CI Fall 2013

This is an article written by Naylor that gives a good introduction to the topic of Cooperative Intelligence, tracing its development and discussing today's challenges.

Another podcast from the same series that Phebe linked below, this one dealing specifically with the question of what defines interviewing vs, elicitation. Basically it seems to come down to a matter of preparedness and attitude: interviewing implies a certain standard method of approach, that seems to smell of some "quantitative" aspect. Elicitation is more about engaging people indirectly to gain intelligence, using the natural tendencies of our human "wetwork" that entices us to explain, correct, etc. It's nothing we haven't heard before, but some of the specific instances of elicitation make this an interesting read. It especially hit a button for me because they mention the conversational trick of adopting someone's vocabulary to emulate being on their "wavelength", which is something that I recall from making my presentation on Presenting Information!

I like the tradeshow intelligence example they used. When I used to help out at our association's trade shows, I thought it strange that competitors spoke to each other. Through this class, I've learned they they may have been gathering primary intelligence. Tradeshows are unique environments because it is not considered unacceptable for exhibitors to visit each other's booths to check out products or services and ask questions about them.

Greg, the conversation trick was what I like the most as well. That was a good read!

In this article, the author talks about cooperative intelligence and the warnings CI can face, such as using primary and secondary resources; internal and external sources, etc.

Excellent read, comprehensive and thorough. It is interesting however, it must have been written a few years ago. Ellen mentions Lexis-Nexis which is located near my home. They are laying people off. I think they have been out-googled. I'm not sure if this means that secondary intelligence is easier to obtain on the internet or if it means challenges in accurate information accrual. Maybe it means a little of both.

What I most noticed was her focus on people and relationships and creating that cooperative environment/relationships where people are willing to share information.

This is very James Bond.  This can be friendly as well, a conversation in which people share knowledge which might be beneficial to them both.  Buyers might tell a rep something in confidence to help the rep and the rep often returns the favor.  

Good find, Cynthia. Naylor noted the exchange of information (quid pro quo), which you reference above. That is an interesting approach. One thing that really caught my eye in this brochure was that "Elicitation requires patience." Collecting pieces of information over time can pay off but you have to be diligent and prevent yourself from getting frustrated when conversations don't go as planned. Practice seems to increase the chance of a successful outcome.

What an amazing document you've found, Cynthia! Especially, for me, because it touches on some of the gray area that, so far in this course, we've been encouraged to find absolutely "white." I believe that Tyson, or Naylor, or any of the many authors we've read this semester might have been able to point to one of the tools mentioned in this document, and without the context of a government warning, would have said honestly that it is an example of an ethical information-gathering technique. These same authors have often gone out of their way to represent the business environment as a place that is not zero-sum, where intelligence gathering -- especially primary source info gathering, if it is done ethically -- is given a clean "bill of health", regardless of whether or not the information is being relayed into intelligence for a competitor. This government document, despite its urging the reader not to be paranoid, definitely paints even ethical information gathering as being dangerous in a zero-sum kind of world, where the potential for unintentional slippage of info is a categorical evil as opposed to the "good" of secrecy. Is it so appreciably different from the business environment that the comparison is moot? I don't think so.

Nielsen's new "topten" app seems harmless enough: offer consumers a quick and easy way to find out the most popular TV shows, books, songs, video games, movies and more. You know, the kind of rankings found in publications like Entertainment Weekly or the local newspaper. But in Washington, privacy hawks are cringing, saying Nielsen isn't coming clean about what they say is the underlying purpose of the app: to collect more consumer information for the research it sell advertisers, agencies and the media.Nielsen is promoting its app not as a market research tool, but as a consumer entertainment tool, tucking away how it collects and shares data inside its privacy policy.

I suspect this is the case with many apps and social media networks. Every time I update the apps on my phone and have to agree to the vendor capturing personal information including my location, I get that "Big Brother" feeling. More often, it seems that we must relinquish some of our privacy in order to get the latest information. Above-board CI practices do not require such compromises.

