Introduction (Toni Wilson)

We started CI Week on the FR365 blog with a description of what competitive intelligence is and what it is not, and we are closing the week with the same focus – understanding what CI is and the value it delivers for information professionals and organizations with goals to be future-ready.  This blog post offers a graphic and practical description of how CI can be applied in real-world situations.

Picture this:  You are stuck in a horror film – a typical B-movie situation that already has multiple people dead or missing.  Do you want to go into the woods alone searching for a friend who has run off after a half-werewolf, half-robot-alien creature from the future has killed two of your other friends already?  If only you knew something about the Were-Bot.  Does it get full on two people or does it want to eat more?  Does it sleep after eating?  Perhaps it doesn’t like the taste of librarians.  All of this information could help you choose a future path, action, or next step.  It would be useful in this situation to have a Competitive Intelligence report on Were-Bots, and a librarian would be just the person to put it together.  Whether your business is ladders or law, school or screwdrivers, knowing what your competitors are doing, the composition of your clients, or, like our B-movie situation, the eating habits of your enemies, is invaluable.  The addition of this in-depth information can allow you to analyze yourself in relation to your partners within the company, and how, as a whole, you can relate to those outside.  Competitive intelligence makes an organization future ready by researching, compiling, and analyzing information on THEM, and it is this information that allows the right choices to be made moving forward.

Charles H. Frey has been the Manager of Reference Services at Neal Gerber & Eisenberg LLP in Chicago for four years.  He has been working in law firm libraries for 13 years and got his Library Science degree from the University of Kentucky.

Introduction (Toni Wilson)

In this article from another of our CI Division experts, we move from understanding how CI makes information professionals and the individuals and organizations they serve future-ready to understanding the future of the practice of competitive intelligence itself.  In other words, as our respective marketplaces continue to change and evolve – prompting us to be prepared with competitive intelligence and insights – so does the practice of CI.  Another way to be future-ready is to embrace and prepare for changes in the way CI is practiced.

As the current chair for the SLA CI Division’s 2011 conference, I am particularly interested in what makes a conference session memorable and important.  One event I attended recently at the SCIP conference, which made an impression, was led by Dr. Craig S. Fleisher, a leading academic, expert and author – Dr. Fleisher delivered his interactive session, CI 2020, to a sold-out crowd.  The result was the collective reasoning of over 100 CI professionals regarding the future of CI.  Following are a few key takeaways:

1. The lines between primary and secondary research are blurring:  They will continue to converge due to the increasing use of social media in CI.  CI professionals may no longer specialize in one or the other in the future.
2. Info-glut, info-toxicity and data overload have us “drinking from an informational fire hose.”  This growing trend will require us all to become better analysts and create more sophisticated analysis.
3. Higher performance standards and certifications will be required.  Better standards for CI professionals to be measured by, as well as trustworthy certifications for CI personnel are a must.
4. The question of supply vs. demand is highly debated.  Forces increasing client demand include globalization and increasing competition.  However, CI professionals are not confident overall that enough educated practitioners can be trained with existing programs.

Dr. Fleisher will be leading a CI 2020 session at the SLA conference this year, entitled CI Unconference.  The results from these interactive sessions are used by Dr. Fleisher as part of a longitudinal analysis of the future of CI.  It’s very exciting that SLA’s members can take advantage of an opportunity to participate in this important, ongoing project, learn from the findings, and apply them to becoming more future-ready professionally.

Claudia Clayton is Managing Director of ViewPoint, a strategy, consulting and research firm established in 1993.  She leads the competitive intelligence activities of ViewPoint on behalf of major U.S. corporations in multiple industries.  Claudia is a committed and hard-working volunteer, primarily serving the members of SLA’s CI Division and the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP).  She won SCIP’s Catalyst Award in 2007 in recognition of her commitment to the CI profession.  Claudia is the CI Division’s 2011 Conference Chair and currently serves as the CID’s Membership Chair as well.

by Dr. Craig Fleisher, Dean, School of Business and Public Affairs, College of Coastal Georgia, USA

The future for business planners, knowledge managers, and special librarians will require enhanced sense-making ability.  In the past, finding and organizing information was the key to competitive success. Those organizations who found it first had advantages that they could often leverage in the marketplace.  Today, most individuals and organizations have excellent access to data and information; in reality, my research has shown that most organizations have too much of both, and too little of an idea for what to do with it.

Making things worse, much of the collected data and information resides in storage (i.e., data warehouses, networks, spreadsheets, etc.) where it gets stale quickly and cannot serve any viable competitive use. Like milk, information spoils if it isn’t treated and utilized. The half-life of time for acting on competitive information continues to shrink in this day and age and isn’t likely to lengthen anytime soon.

Future ready means that analysts in companies will need to work on the front-end with their data acquisition and information management/knowledge professional colleagues, making sure that what is collected provides the missing pieces to the puzzles that analysts and planners know they need to put together to support decisions. The need to make decisions drives our analysis. Our analysis needs drives our data collection. The rule for future success: Don’t collect data or information for which we do not already have analytic mechanisms in place to use it within. Why buy and store milk if you are not going to drink it?

