Great Theory, Misses Mark on Identifying Obstacles,
April 8, 2000
Peter M. Senge
Without a shared vision there can be no shifting of minds, no team leaning, no local initiatives consistent with the shared vision, and so on. This is all really great theory.Taking the U.S. Intelligence Community–which failed spectacularly on 9-11 after resisting change for just over a decade–as an example relevant to both business and the public, one can readily see that great theory simply does not translate into relevant action.
Most helpful would be a new edition of this book, but one that places fully half the book's emphasis on identifying the obstacles to reform and learning, with each obstacle then addressed from both a top-down and a bottom-up perspective.
9-11 demonstrated that the theory of this book is badly needed within the ultimate “learning” community, the U.S. Intelligence Community. Even after 9-11, the leadership of that community refuses to admit it failed, and refuses to propose or acknowledge the substantial changes recommended by over 15 books–a huge critical mass–recommended by the Council on Intelligence. CEOs of multi-billion dollar corporations might choose to reflect on how best to combine the lessons from this book, which are valuable, with the lessons from how a $30 billion a year tax-payer funded community can refuse to change.
Dick is a genius, and he and Bradford Ashton have pulled together a number of very fine contributions in this book. Still, they sum it up nicely in the concluding chapter: “The formal practice of developing technical intelligence in American business is only in its infancy.” They have a nice appendix of sources on scientific and technical intelligence that is missing a few big obvious sources like the Canadian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) and the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) as well as the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) and several smaller sources. On balance, this technical intelligence community is, as Bradford notes, in its infancy. It is U.S. centric, does not yet understand operational security and counterintelligence, is weak of cost intelligence, relies too heavily on registered patents, and has too few practical successes stories. Especially troubling is the recent trend within DIA and the Air Force of cutting off all funding for open source exploitation of Chinese and other foreign S&T sources, combined with a dismantling by many corporations of their libraries and most basic market research functions. This book is an essential reference and I admire its authors greatly-sadly, they are part of a small minority that has not yet found its full voice.
Best book on the market for technical business intelligence,
April 8, 2000
W. Bradford Ashton
Dick is a genius, and he and Bradford Ashton have pulled together a number of very fine contributions in this book. Still, they sum it up nicely in the concluding chapter: “The formal practice of developing technical intelligence in American business is only in its infancy.” They have a nice appendix of sources on scientific and technical intelligence that is missing a few big obvious sources like the Canadian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) and the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) as well as the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) and several smaller sources. On balance, this technical intelligence community is, as Bradford notes, in its infancy. It is U.S. centric, does not yet understand operational security and counterintelligence, is weak of cost intelligence, relies too heavily on registered patents, and has too few practical successes stories. Especially troubling is the recent trend within DIA and the Air Force of cutting off all funding for open source exploitation of Chinese and other foreign S&T sources, combined with a dismantling by many corporations of their libraries and most basic market research functions. This book is an essential reference and I admire its authors greatly-sadly, they are part of a small minority that has not yet found its full voice.
This is a serious general text on competitive intelligence, and Leonard is a master. Having said that, I would note that what Leonard does best is work very hard-the practice of business intelligence still lacks a good set of information technology tools for discovering, discriminating, distilling, and delivering packaged business intelligence, and most firms do not have the tools for managing a broadly distributed network of niche experts who are hired on a day to day basis. Fuld & Company Inc., and to a lesser extent the other companies listed in the Open Source Marketplace, are the first wave in what I believe will be a major line of business to business revenue in the 21st Century.
Gem of continuing value–“must read” for busy managers,
April 8, 2000
Herbert E. Meyer
Herb, one of the distinguished speakers at OSS '92, has been Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, and is in my mind one of the top five pioneers of business intelligence in the United States. He started in late 1970's, and his little paperback book is both a gospel and a guide of continuing value. This book was distributed at OSS '92, and continues to be worthy of reading by senior executives who don't do a lot of reading.
Benchmark book on a relatively young discipline of CI/BI,
April 8, 2000
John E. Prescott
This is the most professional collection of articles on competitive intelligence I know of, with a good mix of both technical intelligence and foreign intelligence information. The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)has grown from 2,000 members in 1992 to 6,000 in 1999, and it's journal as well as its conferences, set the industry standard. A relatively low standard, but the standard never-the-less.
I have mixed feeling about these guys, and their book, but the bottom line is that it makes a contribution and must be read. They address, in a manner understandable by the complete layman, the intersection of competitive intelligence, corporate security, and WarRoom operations. They have a number of very useful and thoughtful figures. The book is unquestionably at the head of the class with respect to WarRoom operations and exploiting information technology and basic planning and execution and visualization concepts. Where I have a real problem with this book is in its advocacy of elicitation and other deceptive techniques, no doubt a hang-over from Steven's days as a CIA case officer. There is absolutely no place in U.S. competitive intelligence for such methods, and any discussion in that direction must be forcefully opposed if we are to succeed in creating a legal, ethical, overt network of intelligence professionals able to reinforce each other in providing open source intelligence to businesses as well as non-governmental organizations.
