The document discusses 4 case studies involving the US State Department's Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) unit gathering information on political situations from informal leaders in volatile countries. It describes how CSO obtained information from interviews and contacts in Nigeria regarding oil company unrest, gathered intelligence on the decentralized Hamas organization, and how tools to map informal leader networks could help embassy staff and lobbying firms. The case studies provide details on the challenges of collecting accurate, up-to-date information without direct access and how the data was organized, catalogued, and used.

1. AggregateDB
Nathan | Shutong | Kaya | Chris
12 Interviews
Sponsor: Conflict and Stabilization Operations
POC: Santiago Stocker
Mentor: Dan Spokojny
Politics in volatile countries is influenced by ethnic and religious
leaders. Determining their location and relative power is a
labor intensive and inconsistent process. However, embassy
staff - economic, political and public diplomacy regularly meet
with leaders to gather this information.

2. CASE STUDY #1: Revolts Against Oil Companies
SITUATION
Political unrest in the Delta Region occurred in 2009/2010. Because Nigeria has so many oil wells, there were many
controversies over how oil revenues were being distributed nationally.
ACTION
Many communities in the Delta did not feel like they were being given their fair share, which led to outbreaks of violence on
oil companies (Shell, Chevron). Over 2000 people died.
RESULTS
CSO was brought in for 2 years to gather information about how to prevent a similar crisis from happening again. The
crisis is still ongoing, but efforts to resolve it include an amnesty and payoff program, where there are still ethnic groups in
the Delta receiving stipends to maintain the peace.
How was the
information
obtained?
Organized /
catalogued?
Official or informal
information?
How was it used? What kind of
information was it?
How were informal
leaders defined?
What more
information
could’ve been
useful?
CSO “on the
ground” went out
and interviewed
business leaders.
CSO modelled
stakeholder
analysis of all
different ethnic
groups and their
connection to the
oil controversy.
Both. Cables, briefed
directly to
embassy. Then,
integrated to
amnesty work
conducted by
embassy.
Statistical reports
on different groups
and their stake in
the oil revenue
situation.
Public figures who
publicly agreed /
disagreed with oil
company situation.
US stakeholders
are proposing
crushing revolts
with military force;
not enough info on
which groups to
target / not target.

3. CASE STUDY #2: Gathering Intel on Hamas
SITUATION
Hamas, a terrorist organization, is expanding. But, Hamas is a highly decentralized organization. The leadership structed is
based on consensus decision making, so it is extremely difficult to identify who the “leaders” are. In a decentralized
organization like Hamas, everyone is a “spokesperson.”
ACTION
Peter Lohman, the Desk Officer for Algeria, was responsible for gathering intel on Hamas. Challenge: Officers cannot
access the group (too dangerous) so create relationships with indirect contacts and read media reporting of Hamas (not
always accurate).
RESULTS
2014 Israel-Gaza conflict: Congress passed legislation proving Israel with an additional $225 million in military aid for missile defense. According to Israel: Hamas
was weakened. According to Hamas: Israel was repelled from Gaza.
How was the
information
obtained?
Organized /
catalogued?
Official or
informal
informatio
n?
How was it used? What kind of
information
was it?
How were
informal leaders
defined?
What more information
could’ve been useful?
Interviews with
indirect, personally
cultivated
contacts. (Friends-
of-friends-of-
friends)
Contacts semi-
catalogued.
Compiled in a
cable and sent
back to
Washington.
Both. Washington decides
whether or not to
intervene in
whatever Hamas
was planning.
Reports on
meetings,
future plans,
potential
terrorist
attacks.
Difficult to define
- “everyone is a
spokesperson.”
Word-of-mouth.
Person who has
spoken to the
media.
Sometimes finding that one
last contact is the exponential
jump you need. Would “kill” for
a program mapping
relationships. Even if ⅕
contacts were helpful, it would
be a great program.

