SCIP / Frost & Sullivan?

[Kieran Michael Brown]

So, what do we think about this? I've got no dog at all in this race, just sincerely curious about what others think.

[Michelle Drabik]

Ellen makes fine points about cooperation and people-centered business. If businesses could transform competition (especially internally) into cooperation, think of what could be accomplished!

I need to further clarify the role of information professionals, however. We’re kind of summing this up into librarians have customer service skills and CI professionals have analytical skills. I have met people with varied combinations of these skills in every profession. I’ve also met librarians lacking customer service skills and CI analysts lacking analytical skills.

There is a generalization made by CI professionals that the library is one of many “raw materials” suppliers to CI, or, as Ellen puts it, “the first step in our CI process.” Well, yes, one basic service of the library is to help you assemble information. It is also very disappointing when the CI team fails to see the library or other functional groups as anything other than feeders into the CI process, some extra hands to do the lower level work. It is a very competitive, not cooperative, outlook. Instead, the CI team should consider the library as a partner. Partners mutually respect each other’s equally valuable professional expertise. CI teams that fail to see the partnering opportunity with the library and with other peer functions are missing opportunities. (Libraries/others often miss this opportunity, too. Our natural instinct is to be the center of our own universe.)

As service groups, both the library and CI teams have a choice to act and allow themselves to be treated in either a servile or a consulting way. Servants are considered expendable and garner little respect. Acting as a consultant has a better value proposition for both the company and the professional. We all know which consultants are worthwhile…neither the arrogant and inexperienced recent ivy-league grad who tells the CEO how to run a company, nor the used-car-salesman type who tells you whatever you want to hear but offers no insight, but the consultant who works in partnership with you and offers expertise in complement to yours. Your library can be integrated into your CI process as a partner, or it can be an information vending machine. Which will better help the CI team and company to succeed?

High performing librarians are internal consultants whose expertise is in understanding and managing information/knowledge environments, not simply supplying literature.

CI professionals also can forget that analysis is not specific to CI work. Analytical thinking is applied in many disciplines and is a foundation of “intelligence” with a small “i” (in the intellectual sense). My degree is in chemistry, and being a scientist (and many other professions) requires rigorous analytical skills. So, when I made the point that high-performing librarians have analytical skills, I wasn’t referring to CI analysis, but how librarians apply analytical thinking to understand, predict, and leverage knowledge and information flows, directions, needs, behaviors, probabilities, contingencies, and opportunities.

So, what can be learned from all of this? Lately, librarians, IT professionals, and others directly impacted by the information age have all learned to reinvent themselves the hard way when parts of their jobs that used to be their exclusive domains became mainstream. More than a decade ago, I told my library staff that we wouldn’t be primarily doing information searches, ordering literature, or maintaining the OPAC anymore. They thought I was trying to eliminate their jobs – and I was, replacing old work with new responsibilities as consultants, coaches, and designers in a brave new information world. And, as our internal customers gained both new user-friendly information tools and competence in using them, as literature became digitally available, and as automatic linking between interfaces and holdings strengthened, all reducing the need for “old” library services, my team created value in new ways. Today, my team will tell you that not only did letting go of old paradigms save their jobs, but made them fun, interesting, and challenging again. Furthermore, our internal customers are invested in our success (they fight for us to get resources and make sure we full members of – not merely resources to – the hot project teams) and we have leadership support. We are partners in the enterprise because – in agreement with Ellen’s comments – we continue to evolve our role to address new unmet needs of customers. THAT’s how we approach customer service – we not only play nice, we play smart. (Sorry, Ellen, words like “service and giving” don’t apply to non-altruistic me. I do, however, feel I must focus on providing real value to the customer if I want both a sense of accomplishment and a paycheck.)

I believe that is what today’s SLA is trying to promote among its membership: a diverse community coming at information from different perspectives and sharing ways to leverage the very dynamic information environment. Ellen says it well, “I think these are some of the reasons that SLA's CI division is so successful. Librarians get where their role is in the company, that it's evolving and provide it with a spirit of service and giving”…I would add, “and partnership.” Maybe CI has reached the mainstream too, and it’s time for some disruption. SCIP, like SLA, can reinvent itself and its membership.

[Michael Neugarten]

Avner

My intent in trying over the years to get SCIP to look at the SLA was to get them to appreciate the wide spread of subjects that can legitimately fall under the aegis of CI.

This is not to say that there cannot be other nuances, but SCIP's notion that CI is a narrow field, understood, by only a limited and select few, has helped bring about the situation where SCIP is supported only by an increasingly limited and select few.

And as you know, this kind of narrow elitism has prevailed in the past with regard to CI-related organizations in other countries too, and with similar results - sharp drops in membership, and a feeling of unease on the part of those who were not considered to be "CI" material, and were thereby excluded - if not actively, then at least tacitly.

