The YouTube War. An interesting article about the war and how YouTube and other Web 2.0 tools are changing the landscape. The author seems to be drawing inferences where they may not exist. To wit; the soldier is annoyed that he's guarding a truck full of cheescake. Sure. I would be to. Bottom line, he's guarding it not because it's full of cheesecake, but because it's US property and we dont' want it to disappear. Cox hints that this discontentment can be extrapolated to include the entire mission. I don't think so. Soldiers like to fight. It's why they train and often a big part of why the joined. They didn't join for the exciting opportunity to guard a truck filled with cheesecake.

As in any large organization, morale is a fluid thing. Doing something you think has value to the organization and its mission and doing it well can spike morale very quickly. The petty and annoying crap that needs to be done can kill it just as quickly. However, those things still need to be done. I hate technical writing and documenting procedures and change logs but it still needs to be done. I gripe and complain when I do it, but I complain more when I get to an organization that doesn't have them. Then I'm flying blind and have to re-invent the wheel before I can do anything that is useful or productive.

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