Financial Post article about ethics in CI - are CI practitioners truly an unseemly sort? - Competitive Intelligence2024-03-28T18:13:07Zhttp://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/forum/topics/financial-post-article-about?feed=yes&xn_auth=noThanks Craig - I wrote a very…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2008-11-13:2036441:Comment:118682008-11-13T22:29:22.532ZArik Johnsonhttp://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/ArikJohnson
Thanks Craig - <a href="http://www.aurorawdc.com/blog/president-elect-barack-obama-classic-case-study-intelligence-20">I wrote a very short blog post recently on the use of competitive intelligence in Barack Obama's campaign</a> that touched on why ethics was ever a problem in the first place and how we could and should just "get over it" today.<br />
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I often refer to the "<a href="http://www.aurorawdc.com/blog/rethinking-thinking-era-asymmetric-interpretation">Era of Asymmetric Information</a>"…
Thanks Craig - <a href="http://www.aurorawdc.com/blog/president-elect-barack-obama-classic-case-study-intelligence-20">I wrote a very short blog post recently on the use of competitive intelligence in Barack Obama's campaign</a> that touched on why ethics was ever a problem in the first place and how we could and should just "get over it" today.<br />
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I often refer to the "<a href="http://www.aurorawdc.com/blog/rethinking-thinking-era-asymmetric-interpretation">Era of Asymmetric Information</a>" (the first generation of CI, aka 'Intelligence 1.0' in my nomenclature) as having been governed by the leverage of information gaps (e.g., "I know something you don't know") to gain a temporary competitive advantage. My cornerstone argument is based on the contemporary transition to an open source world of "info-glut" where these kinds of information gaps are exceedingly and increasingly difficult to obtain and the interpretation of all this information becomes far, FAR more important.<br />
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Thus, the first generation of CI was focused on a drive toward acquisition of these very short-lived information advantages, however fleeting and magnificently risky to the firm's reputation, in the absence of some other mandate to the firm's employees, past-present-or-future. Ergo, ethics is an issue - even employees like the recent Intel example who thought the secrets he was stealing were valid knowledge capital in his move to competitor AMD have been mislead by this persistent ignorance of CI's real definition.<br />
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Today we are living in what I have called the Era of Asymmetric Interpretation, where analysis becomes paramount; likewise, the "2.0" part of Intelligence 2.0 is no accident - Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 objectify my point about culture (repeated in the article Craig shares above) almost perfectly. Everyone in the organization are low-engagement virtual members of the intelligence team and therefore must be trained, whether you like it or not, in how to do what needs to be done.<br />
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It is a governance priority for businesses everywhere that they learn what this next generation of intelligence in the enterprise is all about. If they don't, there is a real fiduciary liability for managers who fail to educate their staff in these matters.<br />
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Happily, this plays extremely well to the growth prospects for CI going forward and a HUGE marketing opportunity - we just need to get our leading lights and <i>intelligentsia</i> focused on CI as a cultural skill at the lowest ranks of the enterprise a much as it is a managerial one at the highest. Not as glamorous, but at least a couple of orders of magnitude larger a business development opportunity.