One point about the SLA, and for example, its Information Outlook magazine, is that they have at least consistently understood far better than SCIP how to reach out to a much wide(r) range of people, with many different backgrounds, capabilities, and career paths. And this in itself is often more suited to the eclectic range of those who now find themselves having to deal with their external competitive environment.

[Mislav Jurisic]

Once my father told me, when you are upset with something sleep it over. He didn't mention situation when sleeping is not an option :). That's why I kept quiet for some time :).

At my previous jobs I was involved a lot in M&A's from CI/Business development side. We felt „special“ not only beacuse it was very interesting work and we had an excellent team involved but also we had information that others didn't :) sounds familiar. When we would finish our due dilligence stuff and responsible people would sign the contract some parts of company, usually sales and marketing related would be (politely said )unhappy about it. The main reason was often just because they were not informed on time or were not fully briefed.
There are many reasons I guess for this and I kind of partially understand it. Sometimes you are pressed by time, sometimes by the opposite side, etc.

For curiosity I visited the website of F&S. Something I would do anyway if I was to analyse their intentions as part of my normal work. If one goes there and runs a search on „competitive intelligence“ you would get „221“ hits
(by the way business development 792, R&D 679, market research 503, investor 423, sales 332, marketing 215). Which one is next? :)
Why I'm using these keywords?

I read somewhere on their website „We accelerate growth“. I checked the presentation „The Chairman's series on Growth: The Role of Competitive Intelligence on the Growth Team“. Among other things they mention their „Growth Acceleration System“ which they promote as a service to CEO's and their teams. They use very strong statements for CI importance like „If growth is the oxygen of the company then Competitive Intelligence is adrenalin“. They promote CI to be in the CEO's growth team together with VP's for sales, marketing, business development, R&D and market research and investors (I guess relations). That's were I got those keywords from.
Among those 221 hits there are lot of past and future CI related events on which many respected SCIP members speak and participate.

So the commercial interest of F&S in CI from my point of view is very clear. They promote CI as something very important to CEO and his/her team, they have conferences and events about it, they probably need credibility. Not to mention that their CEO is very proud to state that he started his career in CI. I would just hope that they are not seeking some kind of monopol positions or opportunities. How will this relationship be managed separately from F&S Institute (I don't mean on paper but in heads), I hope for the best.

Apart for my analysis (:) )I don't feel I can add something of value to this conversation on global level, but looking at this from perspective of attempts to organise some CI community on local level (in my homecountry Croatia or more regionally in Eastern Europe) I'm worried that latest events could hurt its image over here (which is anyway not as one would hope, even though everyone involved in CI here knows about SCIP).

Couple of years ago when we started some local activites (with intention to organise an affiliate) promoting CI, organising some informal meetings and in doing so we promoted SCIP, we (three of us) managed to bring in (register as members) more than 20 people in relatively short time (less than half a year). As we didn't believe we can find 30 people quickly which are doing CI only we decided to involve other professions (PR, MR, strategy consulting, IT,….). Also we believed that we should not close in but open up to other professions and societies (just to mention that they view SCIP as competitor) and find synergies between ourselves. Anyway after 1 year most of the people didn't renew their subscription as they didn't found the value in being members (and some openly told me so). I'm not a member now either but that is purely for financial considerations.
So maybe a change in approach is needed when approaching countries and regions where CI communities are not that visible. Certainly I can not hope that small countries as Croatia would be on priority list but when goals and priorities are communicated it is easier to build own local approach, otherwise we will have many little non connected "societies". I believe some form of global society is needed and I feel I learned and gained a lot since I became member of SCIP and start communicating with other members.
Change is good as long as we know were we are heading at least on the level of vision and general direction. So I hope for positive changes that will be benefitial to us as people doing CI as well as those who will be doing it in the future.

[Klaus Solberg Söilen]

It strikes me when I read many of your comments that it is as if we need SCIP. The opposite situation is much truer, SCIP needs us, in fact we are SCIP, we form most of its content. (I have not been a member for the past few years, but have always been part of the network) If F&S decides to buy SCIP then they are buying us. Their income mainly consists of membership fees and conference fees. Its a little bit like Facebook, they expect members to change network when a better alternative appears or is developed.

There is also a question of economies of scale here. if the network is replaced by a number of smaller networks then the sum of its values will diminish. or in other words, it is better for the industry if we stick together. Now for me as an academic that has become more difficult after SCIP decided to redraw its peer reviewed journal. By doing so they forced all researchers over into a series of other networks, ECIS, SIIE, EBRF etc. A successful new network is one that is able to bring all these networks together. But to do so you also need to be truly global and you must be able to show impartiality.

