CAPTek Blog - An Introduction

For the past decade, I have been trying to fuse two of my loves: Technology and the Civil Air Patrol. My personal successes have varied, but I have learned a lot along the way. As a technology professional, I count myself among a luck group who gets to spend much of the time playing with all things tech. As a squadron commander, I am even luckier because I work with some of the biggest-hearted individuals on the face of the planet. But, when I look at the role technology plays in our organization, it makes me down-right mad. Technology promises to make an organization more effective (do more) and efficient (with less money and time). While technology should make the lives of my comrades easier, it often does not.

In the Civil Air Patrol's every day business and in its emergency activities, the implementation of technology organization-wide has left much to be desired. While programs such as ARCHER are astonishingly successful for a little volunteer group like the CAP, other basic tools like eServices are appallingly substandard. As a nation-wide organization, our distributed nature could benefit immensely from strong, high-quality tech tools, but they do not seem to be coming fast enough.

As a whole, our organization struggles with technology. Surf the websites of a dozen random squadrons, try to email a quarter of the ___@capnhq.gov email addresses on NHQ's "Contact Us" page, or try to get eServices to work in a standards-compliant web browser - and you'll be frustrated. If our organization was half as professional as it thinks it is, I would be happy. We can do a much better job.

So, I have decided to start this blog: CAPTek. The work of MidwaySix and CivilAirman as the early CAP Bloggers has set a high bar. My goal is to discuss the technological tools we are or should be using, searching out their fine points and exposing their weaknesses. The effort is done with the belief that open discourse on the subject will lead CAP members to demand more, hold CAP leaders more accountable, and help improve our organization's ability to fulfill its missions and take care of its members.

One of my central mantras will be the call for open collaborative processes as CAP's technology utilization grows and changes. We have almost 60,000 people nation-wide who want CAP to function at its best - and many of us are technology professionals. Unfortunately, lack of skill on top leads to poor tools for us to use at the bottom. And when those tools are tightly controlled at the national level, even when us folks on the ground want to improve them, there just is not any access. By using open collaborative processes, professionals in the field can make their own contributions. I've wanted nothing more than to write a MIMS report which shows ground team members with trainee status, but there is no way for me to do that and contribute the solution back to CAP as a whole. To get our jobs done, how many of us have created our own solutions to crumby products produced by national?

The more open the process, the more often people at the bottom will develop innovative solutions those at the top could never dream of.

I want this discourse to also be open and collaborative. Please feel free to leave comments - positive and negative - on ideas which are posted. Also, I would like to call for other technology professionals to consider submitting articles to CAPTek. As a community, we can make life easier for the organization as a whole.

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Thank you so much for reading this introductory post! I have a few dozen ideas for articles already, so please check back often. You can use the links in the upper right hand corner to add RSS/ATOM feeds to your homepage or feed reader to stay up-to-date.

I look forward to blogging with you very soon!

All my best,



KidMystic