, that is.  Early January in Southern Afghanistan, as I experienced it,it was cold and miserable.  There really is no nice pretty, packaged way of saying it, except that it was unlike any other experience I have ever had in my life.  In some ways it felt like Lord of the Flies out here.  We, as a group, didn't reach the point of complete chaos, although some would argue, myself included, that from the looks of the Joint Operations Center (JOC for you acronym lovers) we weren't far from total mayhem.

I quickly found that there was nothing simple about anything in Qandahar.  For example, relieving oneself.  In Qandahar, I would have to say that there is no "head", "latrine" or "bathroom" per se, so I'll forgo the clean and tidy description of what I have experienced.  It would be more appropriate to use the fouler description because that seems to describe the act more fully given the present surroundings and day to day theme of men hunting for wild animals.

It's early January and we were ostensibly "just passing through" as our journey was taking us farther north and east.  During this period or "lull" as some might characterize it, I had the privilege to learn and understand a fuller meaning of dignity.  Arriving the night before, it was very difficult to get an idea of how deep a hold squalor had. There was no greeting, simply the chilly reception of darkness. 

As the sun rose, the frost laden ground began to thaw hopefully. The day started like any other day in any other land.  The strong grip of darkness gave way to soft grey streaks of light, shining through free flowing clouds flirting with crisply drawn mountains in the distance, and eventually releasing it's hold on the sky. The falling darkness seeped into the ground gripping it's mistress - cold, and then meekly crawling away. 

There seems to be an argument between beauty and squalor here. Today, it seems as if squalor has laid claim to the land. This must only be a momentary victory, a mere setback for beauty. Beauty has asked for and, from the looks of things, has been granted a divorce from this soil. 

Not wanting to be alone, this land has a new mistress, Squalor.  Today it seems as if squalor runs things around here, while the true friend of beauty - rain -  has been blatently absent for sometime.

Leaving in it's place dust, dust and more dust.

With the unrelenting reminder of my own biology, I gave in to my optimistic hope that I would find a comfortable place to relieve myself. I've now adjusted my expectations to find anything that might even closely resemble what I call a 'bathroom' back home.  Once this mental adjustment was made, I quickly located a square plywood shed with the words "No Pissing" scrawled on its back side in black spray paint.  I realized and quickly came to terms with the fact that I would have to settle for relief and wait a while longer for comfort. 

The shanty roof, tilting awkwardly down at an angle towards its thin back wall, would have made Steinbeck's character's in the Grapes of Wrath, feel right at home.  Inside this 'shitter' as it was so aptly  called, was a two foot high enclosed plywood bench with three holes crudely cut into it. 
These holes, as I soon found, were not near wide enough from front to back to accomodate some of its visitors and their deposits.  With an uncomfortable sigh, feeling my bowels bellowing beneath my belt, I forced myself to step up into the stoop.  Scanning the bench for a hole without those organic scars of humanity, my eyes spotted the center hole.  This semi-clean portal gave me the opportunity to find the relief I had so desperately set out to find.

With a bowel emptying growel, I began to do what every human has done for thousands of years. I didn't realize just how vulnerable man was when in this position, until now.  This seemed to be as difficult as it was going to get.  At about the mid point of this exercise, the large silhouette of a hulking man hops up onto the step of this stoop.  He's clearly in the same state as I was and pays no attention to me at all.  Master Chief "O'Reilly" climbs in with his pants down in a flash, gives me a sheepish grin with a greyish palor on his face and sits down and drops his load at the first hole in the stoop. 

Now I don't know about anyone else, but for me it's not normal to sit next to anyone else while I'm taking care of my biology.  It's frankly quite disturbing, but since everything about this god forsaken country is "disturbing" I quickly make my mental adjustments.

Not really knowing what to do or say, I glanced over at him sideways, smiled and said "hey Master Chief, how's it going?" This came from me more as an obligitory statement which I had been conditioned to give since being a little boy.  "Social grace", my mother used to say. "Is something you need to have if you want to get anywhere in life".  "Always be polite and gracious."

Well as you can imagine, two grown men sitting inches apart with elbows touching, leaving their 'mark' on this country was probably not planned for in all of those fancy etiquette books my mother and sister's read.  What can a man say to another man sitting inches apart from him taking a sh*t?

I don't know.  I simply don't know.  I tried to act like I wasn't even slightly affected by it.  I didn't know what else to do, besides It wasn't my priority at the time. Afterall, I was very happy on my own to have achieved what degree of relief I could, albeit smelly, but relief just the same.

I do remember looking over at the master chief and asking him, "Master Chief, do you think there is any possible way for us to maintain our dignity in our present position?" he shook his head, grinned and sighed as he finished his business.  "Absolutely not, John. Absolutely not."  At that he pulled his pants up and shuffled out of the stoop. 

