April 1, 2010 Volume 3 Issue 1 (past issues)

SecureBadge Required for New Secure Phones, Drinking Fountains, and Toilets

The SecureBadge system has expanded so that the ultra-secure smartcard-based technology is no longer used only for building entry, cafeteria purchases, and computer access, but will now be used to unlock functionality for a new line of secure phones, drinking fountains, and toilets. "One day, I could imagine the SmartBadge unlocking your car door, providing access to printer output, and even opening the lunchroom fridges," SecureBadge analyst Griogair Absalom considers, "everything is more secure with this badge." While the new installations raise obvious privacy concerns, developers argue that the security tradeoffs far outweigh any (...)

Employee Reduction Exercise now termed "Manunloading"

"We knew employee reduction exercises needed a new name the sixth time around," human resources manunloading focal James Watts reports, "and we wanted something we could express with one word." Manunloading will typically occcur following the annual manloading exercise, when people are lined up with budgets. While most corporations use the terms layoffs, cutbacks, and dismissals, Boeing takes a different approach to naming the process, to shed some of the negative connotations. (manunloading numbers by region)

Octachart Brings Together Quad- and Penta-Charts

The DARPA business development landscape is pressing rapidly forward, with the recent adoption of the penta-chart for describing projects instead of the longstanding quad-chart. Now with 2011 IR&D planning, managers will be enforcing a new Octachart template that compresses an even greater amount of information onto one slide. "The more data we can cram onto one slide, the shorter the slide decks, that will make everyone's life easier," commented one BDS manager. The eight sectors of the octachart include (1) status quo, (2) key new insights, (3) main achievement, (4) quantitative impact, (5) milestones, (6) end-of-phase goal, (7) leverage, and finally (8) how much will it cost me.  (Octachart PPT templates by organization) (more details...)

8th Leadership Attribute Defined

 

Boeing Launches its Own Twitter

Boeing Chirp Every good corporate citizen knows that social networking is evil, during business hours, unless that networking remains within company servers. While Boeing's own inSite, AskMe, and wiki/blogging tools fill the need for Facebook, Blogger, LinkedIn, etc., a new Twitter knock-off named Chirp (Chirp.web.boeing.com) fills the final gap in social networking intranet web domination. On Chirp, users enter short 140 character "peeps" to update their status. A new scorecard metric will measure the number of peeps and re-peeps each engineer has posted.  
(Chirp 10-minute trainer...) (follow #chirp...)

DCNT Wins DTCN Follow-on DTNC, CDTN, and DCTN Contracts

DTCN DTNC CDTN DCTN Boeing's BR&T NST DC&NT group was recently awarded Disposable Tactical Network Core (DTNC), Cognitive Delay-Tolerant Nano-networking (CDTN), and Digi-Cyber Triage Naming (DCTN) contracts as follow-on options to the DTCN program. This suite of contracts wins represents a breakthrough technology achievement for the group, as the new (more...)

Cash for Clunkers for Old Airplanes Announced

The Obama administration in conjunction with the Boeing Company announced a new "Cash for Airplane Clunkers" program to be administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Available to U.S.-based airlines, the move promises to rid the skies of aging, fuel-guzzling jetliners in addition to boosting sales for Boeing's new mid-sized fuel-efficient 787 Dreamliner. (...)

CORE Used to Simulate the IRAD Planning Process

The CORE tool, gaining increased usage within BR&T, was enhanced to include simulation code of the 2011-2015 IRAD Planning Process. While validity of the models has yet to be fully determined, initial results can provide project, task, sub-task, and sub-sub-task levels with a confidence interval on whether or not funding is likely and the level of funding and manloading to be expected. The plugin also includes an export filter to save the results to a PowerPoint file. (...)