Many bosses cringe when they see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, since they suspect those workers are slacking off.  But that's not the case at the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, where bosses are encouraging their staff members to use a new social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying.

"It's every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it's much, much more," said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

The program is called A-Space, and it's a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.  Instead of posting thoughts about the new Avenged Sevenfold album or what's happening with Brangelina, analysts can use A-Space to share information and opinion about al Qaeda movements in the Middle East or Russian naval maneuvers in the Black Sea.

Wondering what Achmedinijad is doing right now?  Want to catch the latest Bin Laden video?  A-Space!

It's a place where not only spies can meet but share data they've never been able to share before," Wertheimer said. "This is going to give them for the first time a chance to think out loud, think in public amongst their peers, under the protection of an A-Space umbrella."  "One perfect example is if Osama bin Laden comes out with a new video. How is that video obtained? Where are the very sensitive secret sources we may have to put into a context that's not apparent to the rest of the world?" Wertheimer asked.

When you think about it,  this is the perfect scenario for the application of social networking and other web 2.0 technologies.  The spying game relies heavily on knowledge sharing, the free flow of information, and collaboration across far-flung agencies.

It's also the only social networking site where you'll find postings in the "What am I doing right now?" section like:

Agent 009 just took down a 3rd world dictator!

If Agent 037 tells you what she's doing right now she'll have to kill you!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_intelligence_community_A-Space

At Knowledge Infusion, we work with clients who are struggling to answer a wide variety of talent management questions, including those to do with social networking and information sharing within organizations. Many business and HR leaders are aware of the Web 2.0 applications available to the general public, e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. Many in HR are caught off-guard, however, when similar applications turn up within companies. Often these efforts sprout from different parts of the business:

• A project leader in an engineering division wants information about employees beyond job title, and can’t get it from the HRMS system.

• An employee tries to understand what it really takes to do a particular job or what it is like to work for a certain manager.

• A marketing division VP wants information about potential customers from employees who have personal connections at customer organizations.

Often, there is a tendency within staff divisions – HR, Legal, Internal Communications, even IT – to look askance at such activities using collaboration tools that are not formally “sanctioned” by the organization. The response often is, “We have to stop this effort”, or “Get it routed into the formal project and budget approval pipeline”, or “We need to make sure that this information sharing and collaboration conforms to our policies and procedures.” In other words, “we need to fix it so we can control it.”

I don’t want to minimize the need for organizations to assess legal implications of using technologies for any internal processes, especially ones that promote the potential sharing of personal or confidential information within the organization. At the same time, it is worth understanding the sources of energy behind these “maverick” efforts and leveraging that energy for the benefit of the organization. Today’s younger workforce – millennials and Gen X’ers to an extent - is used to social networking and collaborating through technology. If organizations can feature these efforts that are currently underway, even highlight the organic nature of them, it might go a long way toward employees and potential employees thinking about the organization as a good, collaborative place to work.

So what do HR, Legal, and Internal Communications give up by doing this? To some degree, control over information about employees and about the organization. The gains – a potentially more engaged workforce, information flowing more freely across intra-organizational boundaries, and more collaboration and acting for the greater good – may be worth that kind of sacrifice.