[Arik Johnson]

To paraphrase a term that has emerged to describe meetings where PowerPoint is banned (the "unconference") are you suggesting a kind of "un-network" - or impartial non-society?

Does the absence of a legal identity/brand (such as SCIP, SLA, ECIS, SIEE, EBRF, etc.) mean the individual identities of the members (both organizations and pratitioners) can simply agree to affiliate based on their shared enthusiasm for the study and application of the ideas, rather than competing interests of various sub-groups?

Is "CI" cohesive enough an idea or discipline that it can survive strictly from the bottom up like that or does there need to be a more formal operating entity, with all the formalities that accompany it (articles of incorporation, budget/revenue, prime directive, etc.)? Or can we pool the interests of sub-groups who have such identities together to share knowledge and engagement across societies?

[Klaus Solberg Söilen]

Good questions, Arik. I am not sure I have all the answers. On your first question I think that any CI or BI organization, especially if it wants to attract academics, needs to show a clear impartiality. On the second, I think it is a shame if we cannot gather around a major interest organization, simply because that is often a better way of preserving the interests of the industry. The last question is a very interesting one indeed, and one that has always been discussed. We can follow the development of the field just by looking at the popularity of specific search words, from corporate intelligence to business intelligence, competitor i, competitive i, marketing i, and now market i. It is as though we see a return to marketing over the past 2 years. Besides that BI has developed into a field of its own with their own journals and different academics. Many academics treat this within decision Support. As an economist I am hardly let into the field of BI anymore by my computer sciences colleagues. They already know much better. At the same time there is the whole intelligence culture parallel to preserve which marketing does not have, and there is the often forgotten field of geopolitics and now geoeconomics, which my political science colleagues like to claim as theirs. But I guess this is all taking us too far away fro the main discussion here.


To be more specific, yes the intelligence services parallel is cohesive and interesting enough by itself to build a coherent discipline, as we indeed have, but I think it must be multidisciplinary to prosper. The large amount of technical solutions for BI is a good example of that. I think both professionals and academics will profit from gathering under the same umbrella organization as both groups are helping to move the field forward.

Greeting from Southern Sweden, where the rapeseed is now blossoming, Klaus

[Mark Johnson]

The value of a network (reverting to my telecom hat) is not really economies of scale. The proper term is network externality. The value of a network is in the potential number of connections. If it was always the case that a larger network is more valuable because of the sum of its value, the case could be made that there should only be one network and it should include everyone. However, that only happens if you assume all connections are equally valuable.

There are several negatives to a larger network. Lack of shared purpose. Congestion costs. Distraction from central values. There is also the implicit assumption that we're only talking about direct connections. But if you make allowances for the fact that I don't have to connect directly to everyone, the policy result is dramatically different. It's often quite valuable for me to connect with you...and you in turn connect to Europe for me.

The main point of this is that there is plenty of value in several small networks all interconnected. My job prospects in Dallas aren't helped a lot by having someone in Zagreb or Tbilisi in my network. In fact, if shared purpose is important, interconnected local networks may be much more valuable.

The implications for SCIP would make a profound difference if more emphasis was given to local networks. I recall again that the word CHAPTER does not appear in any form in the SCIP Strategic Plan. One could imagine WALMART without the word STORE or COMMUNITY in the strategic plan. The result would be ludicrous. We think of WalMart as an international behemoth, and in some respects it is. But without the local stores, there is no behemoth.

Job listings on the SCIP site are very helpful. But if the employer isn't willing to consider relocation, it is not of much value. In fact, the high price of job listing on a national site might DISCOURAGE job listings where the employer is only interested in local candidates. So in this case the stress on the NATIONAL or INTERNATIONAL network is a potential distraction from the local objective of finding a CI job.

[Kieran Michael Brown]

[half kidding]

Maybe we should see if the folks over at the QRCA will hold some focus group with CI vendors, corporate practitioners and academics and offer them something in trade, like, hmmm. Well, they are a happy bunch of folks over there; they'd probably settle for a couple of drinks after the groups.

[/half kidding]

Seriously though, one commonality to shared by many posts in this thread is that we as CI folk just don't know what we want out of a society. Perhaps we should first define that and then look for congruities with other associations and disciplines.

[Klaus Solberg Söilen]

Kieran,

I welcome this constructionist approach. There are three possible active solutions here, either we form our own new SCIP-like organization (1), or we try to find another part for a cooperation (2) or we accepted the merger (3). I think that what is important is that the community does not split into too many parts.

