Abstract
Biological metaphors abound in computational modeling and simulation, inspiring creative and novel approaches to conceptualizing, representing, simulating and analyzing a wide range of phenomena. Proponents of this research suggest that biologically-inspired informatics have practical national security importance, because they represent a new way to analyze sociopolitical dynamics and trends, from terrorist recruitment to cyber warfare. However, translating innovative basic research into useful, usable, adoptable, and trustworthy tools that benefit the daily work of national security experts is challenging. Drawing on several years’ worth of ethnographic fieldwork among national security experts, this paper suggests that information ecology, activity theory, and participatory modeling provide theoretical frameworks and practical suggestions to support design and development of useful, usable, and adoptable modeling and simulation approaches for complex national security challenges.
Highlights
Making analytic software useful, usable, and adoptable in the context of the United States’ national security community is a difficult challenge
In relation to the national security community, proponents of biologically-inspired informatics believe these approaches might shed light on trends and threats that are not welladdressed by traditional social science theory and methods
If nothing else, coupling participatory modeling approaches with the activity theoretic approach described above can help technology developers appreciate the goals, constraints, outcomes, and impacts associated with national security analysis and decision-making
Summary
Usable, and adoptable in the context of the United States’ national security community is a difficult challenge. Approaching contexts of use from an ecological perspective can help developers appreciate the design challenges associated with introducing new technologies into existing organizational cultures.
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