Oldie but goodie

The way to do Intelligence has its styles depending on cultural backgrounds, local geographic patterns and a country's history.

The way Japan does its intelligence is different from that of England, as this later is not the same as the one practiced in Germany.

It is not new that Sweden is among top countries when it comes to Intelligence Economique, or Competitive Intelligence for the Anglo-Saxons. Finland has its place on the hall of stong CI too. Now Norway is a bit different, they do their CI too, but in silence....yet they rule behind the scenes.

Scandinavian countries have a history of battles, wars, commerce and logistic. After all, life was not easy those days, as they were never too many, had to work out their own solutions to protect themselves against nearby oppressors.
They also were great navigators, there are signs of vikings all over the coast of America, both north and south ones. Commerce was a part of their culture, once they had to prepare what they needed, transport it, and stock it for the long months of winter.

La veille - the watching - is based on ODA principle: observe, direct, act. And it has been like this since men started their battles for all different reasons. Vikings did no different.

We then start to see this intelligence heritage puzzle fitting into the big picture. But this is based on academic analysis, simple A + B reasoning with the aid of Geopolitics which leads us to plausible conclusions.

Then the confirmation of all above paragraphs comes in a form of a simple set of laws. True ones, today part of scands' ties with their past.

It is a small postcard, that has been hanging on my living room wall for over five years, souvenir of a lovely trip to Norway.

In fact I had never seen it that way. I thought it was cool, funny, perhaps clever way to tell how it was done back on those days.... But then I read it again tonight and saw it in a different way...

Those old Scandinavian warriors knew it all about intelligence! After all, they were the ones responsible for their own conquests, be it in commerce or the batte field. The observation of the world, direction for further local improvements and all the plans of action to execute the tasks at stake have always been part of their lives.

It only proved that Intelligence is, above all, "un état d'esprit". So, here its, a set of rules that explain why scand's are so good on doing Intelligence, as it has been around for well over a thousand years!

VIKING LAWS

1 - BE BRAVE AND AGGRESSIVE
Be direct
Grab all opportunities
Use varying methods of attack
Be versatile and agile
Attack one target at a time
Don't plan everything in detail
Use top quality weapons

2 - BE PREPARED
Keep weapons in good conditions
Keep in shape
Find good battle comrades
Agree on important points
Choose ONE chief

3 - BE A GOOD MERCHANT
Find out what the market needs
Don't promise what you can't keep
Don't demand overpayment
Arrange things so that you can return

4 - KEEP THE CAMP IN ORDER
Keep things tidy and organized
Arrange enjoyable activities which strengthen the group
Make sure everyone does useful work
Consult all members of the group for advice

Voilà, if we put these simple laws into today's economic perspective, we have what to work with.

Amazingly compatible. Oldie but goodie !!!
Things have indeed been the same for quite a long time!

These laws made me curious to find out if we would obtain the same by checking out the code or laws of the Samurai...

But that would be a subject for another post!

Dealing with the Web

Take one -July 1988, First year of college: back then I knew beans of informatics, and so did great part of the class I had began studying with.

Every time we came across difficulties to find out more about a subject, say, "databases", we had no other way but to run to the library. There it was possible to find some books, papers, magazines. And stay there for hours selecting what we wanted! Then it was just a matter of getting on the line to make xerox copies and go back home with some material.

Now and then the librarian could try to find something extra for us elsewhere, and that could take a few days, maybe a week. If that was the case, back to the library, and repeat the process described above. And that for as many times as the librarian could have his hands on the material we suggested as the research went deeper....

At the end we could have a good list of articles, from, say, 100 to 150 initial sources.

Take two - August 2009, writing this article: I have Google! And I may use to do the same research done during my scholar experience some twenty years ago. Out in the garden, wireless, without taking a step out the security of my home, I get the astonishing amount of 97.200.000 references to the same keyword "databases", 96.300.000 if we stick to English only. Add to that all the magics of selections which allow me to see the most recent articles, images, time line for the keyword, related subjects, and so on....but we will stay simple, and work with the raw figures. Now, let us make believe I have developed a super intelligent software capable of analyzing the content of each document of my research result in just ONE SECOND. Not bad!