4. CASE STUDY #3:
SITUATION: Franklin Square Group an influential lobbying firm stated that they would be interested in using such a
product to discover the stakeholders in large companies and how decisions are made. It is fairly difficult to determine the
decision chain in a company when a sensitive decision or contract is at stake.
ACTION : Follow up in person meeting with Partners December 2nd.
RESULTS
How was the
information
obtained?
Organized /
catalogued?
Official or
informal
informatio
n?
How was it used? What kind of
information
was it?
How were
informal leaders
defined?
What more information
could’ve been useful?
Phone interview
with Franklin
Square group.
Information needs
to be organized
with some surefire
root information
but approximation
or even lists of
educated gueses
are interesting
Both When lobbying in
washington on
behalf of facebook
or google lobby firms
need to get the
buyin of many
stakeholders with
similar interests
regulation
information
internet law,
data flow policy
making.
product team
leads, VP level
leads, engineer
leads.
org tree structure from a
decision standbpoint. very
difficult to gauge and
determine.

5. Customer Discovery
Hypothesis Experiments Results
What actionable missions can
embassies and / or bureaus carry
out using this information about
informal leaders?
Interviewed Peter Lohman, Desk Officer for
Algeria.
Interviewed Santiago, CSO and asked about 2
years CSO spent in Nigeria.
1. Achieve political amnesty by
contacting “moderate” informal
leaders. (Oil Companies)
2. Map out “friends-of-friends”
between terrorist groups (Hamas)
3. Company leaders contacts to
informal leaders
Can we trace at what level
decisions are made, regarding
embassies, desks and DC, when
political crisis occur?
Interviewed Marlin Hardinger, political and
economic officer in State since 2002. Served in
Turkmen, Moldova, South Sudan, Abuja, and
Buhari.
We found that information flows pretty
freely between embassies, desks, and
bureaus. (See chart on prior slide)
How do FSO’s currently trace
networks of informal leaders? How
do FSO’s rank the importance of a
particular leader / contact?
Steve McDonald. Works at the Wilson Center,
doing work on Burundian leadership.
Peter Lohman, Desk Officer for Algeria.
No formal ranking system - contacts
are kept in FSO’s personal “rolodex.”
Personal relationships are everything in
“ranking” a leader.
At FSO’s own discretion.

6. Foreign
National
Employee
(OMS)+
Section
Chief
Relies on3-5 yr
FSO
3 p.
To manage
relationships
Union
leaders
Official
leaders
in gov.
NGO’s
Ethnic
leader
Daily contact/meetings
7+ yr
FSO
5+ p.
Delegates tasks
portfolios(p)
New
FSO
1 p.
Friend
FSO
S/ES
request
Un-help
Func.
Bureau
Helpful
Func.
Bureau
Inundates w/
daily request
for more info
Official meetings with
highest ranking
Deputy Chief
Mission aka
COO
usually
(Ambassador)
GATEKEEPERS
DOS TIME=$$
SC alerts DCM of
mission critical
requests/ changes
No- “Tell your
boss to tell my
boss”
Country X
Desk in
Washington
Boeing
political
lobbyist
Raw material supplier
not cooperating
Charge
d'Affaires
CEO of
Embassy
DCM communicates main
issues charge-D to get
regional bureau help
Charge-D passes DCM
down regional priorities
7th floor
officials
White
House
Regional
Bureau
Officials
USAID in
country
Boeing
in
County
X
Support
Employs, supports
punishes, joins,
exploits?

7. Edges: Red - Family Black - Negative Blue - Neutral
Nodes: Yellow - President Red - APC Blue - Lagos State Govern Green - Others
Rotimi Akeredolu
On Saturday September 3rd,
2016, Represent the All
Progressive Congress (APC) at
their primary conducted in Ondo
State to represent the party at the
forth-coming 2016 elections.
Twitter: @RotimiAkeredolu
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/rotimia
keti/
Rotimi Akeredolu
&
Simon Lalong
Mr. Lalong formally presented
Rotimi Akeredolu, the All
Progressives Congress
gubernatorial candidate in Ondo,
to President Buhari.
CLICK
NODES
CLICK
EDGES

