A new generation of software called Starlight 3.0, developed for the Department of Homeland Security by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), can unravel the complex web of relationships between people, places, and events. And other new software can even provide answers to unasked questions.

Anticipating terrorist activity requires continually decoding the meaning behind countless emails, Web pages, financial transactions, and other documents, according to Jim Thomas, director of the National Visualization and Analytics Center (NVAC) in Richland, Washington.

John Seely Brown is currently a visiting scholar at the Annenberg Center at USC. He was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation until April 2002 and also the director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) until June 2000—a position he held for twelve years. While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such topics as organizational learning, complex adaptive systems, micro electrical mechanical system (MEMS) and NANO technology. His personal research interests include digital culture and rich media (both of which he pursues at USC), ubiquitous computing, web service architectures and organizational and individual learning.

John, or as he is often called — JSB — is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and of AAAS and a Trustee of Brown University, the MacArthur Foundation and In-Q-Tel. He serves on the boards of directors for Corning, Varian Medical Systems and Polycom and on numerous advisory boards and boards of startups. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals and was awarded the Harvard Business Review's 1991 McKinsey Award for his article, “Research that Reinvents the Corporation” and again in 2002 for his article (with John Hagel), “Your next IT strategy.” In 1997 he published the book, Seeing Differently: Insights on Innovation (Harvard Business Review Books). He was an executive producer for the award winning film “Art · Lunch · Internet · Dinner,” which won a bronze medal at Worldfest 1994, the Charleston International Film Festival. He received the 1998 Industrial Research Institute Medal for outstanding accomplishments in technological innovation and the 1999 Holland Award in recognition of the best paper published in Research Technology Management in 1998. With Paul Duguid he co-authored the acclaimed book, The Social Life of Information (HBS Press, 2000) that has been translated into 9 languages with a second addition in April 2002.

JSB received a BA from Brown University in 1962 in mathematics and physics and a PhD from University of Michigan in 1970 in computer and communication sciences. In May of 2000 Brown University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science Degree. It was followed by an Honorary Doctor of Science in Economics conferred by the London Business School in July 2001. He is an avid reader, traveler and motorcyclist. Part scientist, part designer and part strategist, JSB’s views are unique and distinguished by a broad view of the human contexts in which technologies operate and a healthy skepticism about whether or not change always represents genuine progress.

John Seely Brown is currently a visiting scholar at the Annenberg Center at USC. He was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation until April 2002 and also the director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) until June 2000—a position he held for twelve years. While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such topics as organizational learning, complex adaptive systems, micro electrical mechanical system (MEMS) and NANO technology. His personal research interests include digital culture and rich media (both of which he pursues at USC), ubiquitous computing, web service architectures and organizational and individual learning.

John, or as he is often called — JSB — is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and of AAAS and a Trustee of Brown University, the MacArthur Foundation and In-Q-Tel. He serves on the boards of directors for Corning, Varian Medical Systems and Polycom and on numerous advisory boards and boards of startups. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals and was awarded the Harvard Business Review's 1991 McKinsey Award for his article, “Research that Reinvents the Corporation” and again in 2002 for his article (with John Hagel), “Your next IT strategy.” In 1997 he published the book, Seeing Differently: Insights on Innovation (Harvard Business Review Books). He was an executive producer for the award winning film “Art · Lunch · Internet · Dinner,” which won a bronze medal at Worldfest 1994, the Charleston International Film Festival. He received the 1998 Industrial Research Institute Medal for outstanding accomplishments in technological innovation and the 1999 Holland Award in recognition of the best paper published in Research Technology Management in 1998. With Paul Duguid he co-authored the acclaimed book, The Social Life of Information (HBS Press, 2000) that has been translated into 9 languages with a second addition in April 2002.

JSB received a BA from Brown University in 1962 in mathematics and physics and a PhD from University of Michigan in 1970 in computer and communication sciences. In May of 2000 Brown University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science Degree. It was followed by an Honorary Doctor of Science in Economics conferred by the London Business School in July 2001. He is an avid reader, traveler and motorcyclist. Part scientist, part designer and part strategist, JSB’s views are unique and distinguished by a broad view of the human contexts in which technologies operate and a healthy skepticism about whether or not change always represents genuine progress.

Future Lectures will be approximately one hour long, and will be focused on the following topics:

o Organizational Behavior
o Perception
o Storytelling
o Aha Moment

March 23rd Class - Details:
Open Mic Session - 30 Minutes

1) Sketchbook / Blog now central to our work over the final weeks
2) Remind of book reports
3) Discussion of remaining classes and plan
4) Can you go to Aha moment lecture or do we plan in class (Templeton Lectures)

Science Fair Project Presentations - 90 Minutes
1) 10 min Presentations
2) 5 min feedback

Final Project Debrief Session - 60 Minutes
1) General Discussion
2) Priority Pick
3) Summer plans and project planning

Special Project - 10 Minues
1) URN agent

Unfortunately, the intelligence community has not kept up with the Army. The 15 agencies of the community - ranging from the armed services to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - maintain separate portals, separate data, and separate people. The bad guys exploit the gaps, and your safety is on the line. So if all us knuckle-draggers in the Army can use technology to make ourselves better, why can't all the big brains at Langley and Foggy Bottom do the same?

