An innovation framework applied to a military cyber professionals association

Abstract

Be it on Wall Street, Main Street, or K Street, Americans are concerned about cyber threats, as cyberspace underpins national security and prosperity in the 21st century. The concern is expressed in dinner table discussions, governmental strategy documents, and blogs, alike. A commonly held assertion is that current practices toward securing cyberspace are insufficient, necessitating innovative new approaches. In response to calls for such innovation by the Department of Defense, this work proposes a new organization designed specifically to address enduring national security priorities concerning cyberspace. In order to bring about such an organization and put it on a firm enough a foundation to ensure sustaining endurance, a generative framework of innovation, the Innovators Way (IW), was applied. This endeavor meets the IW criteria of innovation, which is defined as the adoption of new practices within a community. In this case, the practice is a new professionals association and the community is the American military cyber workforce (a subset of the greater American defense community). This work is a culmination of a yearlong effort to employ and evaluate the IW framework, which emphasizes the role of adoption in the innovation process. The weight applied to adoption in this framework should resonate with those passionate about making things happen and helps to answer the so what? question commonly applied to good ideas. This case study serves as an evaluation of this generalizable framework, from which an enduring engine of national cyber development has been bequeathed.