Media Commentary on EXCALIBUR

Welcome MilBlogs readers!

2007-08-02T15:59:00Z

One of the hardest working Milbloggers out there, Andi of AndisWorld.com gives us a shout out. Andi did Herculean work to set up the Milbloggers conference and I was surprised that when I met her husband at the conference he was an officer I had worked with when I visited Afghanistan, a truly small world!She writes at the excellent Milblogs site:

Compare and Contrast

[Andi] Otto Pernotto, a sponsor of the 2007 MilBlog Conference, schools officials in the advantages of the new media here.

welcome The DEW Line readers!

2007-08-01T19:04:00Z

who says you can't change a journalists mind? Stephen Trimble of FlightGlobal.com wrote the first commentary to the first blogpost about us:

Is this legit or yet another small company draining DOD's R&D dollars with only a killer power-point and a friend on an appropriations committee? I don't know. But the odds suggest the latter. Posted by: Stephen Trimble at May 9, 2007 09:16 AM

Now he writes and links: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/

Real jocks fly props

Former special operations and joint staff officer Ed "Otto" Pernotto has just launched a blog with special ambitions. Most immediately, he wants to recruit other bloggers to help him persuade the US Air Force to buy a turboprop (egad!) fighter to support the counter-insurgency mission. His long-term goal is even more interesting, and that is to harness the blogosphere as sort of an on-call RAND consultancy for the US military on any topic (but more on that later). Pernotto right now wants your feedback before he submits an unsolicited proposal to the air force, which calls for the immediate purchase and deployment of Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 Texan IIs. He plans to take the feedback, make necessary changes and then formally submit the proposal to the air force. The idea is intriguing on a number of levels, and not least that Pernotto obviously considers the blogosphere a more valuable resource than a conference room of RAND consultants. I'll post my own obersvations about the specifics of Pernotto's proposal later this week, but, please, go take a look at what he has to say.

I'm not including his photo of Uncle Sam but he christens me Uncle Otto!

thanks to ThreeSources.com

2007-07-29T14:13:00Z

http://www.threesources.com/

Our second link in from the above site, their masthead says "The power of an individuals inner freedom, the power of a free society, the power of the solidarity of the free world" The quote is from Natan Sharansky former Soviet dissident and now author

thanks for the link folks...

first link for the blog

2007-07-27T16:32:00Z

http://ithinkthereforeierr.wordpress.com/about/

Terri, a self described "regular Joe(ann) from Colorado who just reads what’s out there and tries to connect it all to reality." writes this:

A quicker way to think through problems rather than through the sloooowwwww process of government memos/bureaucracies should be the name of the game. That’s where Otto Pernotto and his Excalibur comes in. Bookmark it and watch it. It’s just recently up and running and I expect it will do well what the govt does not do as well. Quick, rapid, intelligence and ideas. Good luck to Excalibur!

Here’s the mission statement:

* Collaborative, innovative, and rapid solutions to national security challenges
* Leveraging the knowledge, skills, passion, and patriotism of America

And here’s a freebie for Mr. Pernotto. During Katrina I called DHS to suggest getting those big charity a-thons using their resources to help people in need of shelter quickly. I’m not sure that they ever did, but I gave them the numbers to people I spoke with at Walk for the Cure, Ride the Rockies and a couple of others. Those organizers were definitely interested in hearing what DHS might have to say. Having a secondary private source of help from groups designed to temporarily house thousands would be yet another way for the Army of Davids to get involved.Excalibur has taken that Army idea and started a business. See how you can be leveraged!

She's spot on regarding the Army of Davids book by Glen Reynolds of Instapundit blog, that is a REALLY empowering book and a big reason we are here.

Thanks Terri!

DefenseTech.Org Post

2007-07-20T14:32:00Z

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003483.html

Working the Procurement Seams

With procurement bottlenecks worse than ever and R&D dollars shrinking in the face of an increasingly expensive war without end, a new trend is emerging: Smaller organizations with the savvy to act as middlemen in order to get the right stuff to warfighters in time for it to actually matter.

Defense experts like Edward "Otto" Pernotto have the potential to make a difference because they understand how to exploit the system in effective ways. Otto recently launched Excalibur R&D, LLC, which he calls a "small business focused on providing rapid, innovative, and collaborative national security solutions."

"We cannot continue to throw money at huge military programs that in many ways are breaking the bank of this country," Otto said during a discussion with DT at the recent Milblogging conference in DC. "We need to do things smarter and quicker."

During our discussion Otto offered a number of examples of the sort of "low hanging fruit" that the current DoD procurement system is incapable of dealing with. Among his initiatives is an attack variant of the T-6 that he claims can be fielded for around $5 million per copy. He also submits that his plan would get these aircraft to the battle in months, not years.

"From the initial thoughts for this rapid response team, my thinking on the subject has evolved," Otto said. "I have watched with great fascination the evolving nature of the Internet and certain collective activities that have gone on. I'm convinced those sorts of activities are the way of the future."

Whether Otto and others like him are tilting at windmills or not remains to be seen, but this much is obvious (and heartening): Those who really care about the heath of America's forces aren't waiting around for the machine to fix itself.