8. Beneficiaries
Mission AchievementMission Budget/Costs
Buy-In/Support
Deployment
Value PropositionKey Activities
Key Resources
Key Partners
CSO:
Santiago - Writing report about Boko Haram
Tyler - Analyzing relationship between known
members of BH and unclassified actors
Will Meeker - Travels to Nigeria for 2 years to
generate contacts for CSO, get Santiago data
Embassy Staff:
Caroline: Economic/ Political Officer at small Embassy
in stable country
James/Steve: Economic/ Political Officer at large
Embassy in an unstable country
Nick: Public Diplomacy Officer at busy Embassy
Executive Secretariat(S/ES)
Nick from Secretariat Staff: The Secretary want’s to
speak with Monica Geingos in Namibia
1 of 2 Operations Staff on Call: Spends all day
summarizing , combining incoming cables
CSO Sponsor: Santiago Stocker
Foreign Nationals(OMS): Office
Management Specialists to
implement and upkeep central list
for long term deployment
Elian Carsenat founder of NamSor-
onomastics(surname) analysis
software
Mentor: Daniel Spokojny, insights
into CSO dynamics
ParseHub
TensorFlow
Database companies(ACLED,GDELT)
lobby companies and evengalist
that make introductions
SV companies who are working in a
similar space / contract
(partnerships)
Beta starts in Nigeria, with
Vanguard newspaper(English)
Focus on formal leaders
through public sources
Need CSO to continue
connecting us upstream w/
former clients and
downstream with data
sources in field
Continued support from AF
staff to differentiate known
unknowns from unknown
unknowns
Source
Aggregation:
Gives organizations the ability to
identify most important actors in
rapidly evolving situations using
data mined from a breadth of
sources.
Relatable data
visualization:ensure
people from all backgrounds can
analyze and filter relevant data
depending on their needs
Information
Extraction: perform
natural language processing on
news articles, twitter and etc to
extract categories and information
for informal leaders.
Improve CSO’s ability to write relevant reports by giving them tools for passive
“granular” data collection w/o Embassy involvement
Provide long-term contact management, automation of embassy “check-in”
Ability to rapidly provide “S” contact information of any person FSO/Embassies
have had official contact with
Information Analysis
Key entities identification
Software Engineering
Data collection and storage
Data mining
Network visualization
CSO pre-formatted and edited
JSON databases
Previously published unclassified
reports commissioned by DOS
Web Crawler API’s
TensorFlow Machine learning API
Nigerian news papers
gurdian, sahara Times, Punch,
Business day, Vanguard
FIXED:
Frontend / backend deployment of app
VARIABLE:
Parsehub API
Google Compute Engine

9. Analyze foreign
conflicts &
Advise relevant
parties
upstream(7th
floor) and
downstream to
embassy
100% accurate information, but
realistically happy with 50%, b/c
have time to corroborate with
classified sources
Data on ethnic/religious leaders
Data that is current & structured
Current sources too shallow
Best data unstructured, in
cables, year old
Santiago Stocker CSO Advanced Analytics Unit(8)
Output data formatted, downloadable
and available for further analysis and
combination with classified intel
Data-mining provides daily updates,
validity based on page ranking
Targeted source scraping means
information gets more accurate as #
of users and providers increases
Mining searches for personal names
Program can be run continuously,
updates daily based on input from
internal embassy and external news
Passive connection
btwn. CSO in D.C.
and FSO Nigeria to
share information
and contacts
gathered from data
mining
Embassies too busy to help
w/ CSO side-projects
Program can run with passive
interaction w/ Embassy
- BS/BA + MA in International
Policy
- Thesis work used LOTS of data
- Wants to make CSO relevant
- Believes in power of data to solve
international problems
- Needs worldwide knowledge
base
b/c impossible to know next
r equest
- Skeptical of data provided by
embassies’ political offices
Connection that doesn’t require
constant requests/ coordination
with DCM