The author discusses about primary intelligence creates "CI Heroes". This is where I have a very few selected CI vendors and practitioners who are pushing the envelope in attaching value and revenue contribution to Intelligence work, be it Market, Competitive or Sales Intelligence.

This has some great perspectives on CI, sales, and results. I think attaching a dollar amour can be a difficult task, but sometimes that is the attribute that drives decisions home. Thanks for this one!

This short podcast discusses the best way to identify which business representatives to interview during the primary intelligence gathering process. It mentions using social networks including LinkedIn as well as public resumes, interviews, and collateral to identify the business professionals who will provide information that is the most relevant and valuable to the CI process.

"prepare to conduct a telephone or in-person interview when gathering information to help clients make important strategic or tactical decisions" The seed of success is the conversation, and understanding the clients needs

This is the second Ellen Naylor article I posted. This is directly related to this weeks question. For those who have never sold it is a great over view of how cold calls apply to research.

That is, John Dewey. This is from 1936. I post this because it gives another sense of what cooperative intelligence may be. I think Dewey goes way too far about the collective good.

This academic paper makes a case for blogs, forums, and microblogs (e.g. Twitter) as primary sources of competitive intelligence data and information.

Longer than most Diigo articles but a good read. I found the explanation of writing this academic article as a competitive act really interesting. Some discussion of primary intelligence. Cooperative Intelligence and tools to facilitate it are covered on pgs. 246 to 247.

This great little blog post was the inspiration for my post in the class Discussion area. Six Sigma is a HUGELY renowned and respected analysis and process improvement methodology: professionals can make entire careers based off of implementing its tenets, either internal to a company or externally as consultants and advisors. But at what point does process improvement just stop honing the edge of effectiveness and become data-begetting-data? Does it draw conclusions and actionable inferences, or just show trends and graph points, and leave it to other tools to actually make use of them? Compelling questions, especially when so much money is involved!

Six Sigma can get so complex and many companies seem to get wrapped up in it, eventually missing the point of the entire process, as you indicate. A company I worked for attempted to achieve the black belt level unofficially and the process was painful, though I'm sure that's not always the case.

This article explains scenario planning on the basis that, as we've seen with many of our course readings this semester, "The past is not a good predictor of the future." Illustrates the basic framework for strategic planning which can either focus on social, technological, economic, and political factors and serves to answer three questions: What could happen? How would this impact us? How should we react?

Nice combination of scenario analysis and PEST. I think more companies are incorporating scenario analysis into their strategic planning processes. This also ties into the early warning approach advocated by Ellen Naylor in the week 12 reading.

my goodness Ross! You must be doing some serious primary intelligence interviewing!

When I was younger, I wanted to work for the CIA...not sure if I would have made it through this training!

Briefly lists 50 CI analysis techniques. I am new to this field and have to say I have never heard of many of these! Some of the names toward the bottom of the list seem quite humorous -- Alien Eye Analysis, Blue Ocean Strategy, Strategic Chessboard...

This was one of those article I found that totally overwhelmed me as I said in my Diigo post in the shell! One list I found had over 50 techniques!

This one came across the Competia feed in my dashboard for this class and I liked how it included level of complexity and descriptive images. War Game Theory- just like the 80's movie!

When conducting an interview, most people know who you are and why you want to talk to them, except when you are cold calling, which is what we do often enough in competitive intelligence.

Good advice for interviewing.

This is a great resource for anyone that has to write a SWOT analysis for a business plan for the final project.

Nice find, thanks for sharing

One of the analysis techniques that caught my eye in the list of 50 techniques that I posted earlier was Game Theory which proposes making decisions based on the anticipated reaction of competitors. This video and article is based on a book in which the author explains how Jane Austen's novels showcases game theory (and strong female characters!) way before the term "game theory" was coined.

Meaghan, this is a great article! Although I did laugh, he make some great point about human decision making. Not all people are analytical in their decision making, some are emotional as well.

This is a great pdf that explains PEST (and its various colorations) as well as providing some starting points for brainstorming.

this is great Autumn, well laid out, simple and with the template. I keep thinking I like this strategy better than my original choice of SWOT.