I realized at that point what dignity was. 

It wasn't flowery things, pretty clothes, or sweet smelling perfume, fancy talk, cool gadgets. It was being respectful of my own humanity, while being mindful of others humanness.

======

Weaving in the most banal and mundane parts of a persons life is important if you are trying to build products people need and can and will use.  My story was probably a bit crude in content but I hope this story makes the point for engineers, product managers, bizdev/marketing people that when building solutions, systems, tools and tech for "constrained users and uses"  (like Navy SEALs in Afghanistan) you need to keep a wide perspective as you think about what the end user's needs are and not become fixated on the obvious - "hollywood" parts of their days.

I see it happen all the time and that's a big reason Sofcoast exists.

Don't let it happen to you.

Cheers,

John Surmont

Coping with Constraints - The Lighter Side

Pigeon Found to be Faster Than Broadband

1:11 PM - September 10, 2009 by Marcus Yam

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What's next? BirdTorrent?

Carrier pigeons are an ancient way to transmit information. As we've seen in many movies, one would tie a small scrolled message to the leg of a pigeon before sending it flapping off to warn its recipient of impending danger.

Today we have much more modern and efficient ways to transmit information… or do we? If you're an internet user in South Africa on the Telkom ISP, you might have better results with the old ways.

A worker at a Durban IT company was very unhappy with the performance of Telkom's ADSL speed. As a result, he decided to pit a carrier pigeon armed with a 4 GB USB stick against a plain file transfer.

Winston the pigeon won.

By the time Winston reached his destination, only 4 percent of the file had transferred. The BBC report does not specify the full size of the file, but did say that Winston completed his journey in 1 hour and 8 minutes, while the internet transfer required an additional hour to complete.

ISP Telom said that it couldn't be held responsible for the slow transfer speeds to the IT company, as it has helped to advise the company in possible improvements, but thus far none have been accepted.

Source : Tom's Hardware US

Good Enough

About half of my career as a SEAL was spent working with equipment as an end-user/practitioner, the other half spanned multiple roles and responsibilities, to include developing requirements, designing solutions, integrating disparate components for tactical use, breaking stuff, devising test scenario's, developing field use scenario's and "concepts of operations" or "CONOPS" for said stuff.  I also spent a lot of time transitioning this technology from experimental form to fieldable kit form, and developing the training processes, systems, artifacts and requisite syllabus, materials,etc...

Very early on I learned that fielding capabilities - not gadgets - is important.  I found that I would become enamored with a particular system and find a way to forcefit it into a mission set or build a CONOPS around it.  Most of the time it led to breakdowns and frustrations, there were a few times where there was actually a real capability "hidden" behind the gizmo and in my work I would uncover it. 

It's not too difficult to get caught up in the "gee whiz" factor of the latest gizmo and then realize that once I've taken it out into the field and used it a few times it became more of a liability than not having it in the first place.

Traditional approaches to resolve these and other issues take time, money and expertise (people).  If you think about time, money and expertise as different dimensions on a graph, it's not hard to realize that producing time, money and expertise required is a critical path and many cases is the first challenge to overcome. 

As a SEAL, I found that I was always faced with different constraints at different times and over time developed a fundamental approach for aligning my team's goals with the organizations goals for product development, fielding and use.  I use the term "Low Friction Innovation" to describe Sofcoast's core and fundamental design and product philosophy.  Others might better understand this philosophy by taking a look (or for some another look) at the Pareto Principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity).

Low Friction Innovation essentially is the practice of identifying and managing constraints such as money, time and skilled personnel as examples.  Once this process is developed then processes for determining various paths forward and the corresponding frictions that will inevitably exist, risks can be better managed while increasing probabilities of success.

I took the same approach as an IT Director with Audit Integrity.  During the startup period I needed to build the infrastructure for a data processing intensive technology business that needed "good enough" development, testing, qa and production environments to allow the engineering team to accomplish their goals.

Apparently the idea of "Low Friction Innovation" is topical these days.  There's a great article in Wired Magazine this month called "The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple is Just Fine". 

This same approach has served Sofcoast well in our lead product development processes and practices for ASAP.   For the ASAP product our goals were simple. 

• Decouple the traditional "envelop" based lighter than air systems from their shapes to provide mass customization and just in time design, development and delivery capacities for various customer requirements.
• Meet and Exceed unmet needs for Public Safety (and others) for affordable stationary aerial platform requirements. 