Dr. Craig Fleisher is a former President of the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals, author of several foundational books in CI and analysis, and was awarded its Meritorious recognition for lifetime contributions to the field.

by Babette Bensoussan, Director, The MindShifts Group

When I was asked to write on the theme of “What does it mean to be future ready?” I thought no problem. There is so much information out there that it would be an easy blog to write.

After all, today we have more information sources available to us as well as wonderful search capabilities that there really is very little we cannot find out. However, I believe this is where the problem starts.

It got me thinking – as a competitive intelligence practitioner – what does it really mean to be future ready? If I look at this question from a competitive intelligence (CI) perspective then my answer must always suggest options for being future ready.

So what does that mean?

Let me start with the original question itself. What are the assumptions here – are they positive or negative? Does the question relate to individual future readiness or organisational future readiness? What are some critical uncertainties around the future that would impact anyone’s readiness?

I would need to be clear about these factors before I drive through the plethora of information. Otherwise I am like a man with a buoy bobbing up and down in a sea of information and going nowhere.

And talking about the plethora of information…. It is not just the information that is available on the internet or has been published that is important. Rather when it comes to the future, it is important to talk to people. Yes, I know you can ask people on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for answers however I really wonder how many people would answer an unknown. Most of us are unknown. We don’t have familiar names or great swaths of followers like Ashton Kutcher or Lance Armstrong.

This means we need to go forth and seek answers from people who may have an idea of what any plausible future will look like. From an organisational perspective that could mean talking to academics, journalists, futurists, customers, suppliers, distributors to just name a few. Many of them may not have published their future developments or intentions on the internet for you to find via a single search on Google!

Let’s say I now have all this information and am well informed about possible futures. Does that make me future ready? In my opinion, absolutely not.

I would suggest we need to analyse the information in light of our current situation. This is without a doubt one of the weakest steps as managers and individuals we face. Analysis is the cornerstone for insights yet far too often we see summaries instead!!

As an organisation for example, all the information needs to be analysed in context of the organisation’s capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, etc to identify the gaps it needs to address to be future ready, irrespective of the future that plays out. Some suggested analytical techniques that would help here would be techniques such as Scenario Analysis, Critical Success Factors, Driving Forces Analysis, even SWOT (done properly mind you – not the silly little four boxes!!).

The output of these techniques would identify options, opportunities, and threats that an organisation could address to make itself future ready. This is the real insight.

To be future ready for me is not just about knowing what future may likely play out but about being prepared and alert to meet any future with the best possible advantage. What do you think?

Babette Bensoussan is passionate about CI, is a SCIP Meritorious Recipient and a best selling author. For more information on her work visit http://www.mindshifts.com.au/

by Kevin Carroll, Kevin Carroll Katalyst LLC

Think back to your childhood and to the years dominated by playtime, when there were endless hours to fill and the only agenda was to be captivated in the moment, to have fun. But playtime was also productive time, even if as kids we did not realize it. What we thought was entertaining was also instructive. Activities we called tea party, show-and-tell, kick-ball, finger-painting, hide-and-seek, daydreaming, and tag were also exercises in planning, strategy, design, decision-making, creativity, risk-taking, conflict resolution and teamwork.

In play we did not avoid obstacles, we looked for them by voluntarily challenging ourselves. We eagerly tackled insurmountable odds—height, speed, lack of money—to make our desires reality. Using imagination, we climbed Mt. Everest, competed in the Super Bowl, conquered the world or made a house out of a cardboard box. We voluntarily tested ourselves and accepted failure as part of the play. We ran, stumbled, and got up to run again. When we lost a game we simply started a new one. When something did not pan out as intended, we tapped into our seemingly endless supply of cleverness, resourcefulness and/or our creative agility to prototype or experiment with new solutions until we were satisfied. When faced with an enemy or new challenge—be it a competing team, a broken toy, or our friend playing a cop to our robber, an ogre to our princess—we figured out how to win, remedy the malfunction, or flee the imagined danger.

Far from frivolous time, our childhood play was constructive because it strengthened our resolve as well as our skills. Play gave us courage and instilled confidence. No doubt about it, the many forms of play—board games, sports, pretending, arts-and-crafts, writing, exploring, building—required us to invent, analyze, innovate, socialize, plan, communicate and problem solve. Play was serious business in our youth and play should continue to be serious business in our adult life.

Lifelong Play + Creative Confidence = Future Ready!

Kevin Carroll is the founder of Kevin Carroll Katalyst/LLC and the author of three highly successful books: Rules of the Red Rubber Ball, What’s Your Red Rubber Ball?! and The Red Rubber Ball at Work. As an author, speaker and agent for social change (a.k.a. the Katalyst), it is Kevin’s “job” to inspire businesses, organizations and individuals – from CEOs and employees of Fortune 500 companies to schoolchildren – to embrace their spirit of play and creativity to maximize their human potential and sustain more meaningful business and personal growth.