If we decide to look for other established partner, there are many that come to mind. If we narrow it down to those with a focus on CI one of the more dynamic is ATELIS in France. http://www.atelis.org/Version_ang/index.htm It is also possible to enlarge the field, to say knowledge management, decision support, market research, library science, or strategy, all with established fields of research, journals, conferences etc. But this is also connected with a number of risks and negative consequences. At the end it could be argued that what is the CI environment proper is the parallel to the vast number of state and public Intelligence Communities. We are so to say the private, open-source, within-the-law, analysis-focused and user friendly version of that vast community. As such we are already showing how intelligence work can be done more efficiently. What in my experience is most valued by customers of CI is not so much the librarian side as the analyses. On this part I am sure even many of the consultants could need some more training too, and there are courses.

It is worth mentioning that there is already a close cooperation/connection between BI (Software) and CI, between futurology/future studies and CI, and another one, even though weaker, between Geoeconomics/Geopolitics and CI. BI has been taken over by software engineers and Geopolitics is run largely by Political Scientists, Geographers and Historians, but we do manage to find mutual benefits of cooperation in research.

The strength of SCIP in the beginning was that there was an understanding of the value of having both practitioners and academics like myself under the same roof learning from each other. That I am convinced will create both better method development and more consultancy income.

Klaus

[Douglas BERNHARDT]

Klaus

I have been involved in competitive intelligence, and before that special intelligence-related services for a state-owned defence manufacturer, for nearly 25 years. When I first joined SCIP about 17 years ago I discovered an organisation that almost perfectly matched my needs and expectations for a professional body; it's mission seemed clear, its peer-reviewed flagship journal (Competitive Intelligence Review) was outstanding in every respect, the membership represented smart, enthusiastic CI professionals (a balanced mix of academics, former government intelligence officers, consultants, and down-in-the trenches practitioners), it was growing fast, it was fun, and most of all it was inspiring. It did not behave like a commercial organisation; happily at the time, and true to its charter, it behaved like a not-for-profit society of professionals with common purpose and needs.

I do not propose, here, to regurgitate all the arguments for and against the TAKEOVER of SCIP by F&S. To continue the debate over the decisions made by the SCIP board and office, together with their co-conspirators at F&S, is almost pointless. The Chair's letter of 7th May simply informed the world, no doubt 'for the record' of what was, in effect, a fait accompli. Indeed, it reminded me of the typical scene in a police drama where, in the final confrontation, the cops warn the villains with options "hands up, or we'll shoot!"

Assuming that a global organisation which represents and advances the interests of Competitive Intelligence as a profession is the best way to go, then you're absolutely right: the community will fragment, and will likely end up as a constellation of small nationally- and regionally-based parts. This may not be a bad thing, but we certainly should consider the implications. Some argue that global corporate giants are too big to be effective; that a better model would involve smaller, independent companies. Would firms like IBM, P&G, and SABMiller produce greater value if, for example, their brands were spun off as stand-alone business entities? Or are they more powerful, and do they deliver greater value to their stakeholders as they are? I'm simply posing the questions, like any good consultant I do not definitive answers.

Personally, as a lecturer in competitive intelligence at business schools in South Africa and Europe, I feel most at home with the International Association for Intelligence Education (IAFIE). SCIP offers nothing that compares with the knowledge value gained in the 24/7 real-time discussion, forums, and web links that IAFIE provides. And all for about $100! Although IAFIE is, of course, geared toward those who teach intelligence (thus matching my specific professional interests), it certainly represents one model that deserves some thought. It works, and it's largely web based (although there is an annual conference, which costs half as much as the annual SCIP events).

Perhaps it would be more constructive if we now focus our future energies, as you put it, on "constructive solutions".

Regards
Douglas Bernhardt

[Klaus Solberg Söilen]

Dear Douglas

It is good to see you here. Your 1993 book is well known. It may be as you say that it is a fait accompli, in which case the discussion is more one of staying or leaving. I think personally that the fact that this must have been well known to the board before the Chicago meeting and that there were no discussion then speaks much for itself.

For those leaving there are a number of possibilities. I will not back any one horse here, but I am curious whether or not this will end up back into the classical Anglo-Saxon vs French vs German vs Chinese camps, or whether or not we who are the advocates of open sources take the opportunity to gather in a more global constellation. I really hope so, and think it would do the profession much good, both academically and financially.

As previously announced, on the request of some ex SCIP members here, the topic of organization will be discussed during the ECIS 2009 Conference in Stockholm this summer. http://www.atelis.org/Version_ang/pages/evenements_3colloque_europe...

In the meantime I am pleased that the topic has opened up such a large discussion here on the ning and welcome its continuity.

Klaus

[Arik Johnson]

Hi Klaus - I'm really interested in your (and others) take-aways from the Stockholm meeting. I had sincerely planned to attend (for the first time) but unfortunately have just too many conpeting prorities elsewhere in the world. I wish you great success at your meeting and look forward to any observations or advice that result.

- Arik