According to a report, Keith Alexander is a Star Trek aficionado and operated from a room modeled on the Starship Enterprise. Something like this? (Credit: Captain Trekkie/YouTube Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET) If you're spending long hours in a stressful job, you need a positive work environment. One way to achieve that is office design. It is possible that the director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith Alexander, understands this fully. For he is said to have commissioned an Information Dominance Center visually stimulated by the Starship Enterprise. According to Foreign Policy, a Hollywood set designer was commissioned. He duly created an office in Fort Belvoir, Va., "to mimic the bridge of the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, complete with chrome panels, computer stations, a huge TV monitor on the forward wall, and doors that made a 'whoosh' sound when they slid open and closed." It is unknown whether there was also a man with specially enhanced pointed ears, there to listen in to the world's chatter. However, Foreign Policy quotes one retired officer as saying: "Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard." Naturally, this news has caused some consternation among mortals. More Technically Incorrect Why isn't there a Steve Jobs of social networking? AirBnB's first TV ad: You are a paper plane Why can't Microsoft slam Apple with style? Justin Bieber to play Robin in 'Batman vs. Superman'? Google Street View driver makes case for robo-driven cars -- he hits two buses (and a truck) The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald discovered what seem to be images of this Spyship Enterprise on the Web site of DBI Architects. (Oddly, this site appears to be currently overloaded with visitors.) The whole enterprise seems to spread across 10,740 square feet and would have presumably been financed from the pockets of ordinary (and less ordinary) Americans. Perhaps, though, we should be grateful that the general is a Trekkie. Please imagine the difficulties if he had been an aficionado of, say, Cinderella. It would have been unseemly for a spy center to look like a glass slipper. And what if there had been a huge motto about the door that read: "You have until midnight before we come to get you!!!"? Disturbing, too, would have been the prospect if the general had been a die-hard Nascar fan. I can picture all the bright colors and corporate logos that would have been strewn around the building, with staff crashing into each other to curry the general's favor. It would have been symbolism gone mad. On balance, it's surely a fine and forward-thinking idea that the Information Dominance Center was based on the Enterprise. The Starfleet always came in peace. It existed in order to maintain stability in the galaxies and preserve a certain sense of civilization. I just wonder what the folks at the Information Dominance Center wore on casual Fridays.
According to a report, Keith Alexander is a Star Trek aficionado and operated from a room modeled on the Starship Enterprise.
Something like this?
(Credit: Captain Trekkie/YouTube Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
If you're spending long hours in a stressful job, you need a positive work environment.
One way to achieve that is office design.
It is possible that the director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith Alexander, understands this fully. For he is said to have commissioned an Information Dominance Center visually stimulated by the Starship Enterprise.
According to Foreign Policy, a Hollywood set designer was commissioned.
He duly created an office in Fort Belvoir, Va., "to mimic the bridge of the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, complete with chrome panels, computer stations, a huge TV monitor on the forward wall, and doors that made a 'whoosh' sound when they slid open and closed."
It is unknown whether there was also a man with specially enhanced pointed ears, there to listen in to the world's chatter.
However, Foreign Policy quotes one retired officer as saying: "Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard."
Naturally, this news has caused some consternation among mortals.
More Technically Incorrect
- Why isn't there a Steve Jobs of social networking?
- AirBnB's first TV ad: You are a paper plane
- Why can't Microsoft slam Apple with style?
- Justin Bieber to play Robin in 'Batman vs. Superman'?
- Google Street View driver makes case for robo-driven cars -- he hits two buses (and a truck)
The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald discovered what seem to be images of this Spyship Enterprise on the Web site of DBI Architects. (Oddly, this site appears to be currently overloaded with visitors.)
The whole enterprise seems to spread across 10,740 square feet and would have presumably been financed from the pockets of ordinary (and less ordinary) Americans.
Perhaps, though, we should be grateful that the general is a Trekkie.
Please imagine the difficulties if he had been an aficionado of, say, Cinderella. It would have been unseemly for a spy center to look like a glass slipper.
And what if there had been a huge motto about the door that read: "You have until midnight before we come to get you!!!"?
Disturbing, too, would have been the prospect if the general had been a die-hard Nascar fan. I can picture all the bright colors and corporate logos that would have been strewn around the building, with staff crashing into each other to curry the general's favor.
It would have been symbolism gone mad.
On balance, it's surely a fine and forward-thinking idea that the Information Dominance Center was based on the Enterprise.
The Starfleet always came in peace. It existed in order to maintain stability in the galaxies and preserve a certain sense of civilization.
I just wonder what the folks at the Information Dominance Center wore on casual Fridays.
