Global Situational Awareness and the New “Decentralized” Operations Center
By: John Goolgasian
Tags: Risk, Opscenter, Gsai, Covid, Coronaviruses

In December of 2017, October 2018 and September 2019 I wrote thought pieces about Geospark Analytics and how we are approaching the challenge of global situational awareness, event detection/alerting, AI-driven stability assessments and a vision for the operations center of the future (Global Situational Awareness and the New Operations Center and Global Situational Awareness and the New Operations Center — An Update and The New Global Security Operations Center). If there ever was a time for a facelift to the concepts espoused in those blogs, it’s now. This isn’t about how we help you understand the spread of the coronavirus and its impact to your people, operations and mission (which we can talk about and help you with, but you have heard that from everyone and everywhere) this is about how you maintain mission as your organization shifts from centralized to decentralized operations. I am a huge fan of the 2006 book The Starfish and the Spider. When published, it was pertinent to my role running counterterrorism activities in the intelligence community as we were trying to unravel how to defeat a decentralized organization. It is very relevant again today as we all look to maintain operational effectiveness as our organizations decentralize.

I was inspired to write this short blog yesterday after receiving an email from a client who runs a secure operations center wanting to talk because they are considering a telework policy for their operation and needed help setting up their team with global situational awareness tools at home. This will be the new normal for at least the next few weeks to months. Here is a bit of what we discussed …

The power of SaaS-based tools, like what we have built with the Hyperion global threat and risk assessment platform, is they can go anywhere your team goes. I told him “… you already have a mobile GSOC. Your team can go home today and not miss a beat.” I was actually working from home at the time and sent him the following photo from my office.

The Anywhere GSOC — Hyperion and Geospark Analytics Global Risk Dashboards

Customized content for your mission needs

After I sent him the photo, he called me with a few questions. “That’s Hyperion on the laptop, but what’s the dashboard on the big screen?”. We went on to discuss how we have opened our API that drives the data and machine learning models and analytics behind Hyperion for integration into other applications. The dashboard on the big screen was created by combining the data and analysis that the Hyperion AI-Engine produces through our API plugged into ESRI’s ArcGIS Online (see the graphic below for an example of connecting the Hyperion Health Event model API to develop a COVID-19 dashboard that we have made available to the public). We talked about how quickly and effectively we can create customized dashboards around specific points of interest and for each individual mission. We can also integrate other data and capabilities like their office locations, and incorporate a collaboration capability and expanded data to give his team both global and local understanding of not only breaking information, but how those events are impacting regional, local, and global activity and stability levels. With Hyperion his team can then see a forecast of what’s to come and they wouldn’t miss a beat moving from their office to their home.

Tell me the facts and only the facts

He discussed with me that many on his team are not analysts, but need quick access to the latest information and analysis, and I informed him that we are now enabling those user that don’t need the full analytic power behind Hyperion, but do need an understanding of breaking events and their impact on local and regional stability in a crisp and clear delivery of Hyperion Watch. His team, from the most senior managers to the most junior analysts can now have a complete understanding of their mission space that enables deep dive analysis and high-level global situational awareness.

Hyperion Watch Dashboard

Tell me what happened overnight

We also spoke about automated daily reports that the Hyperion generates and can send to his analysts and his leadership. The Hyperion Hotspot machine learning model automates the process of identifying unusual levels of activity across the globe that could have disruptive implications. These reports can be set up to deliver a global Hotspots report every hour, or every day providing an automated report. I told him what our NATO users said when they first saw this … “I have a team of analysts who work overnight to create this manually. You just cut their job in half.”

An Ops Center in your pocket

Finally, we spoke about ensuring that his team has the information they need no matter where they are, even if they don’t have access to their home computers. We recently launched Hyperion Mobile which is available in the Google Play and Apple App Store. Users can easily log in with their Hyperion accounts so they can access the same data, analytics and have push alerts sent to their phones so they never miss an event, a spike in activity or a drop in stability that may impact their mission.

Commitment to success

We ended the conversation with a commitment to ensure his team has the capabilities they need to seamlessly transition from a centralized operations center to an effective decentralized organization.

The team at Geospark Analytics has a passion for making great products that help our clients transform how they achieve mission success. We made a decision not to play on the fears that are running rampant but to help our clients navigate through these unprecedented events and bring a bit of certainty to uncertain times.

Please contact us at info@geospark.io to learn more about how we can help your organization establish a virtual operation in minutes.