The first step toward reform: Encourage blogging on Intelink. When I Google "Afghanistan blog" on the public Internet, I find 1.1 million entries and tons of useful information. But on Intelink there are no blogs. Imagine if the experts in every intelligence field were turned loose - all that's needed is some cheap software. It's not far-fetched to picture a top-secret CIA blog about al Qaeda, with postings from Navy Intelligence and the FBI, among others. Leave the bureaucratic infighting to the agency heads. Give good analysts good tools, and they'll deliver outstanding results.

Immersive Perceptualization for Exploration, Discovery and Analysis of Extreme Dataspace.

Steve Smith, Los Alamos National Labs, Lawrence Berkeley Labs
Tom Caudell, University New Mexico, EE, CE, CS
Paniotis, University New Mexico, EE, Music

The real problems within the intelligence community are much deeper and more ingrained. One way a technology audience might view them is as a failure to build an effective knowledge management system to support U.S. government policymakers. That perspective reveals an abundance of obvious flaws. There is a government culture that values secrecy and hoards knowledge rather than sharing it with those who need it most. Secrecy is important, but while emerging technologies - like quantum encryption, which will prevent eavesdropping - make it ever easier to protect information you want to hold close, they should be used to increase, not decrease, opportunities for openness. One senior military commander told me that perhaps 95 percent of what is now deemed secret is available via open sources, thanks to the Internet. Unnecessary secrecy costs billions and impedes the flow of vital information. It is also an exercise in futility. I've seen instances where Web-harvested information was received by the government and immediately classified.

http://www.darpa.mil/ipto/Programs/augcog/documents/AugCog_iitsecPaper.pdf

http://faculty.virginia.edu/perlab/publications.php

http://www.darpa.mil/dso/personnel/kruse.htm

http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/neuroscience/Faculty/Profitt.cfm

http://research.microsoft.com/~horvitz/acog.htm

http://www.augmentedcognition.org

http://www.darpa.mil/ipto/personnel/schmorrow.htm

Thank you.

Course Overview:
“We live in a world where there is more and more information and less and less meaning.”
-- Jean Baudrillard

This basis of this class is to combine new ideas from digital media, smart fabrics, mobile technology, virtual reality, storytelling, and sensory perception (just to name a few) to reveal meanings in the pervasive fabric of information and data. For example, can handheld devices harnessed together help patterns emerge out of the chaos of data? Can instrumented objects be coupled to human intelligence to augment cognition? Can we communicate over distance in unique and untraceable ways? What is intelligent visualization? How can we discover both overt patterns and underlying currents from the same data? How do we go beyond the single dimensional Boolean search and understand the complex contexts of organically connected queries?

At times of great change the unconnected synapses of disparate minds seem to fire in virtual synchronicity. This class will serve as a catalyst for such synchronicity.

Three tracks of educational focus will be followed. 1) Outside lecturers from the entertainment and visualization communities will provide insights and lessons gleamed from their combined years of experience, 2) Students will develop team-based cooperative design, production, and management skills through a series of in-class exercises and assigned design projects, 3) Domain specific knowledge will be taught from a wide range of disciplines though formal lectures, readings, and student reports.

The goal is to stimulate new thinking to invent out-of-the-box solutions to vexing real-world challenges in the intelligence community. This will take engineers, artists, media designers, scientists and philosophers. Come and apply the skills you have learned at USC while learning to think beyond in a team-based multidisciplinary way.

Admission Criteria
This is a limited enrollment class. Students will be selected from diverse disciplines and skills, including art, engineering, film and game production, science and philosophy, with the goal of producing multidisciplinary teams. Students accepted must agree to be available for a paid summer internship that implements team projects designed in the class. Only a select subset of students will continue in the internship. This class provides support that covers the four hours of class fees.

Class Structure
This is a seminar class that meets 4 hours once a week for 16 weeks. Classes will be divided into lectures, exercises, and provocative guest lecturers, Work will comprise readings, research, reports and hands-on projects. Students are expected to pursue a certain amount of independent research.

Course Requirements
Course is open to seniors and graduate students in CNTV, Engineering, Computer Science and other disciplines, by means of application and interview.

Grading Structure
Grades will be based on class participation and contribution.


TO APPLY: DEADLINE: EXTENDED - Please Contact for Information
Submit the following:
1. A brief portfolio or list of accomplishments or a resume
2. A short cover letter describing what you think you can bring to this class
3. The deadline has been extended, please contact for information.

SEND these materials via email to usc_interactive@cinema.usc.edu
For more information email usc_interactive@cinema.usc.edu

Interviews will commence December 7th, 2004 and continue into early January