10. Understand & analyze
domestic, labor market
in Nigeria, meet with
cooperative leaders and
report progress, strikes
developments in weekly
cables/ SPOT reports
100% accurate information, but
realistically would be happy with
20% lead success, works @
10% right now
Phone number of reliable
informant in distant village
Long term tracking of contacts,
especially as known leads
progress upwards hierarchy
Predecessor left nice
handover, but too old after
move, industry changes quick
Town with protest three days
drive away, through desert
Marlin- 8 year FSO, currently Economic Officer in Lagos- Labor Portfolio(5)
Hierarchy based on # mentions, info
reliable contacts inside companies
Visualization of relationships btwn.
companies, individuals, unions
Targeted source scraping means
knowing which Labor Unions
marched together, signals coop.,
bring together @Embassy soon?
Nodes can be sorted by region, help
FSO get closer to right contact
Program runs beyond rotations,
eliminates need for 40 page paper
handover reports, 4 months old
Provide economic
FSO new contact,
% “helpful” ranking,
based on input of
known contacts,
better diplomacy
Protocol Foreign National has
excel spreadsheet w/ 4000+
unorganized names
Nodes bigger or smaller depending
on cross-reference embassy visits,
mentions in cables/newspapers
- MA+, intense study foreign policy
- Rigorous entrance testing, but
now jobs based on past-work
- Speaks 4+ languages
- Believes in prioritizing interaction
w/ “traditional” contacts
- Asked by DCM to join Nigeria
team based on post-election
work in Afghanistan
- Receives many “urgent”
requests for data/info daily,
knows which ones to
answer/ignore/forward to DCM
Actionable suggestions of contacts
means Marlin missing link

11. Learn
actualities of
diplomacy @
first embassy
by working
election
portfolio
100% accurate information, but
would accept 10%,
Understanding of hierarchy @
Embassy, who Section Chief
thinks is most important/why
Ability to see most recent
interaction w/ certain contact
FSO tests did not mention
3AM DCM phone calls
Doesn’t know which requests
can be ignored, has CSO
asking questions about
knowledge after 3 months
Bryce K..- 1 Year Political FSO reflecting on first year @ Embassy w/ Election Portfolio
Better able to tell if contact is BS’ing
about connections, mining shows if
there documented ways X knows Y
Huge gain: Able to look at
information in organized fashion w/o
feeling embarrassed to ask for help
Hierarchy based on # mentions
means initial category beyond word
of mouth about priority of contact
Before each meeting new FSO can
look at map, mined data to make
conversation/trip relevant, productive
Network mapping to
help new FSO
understand who
embassy knows
and how they fit into
greater framework
in country
Weekly excursions helpful,
but only if k value=5
Access to last FSOs network greatly
helps because starting k higher
- BS in International Policy, 27 y.o.
generation of FSO uses iPhone
- Thesis work used LOTS of data
- Speaks 2 languages, but feels at
home @ combinator in country
- Section chief gives lots travel $$, but
learning statecraft like hose
- Solves a problem only to show SC
and have them say “I already knew
this, and here’s 40 more pages @”
- Interested in proving himself, finding
niche in a massive/ competitive
organization that now will only look
@ previous work, not test scores
Embassy work done @
school-yard, doesn’t have kid
Reduced requests from “J” bureaus
means less time spent on busy work
“delegated” by SC and DCM

12. Awareness Interest consideration Purchase Keep unbundling up-sell cross-sell referral
Activity &
people
-Franklin
Square
-Facebook
-Matt T.
-Kara (FB)
-Tom
(google)
-CSO
-embassy
FSO
-DoD
? -evangelists
-promoters
Metrics follow up
calls or
pinging us
without us
pinging them
-willing to
give time
-asks for
pricing/quote
-requests
deployment
meeting
-payment
in account
-are they
actively
involved
weekly
basis?
?? -hardware
bundle -API
bundle
-
multilocation
?? -makes a
direct intro
GET KEEP
GROW