Take three, august 2012: My super intelligent content analyzing software finishes its task. It did a perfect job telling me what was accurate and relevant to my research. And most of all, it indicated me the reliable data to be used.

I do not know about you, but three years is a long time!

Conclusion: I have two possible solutions: Whether I develop an even better software, or control what in Information Technology is called overhead, which is, basically, the cost-benefit and the generated lack of capacity when we deal with excesses.

As I am no genius in software development, I skip the first option. But I am indeed a consultant on Intelligence Economique, who is, say, prepared to deal with this data avalanche. So let us take a look at the scenario as it is presented today.

1 - It is wise to think that great amounts of information WILL NOT bring you good learning. Even when we have reliable information (which is not always the case on the web) the misunderstandings and distortions due to non contextualizing and lack of integration - of this good information - may take you off the track.

2 - Needless to discuss that the web has made knowledge available to everyone. More recently, it has become a two-way experience. You access the information (web 1.0); and you react to it, or you publish what you want (web 2.0). Everyone can be a reader an author at the same time, on any given subject! The PhD in Rocket Propulsion will share his favorite tacos secrets, as he may give you a hint on a home-made rocket too. The clerk at the gas station will have his word to say on soccer, and give his opinion to the national coach for next year's world cup. And these two fellows may share their ideas to fight the swine flu....

It is super cool! I agree.

However, an evil side awaits the unprepared seeker for information - the good one. This two-way knowledge democratization has its drawbacks. The author of an article, or the one commenting an article should be responsible for what they write. But it is not always the case. Reasons are many: the lack of ethics, pride or complete lack of responsibility.

3 - Information comes from all over the place. The rocket scientist mentioned above may write brilliant articles which will fulfill us with the latest knowledge on the technology to propel us into space. But, a 15-old-weekend-warrior-rocket amateur MAY ALSO write about the same subject, giving imprecise, dangerous.....and irresponsible information.

4 - Knowing to distinguish one form the other is crucial. Trust is the key word here. The principles of meritocracy have to be applied. The rocket scientist has had years of study, privations, and efforts to be where he is at, and write about what HE KNOWS.

On the web, his opinion may be confused with those of the teenager, who THINKS HE KNOWS, who is a self-claimed specialist.

5 - To get get the good information today is more difficult than it was in the past.

Small example: Get a good blog on politics. Some have over 200 daily comments on a hot subject. Great participation of the readers in numbers. But quality wise, we see all kinds of grammatical faults and opinions with no statistical value whatsoever, to say the least. Sure there are good comments, but at what price to find them? As the make-believe software of the beginning of the text, it may take you long to find them, making a Pirro's wining battle.

6 - As time is money, we need the good information fast. But the ocean is way to big to catch the good fish all the time. The image of a needle lost in a haystack is long gone for the web, where its contents doubles every few 5.3 years, according to Chinese researches. So, we can imagine that the time and cost to find the relevant information increases all along.

What to do to face this issue?

1 -The Quality web site stamps are a good start. It may add some criteria to the web. By sorting out the good guys form the bad ones, we will see who is who in the pack.

2 - The raising of web users' responsibility. It is crucial to have the participation of all on this process of developing a new awareness, or cyber maturity as some prefer.

3 - Application of Intelligence methods that work with the cycle of information are absolutely necessary: sourcing, research, fetching, validation, cross referencing, analysis and diffusion - these are stepping stones to help us all. And trust me, it is a heck out of work. This has become so important that forced a new breed of professionals to be born: intelligence consultants, true information architects, dedicated to the seeking of data. Let us make cleat that this new area of professionals has nothing to do with that of the spies. These consultants are but ones with great capacity of providing the good information.

4- See what web 3.0 may brings us in terms of innovation. It is for sure able to provide us some good results on understanding and satisfying the requests of people using the web.

So, let us not be caught by the singing of one of Ulysses' sirens. For the time being, stay critical and vigilant all the time, and try to find some training on how to better explore web resources.

Umberto Eco once said that a society with excess of information may not be different from one lacking it.

He might as well be right, but on what depends on us, Intelligence Factory Consultants, we will do our best to prove him wrong.

How Rich are we?

