STS Launches Tech Talk Team Room Podcast

There are tons of podcasts out there about SOF. You can go on Spotify and find any number of podcasts about Selection, the Ranger Regiment, various combat operations, etc. etc., but there aren’t many, or any, that really get after the technical side of support to Special Operations, or how to drive innovation, and that is what we want to do here.

Obviously 9/11 changed everything. It changed the way Special Operations were employed, and it fundamentally changed how communicators supported Special Operations. The first several years after 9/11, there was near constant rapid change; requirements simply didn’t match capability — distributed C2, unblinking eye, globally connected secure comms– everything from tactical to strategic.  There is a quote from a famous former SOF Commander- “It takes a Network to Defeat a Network”.  Well, before that networked Team crystallized, we had to BUILD a C5I Network from the ground up.  Along the way SOF produced some of the most innovative minds, and innovative capabilities in the U.S. government. We look at what we did back then, and in some cases, we’ve said — Would we do that again? What would we do differently? How can we continue to leverage those innovative minds to solve new/emerging problems?  These are some of the questions we want to address in our podcasts. 


Fast forward, past 9/11, 25 years later, most of the people that were in that post 9/11 fight are no longer in uniform but are still supporting SOF in a variety of ways. I didn’t really appreciate this until I went to my first SOF Week after retiring from the Army and stood in the annual JCU Alumni picture, and there were at least 50 people in the photo.  It’s incredible there is that much talent, expertise, and intellect in one place directly supporting SOF. I didn’t realize how many people from that era are supporting Special Operations in industry, it’s mind boggling, and an untapped resource.

We started discussing how do we get these people together and have real conversations that can connect capabilities, synergize requirements, and deliver something the acquisition process alone doesn’t lend itself to do as well as a group of very smart, very focused, very experienced professionals that have been on the other side working true innovation. This is how “Tech Talk Team Room” was born. The concept of the team room is, again, real conversations on how to get things done in a casual setting, be it smoking cigars around a fire pit or at 2 o’clock in the morning in a Tampa hotel lobby during SOF Week. That is where the greatest ideas come from.

This podcast, and the ones to follow, are aimed at bringing people together, having conversations, innovating, coming up with good ideas, and then pushing forward to solve problems.  We need help in making it successful.  Come to the Team Room and let’s chat!