Charles Cameron sent me a very cool note on the type of people needed for an intelligence skunk works:
My own take is that mental flexibility (the capacity to rapidly reframe
a situation through a dozen diverse contexts) would be part of it is
the key resource here, and that the opposite of it, whether it is
called wearing blinkers, adopting the group think of one's peers,
remaining inside the box, not questioning one's assumptions or having a
blind spot, is the real problem with the present situation. I
agree. Much of this flexibility comes from diverse interdisciplinary
experiences (in the military, financial markets, business, technology,
etc.). [John Robb's Weblog]