There are several well known magazines and sites throughout the web to list the top 100, top 500 great fortunes of the planet.
These folks have dreamlike lives, where money does not count much. It is a matter of what they want, not what they can afford.

Considering that we are 7billion on sharing Gaia, have you ever thought where are you placed on an hypothetical world wealth list ?
These guys have an estimate of where you would be placed.
Type in your annual income (salary+other revenues included) and it will give you your rank among all inhabitants of the globe.
You, as I, might be surprised of our placement. We are INDEED fortunate ones if we look at the percentage that we might come to be placed at.

It sure put us to think about taxation of great fortunes, sparing with the less fortunets ones, human greed and social programs in poor areas of the world.
I have already heard a theory that if today all the world's wealth were shared equally among everyone, in 30 years' time it would come back to the same hands as it is today, due to one's capacity, competence, intelligence, business aggressiveness, or simply because some of us are gifted and take the most out of it.

But the issue here points to another facet of the question, and you may name it as you wish: to give a hand, to share, charity, subvention....
When we aid, we feel better. When we share we lift our spirits, when we lead the way in a new model of growth, we warm hearts and we make a difference!

By simply HELPING OUT the ones in the need on our way to wealthiness, we will sure put a smile on someone's face along our path. We will give a future to the hopeless, or a different life perspective to numberless children.

Our actions of sharing and the application of new models of sustainable growth may not make history books, but at least after we are gone we will be remembered by some, perhaps, a little longer.

Credits with a bow of hat to Make wealth history for the inspirational tip for this article.

Time for Innovation

History shows us: hard times have pushed mankind to move forward. Looking back at the last one hundred years, the large scale use of airplanes, control of atomic energy and the man on the moon are good examples.

No matter whether they were times of wars, natural disorders or economic crisis, some good always came out of evil, just as we see it in nature.
We have the opportunity to witness now, as it unfolds before our eyes, another tough period.

So, how shall we profit it?

Simply by letting the those insights, those dreams and those great ideas out. Then it is just a matter of separating the superb ones, and hands on to work! Make money! Create jobs! Cooperate for a better society! It is time to invent and reinvent things!

This bulk of superb ideas will certainly produce some innovation. It may come out in the form of a new product, a new method, or most commonly, a new service. Remember that today's common ones, once were great innovations.

- Imagine the guy who had the idea to tie together Pizza+Motorbike/car to come up with pizza home delivery. He would be millionaire by now if he had ever registered it.

- Or the individual at a large fastfood company that added the sale of Sandwiches + hunger of mobel clients. He came up with the drive through. Both examples show the simplicity of joining two already existing services to create a brand new one.

Needless to say that we, average Joe's, are able to come up with great ideas. The matter resides in putting them into practice. For a self entreprenor or a company, these days of crisis might give you a shot, even if there are countless reasons telling you not to innovate.

We have selected ten of most common ones (and they are in great number, belive us) to be prepared for:

1. Definition of "innovation" (framed as an initiative, not a normal way of doing business).
2. No sense of urgency nor strategy.
3. Employees suffers from "initiative fatigue".
4. Senior Team is not aligned and/or CEO does not fully embrace the effort.
5. No compelling vision or reason to innovate.
6. Key players lack time to focus on innovation.
7. Innovation champions are not empowered, generating lack of trust.
8. Non-existent or fuzzy decision making processes.
9. Cost cutting or incremental improvement culture.(we stay where we are, producing more with less).
10. Employers ruled by past assumptions and old mental models.

Are we motivated yet? Do you feel that you have that super, doable, business oriented, impossible- to- fail innovating idea?

The Intelligence Factory is there to help you out to put it into practice, by making it easier the task of braking paradigms, cultural barries and low spirits.

We are able to give you a hand with: creativity, observation, perseverance, oral and written communication, analysis capacity, business hints and clues, strategic approach, business terminology, market monitoring, presentation of new ideas and sourcing.

Moreover, we may work out solutions using our knowledge on methodologies, power structures inside companies, decision making processes, the development of competances, control of changing habits and the industry in general.

So, next time you come up with that so called long shot idea, do not let it aside, to be shared with your buddies at your favorite bar.
Drop us a line and maybe we can help you make your idea a profitable, innovating one!

Photo by Felipe T. Marques at Flickr