As outlined in Valerie Shuman's vision a few weeks ago, the Intelligence Collaborative will really revolve around initiatives that come under the "umbrella" of the group. Instead of being "in charge" of such initiatives, or providing capital for such activities, the Collaborative becomes a place where you can register your intentions with your fellow colleagues, gain momentum, support, advice, and volunteers, and move forward into the future.

Based on our conversations last Friday, it seems that already two initiatives are forming up.

1. Intelligence Mentoring

Discussions with Martha Matteo led to us define the need for mentoring for students and young professionals looking to continue cultivate a lifelong career in intelligence. This initiative could unite younger professionals with highly experienced thoughtleaders for mentoring and coaching opportunities, as well as bringing educators together with potential speakers for their programs.

2. Portuguese language intelligence community

As suggested by Lisbon-based professor and strategy consultant Miguel Duarte Ferreira, the Intelligence Collaborative can be a place where intelligence professionals who speak Portuguese can come together to share articles, opportunities for online training, and potential speakers.

To me, both of these sound VERY cool, and I look forward to participating in both of these initiatives. The question is, what platform might we use to coordinate these activities? This Ning site? Google Wave? Other?

Also - what other initiatives are you interested in proposing? Our Friday morning conference calls might be good place to get discussions going.

That's all for now. Exciting stuff!