Technology and Culture

The role of users as agents of technological change has been well established in the commercial realm, but military bureaucracy poses challenges to user innovation in theory and practice. This article relates the history of a U.S. military software application called FalconView, which emerged in the 1990s as a user-developed alternative to official Air Force mission planning systems and then evolved through user networks in the 2000s to become a de facto standard for geospatial information processing in all the services. Military user innovation in information technology is far more prevalent than generally assumed, but in order to sustain user-centered alternatives to traditional bureaucratic procurement over the long term, ironically enough, enthusiasts must adopt bureaucratic characteristics. This case offers new perspectives on the role of technology users, the sources of military innovation, the "revolution in military affairs," and computing historiography.