The philosophy is to use readily available ripstop nylon as the outer shell (that has the appropriate design for various uses such as energy harvesting; antenna elevation; advertising; surveillance; maritime; high wind; high density altitudes, etc...) Then select low cost, durable, lightweight bladder materials and decouple the helium gas containment system from the outer shell.  Once we'd achieved this we then discovered that our supply chain and our materials costs were well below any competitors while our performance was at least as good as other's if not better. 

Again, Low Friction Innovation at work.

Cheers,

John Surmont, founder & CEO
Sofcoast, Inc.

Infrastructure as a Service

I recently attended this years AUVSI conference in Washington, DC.  I'd like to congratulate Dan Imbat for his receipt of an individual achievement award.  Dan's work has been and continues to be extraordinarily valuable to the Unmanned Systems Industry writ large and I'm glad to hear he's been acknowledged for his work. Congratulations again, Dan.

---

I also wanted to take a second to talk about what Sofcoast isn't. 

• Sofcoast is not a bunch of ex-military end user's posing as engineers and trying to find and fit solutions around our products.
• Sofcoast is also not a bunch of ex end users providing business development and marketing services.

Sofcoast is a philosophical decision that I've made to offer an alternative to the status quo systems, tools and training that are either outdated, highly inefficient or frankly way too expensive. 

One problem area is keeping up with the constant advance of technology, specifically for mobile workers on the edge, vis a vis, "edge computing".  In our case we are very interested in meeting the edge computing needs of public safety professionals and department of defense professionals.

--
Infrastructure as a Service

The key question that drove my decision to develop an Infrastructure as a Service offering is simple.

"How can I build and deliver this "edge environment" for people?"  Some key considerations for me were also to develop a model that benefits multiple stakeholders such as customers, Local, Regional and Area leaders and key constituents while developing a revenue model and business model that works with an underlying fundamental focus on building and delivering compelling, competitive and highly valuable services to meet edge user needs.

Think about where the innovation occurs today in tools and technologies.  Unmanned systems, software, hardware, payloads, optics, communications....the list goes on and on....

What are the alternatives for "edge like" technology integration areas?

The world is shifting, technology is advancing, economies are shifting, requirements are evolving.

Terrorists aren't standing still, either.   

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When I say "Infrastructure as a Service", I'm essentially asking the question "how can we create new opportunities for people in a region based on the assets that their infrastructure represents while meeting a real need?"  In the case of the Patriot Training Area it happens that people in the military, their vendors and people in law enforcement and their vendors (which are sometimes the same and in other cases are different) need places that are "out of the way" and "unfamiliar" that really aren't too far away geographically.

"Infrastructure" means places (with buildings, dams, bridges, lakes, rivers, airports, college campus, exposition centers) that typify environments that human beings live, work and play in.  Humans hurt each other and the people who look for these people and try to stop them use tools (radio's, camera's, cars, airplanes, unmanned airplanes, boats, computers, etc..) and they need to be good at using these tools to do their part in stopping the bad guys. 

My core thesis is that It's highly inefficient for taxpayer's to spend money for military reservations and training venue's that emphasize targeting and destroying enemies "in the open" with their tanks and airplanes lined up in nice tidy columns and formations when they've spent money to improve their own quality of life with schools, dams, bridges, lakes, rivers, airports, colleges, business parks and other infrastructure elements.  Is it really necessary and will it continue to be necessary  to go to "the middle of nowhere" or onto military reservations to learn how to use deadly force and shoot weapons and drop bombs or operate other technology like unmanned systems?  By the way, lethal force is the last resort for law enforcement, as it should be and law enforcement work "amidst the people" as well - it's a key tenent of their mission.

Do terrorists even march in formation?  Do they have tanks? No they don't.  Let's face it Terrorists hide and are hard to find because they "hide in plain sight" - they hide amongst populations and ordinary workaday people living their lives as best they can.  That's why they are characterized as an "assymetric threat". (More on this another time...)

The United States Special Operations Forces spent over 600 flight hours (hunting or "finding" and "fixing") Iraq terror mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi with an unmanned system.  Once they located him they sent in two F-16 fighter jets that "finished" him in less than 2 hours. 

So, there is an emphasis on collecting lots and lots of information and then acting decisively with force when necessary.  There is also a trend towards using alternatives to using deadly force.

 
Which means a dramatic increased emphasis on increasing the precision and effectiveness in gathering information in order to make effective decisions. 

Which is why ISR and Unmanned Systems meets a huge need.... and.... the demand for ISR and unmanned systems is unmet, insatiable and growing.

What's interesting is that the priority now and for the foreseeable future for funding is information centric systems and technologies...for both Public Safety and Department of Defense communities.

Cheers,

John Surmont, founder, CEO
Sofcoast, Inc.