This is the third anniversary of Intellipedia, which is the US Intelligence Community’s wiki that is used to share information and analysis from across 16 different agencies. Its inspiration is said to have originated from the ideas promoted in D. Calvin Andrus’ paper “The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community” published in September 2005.

Common characteristics of strong analysts is that they are generally confident in their analysis and that they like to write. A Wiki style forum would allow for both of those things.

According to the Washington Post the site now has over 900,000 pages and 100,000 user accounts so it obviously enjoys some level of popularity amongst this community. However, the site does face some “cultural resistance” from some members who cite concerns over information leaks. According to the article however it is only accessible by personnel with the appropriate security clearances.

The answer for the rise in use of the service may come from the changes in staffing. According to CIO.com:

“Half of the CIA’s workforce is relatively new to the agency (applications poured in after 9/11) and many old-schoolers are getting ready to retire. The CIA is trying to get those ready to depart to dump their intellectual capital into systems like Intellipedia.”

As mentioned previously, access to Intellipedia is restricted but it is believed to be operated by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.