AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL EYE ON THE SOLDIER
smallest one, wrap it in bubble wrap, and duct-tape it to survive the drop and roll. I don’t think technology is really equipped for that.
I think one of the harder things to work out is what technology is here to stay ver- sus a phase people are going through. If this is technology that’s going to be popu- lar for a year or two, then do people evolve to the next thing, or is it something that is really a game-changer? And then you get into all the challenges we see everywhere else that have to do with standardization … you can also see challenges about secu- rity, authentication. Frankly, everyone is getting smart very quickly in this space, and it’s totally one of the ones where the instincts of our senior leaders may not match the experience of the brainchild.
TAKING NOTE
During a field visit in March, Bell takes an opportunity to note her impressions at a museum in Surabaya, Indonesia.
it’s really instructive of the difference between what people say they are doing and what they are actually doing.
Q. The ubiquitousness of smartphones, tablets, and video games has shaped the modern Army. For Soldiers who are in their twenties and thirties, certainly, these technologies are as necessary as shoes and socks. The Army and other military services are struggling to keep pace with the constant change in these technologies, given the time it takes to work a product designed to serve the entire Army through the regulations, approval, and purchasing change in consumer technology, so that it
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maximizes the potential for new uses on
A. Wow, that’s a good question. I spent a bunch of time working with the Aus- tralian government over the last couple of years, and one of the things I noticed to be a challenge for them is that they need technology to be really kind of stable before they can deploy it. So I’m sure one of the challenges you will face is that it’s robust and reliable.
My brother is in the Special Forces back in Australia, and he calls me at one point, right before the war in Afghanistan, to ask me what kinds of laptops are good for jumping out of airplanes. Well, all
The military has been a big source of interesting innovation, whether it is all the work that’s being done in the Army what it means to air-condition things in the middle of the desert … a lot of inno- vation is possible when you have different kinds of problems to solve. I think it’s also how does one think through what is good enough, and where is “good enough” good enough, because we know it’s going to look different in different technolo- gies. All sorts of new technologies aren’t as reliable as they should be, and they haven’t stopped people from taking them up wholesale.
And I suspect it’s something different in a piece of equipment that’s supposed to keep you safe, physically safe, and a piece of equipment that’s going to let you talk to your kids. You know, you may be per- fectly happy to have a low-bandwidth, two-way video for your kids two-thirds of the time because you still get to see their faces.
Army AL&T Magazine
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