It makes me think of the 1990s Saturday Night Live skit "Coffee Talk" with Mike Meyers playing Linda Richmond. "I'm getting a little verklemp... talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: Competitive Intelligence is neither competitive nor intelligent. Discuss."
The silly season is upon both Competitive Intelligence ( http://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/ ) and Multilingual Studies at a Distance ( http://fedcba.ning.com/ ), isn't it? But, joking apart, I'm afraid Christopher Caldwell's article Mixing morals and money ( http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/84dbc704-6d7c-11de-8b19-00144feabdc0.html... ) published in Financial Times the day before yesterday forces us to ask another question: Is Competitive Intelligence either competitive or ethical? I mean especially his observation "Globalisation can break down cultures, and with them the moral systems in light of which it can be judged." However, do cultures and with them the moral systems have only a tendency to disappearance? Do you remember my reply to Vivek Raghuvanshi ( http://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/xn/detail/2036441:Comment:2... )? In place of old cultures and moral systems, new cultures and moral systems appear and develop, isn't that so? Try to guess how in the light of those new moral systems Competitive Intelligence will be judged. Will it be judged as severe as Hercule Poirot and Captain Arthur Hastings have been judged by Chief Inspector James Japp ( http://fedcba.ning.com/video/the-adventure-of-johnnie )? ;-)
Found one reference to it:
"For law firms, CI involves gathering and analyzing external information to help make better decisions – and gain a competitive advantage. But while many firms are talking about competitive intelligence, very few actually have a well-planned and executed CI strategy – and CI without a strategy is neither competitive nor intelligent." Since it quotes Ben Gilad in the previous paragraph, it's probably in one of his articles.
[Christina R. Fritsch, JD, 2008/04/15 Legal marketing association, Google cache]