The “semantic web” is a nebulous and imprecise term. It is generally intended to apply to a collection of technologies that unify digital content with meaningful meta-data. The semantic web makes it possible for computers to process textual or spoken information the way computers have traditionally processed numerical data. Semantic technologies make it possible for computers to “understand” the concepts that are embedded in written and spoken language.

The semantic web is a truly disruptive technology. It will make new products and services possible, many of which are futuristic or unimaginable today. Apple’s Siri, IBM’s Watson and the Wolfram Alpha search engine are contemporary examples of semantic technologies. Readers may be aware of the quirks and limitations of these tools. Disruptive technologies improve on logarithmic or exponential scale. Most critics assume that these technologies will improve on the same linear scale that defines most incumbent technologies.

The role of the information professional changed with the introduction of quality search engines, e.g. Google. Search engines made it easier for non-experts to find information. For librarians the search engine was a disruptive technology. The semantic web will make it possible for computers and search engines can understand the meaning of digital content. This will make sophisticated search, retrieval and processing of information possible for non-experts.

Scenario analysis is one of my favorite competitive intelligence and strategy tools. It’s a very advanced method for developing a vision about the future and enriching strategic dialog. Scenario analysis cuts through cognitive biases that hobble many organizations when they try to plan for long-term futures. When it is used well a scenario analysis can inform a robust set of early warning activities.

Is the semantic web a threat or an opportunity for information professionals? Anyone who wants to dig in their heels and protest the technology is likely to lose that battle. So how information professionals align their skills with the change the semantic web will bring? These are the questions my audience and I will explore. We’ll apply the tools of scenario analysis to create a view on four possible futures for the semantic web.

I hope to see you at SLA 2012 in Chicago.

If you are unable to see the SlideShare embed please feel free to download the PDF.

Eric begins his article by telling us that he has observed an “endemic corruption of how decisions are made in our most critical institutions.” He goes on to describe how business decision-makers have become focused on feel-good information that doesn’t challenge their underlying assumptions. Eric says that this preference– nay insistence– on feel-good news has increased since the financial crisis of 2008. An industry has sprung up that feeds in to the executive desire to feel good about the future, executive mastery of their industry and general CYA. These charlatans actually making it harder for those of us who are trying to deliver the real, often uncomfortable intelligence. “Strategic intelligence” firms and many consultancies have become the enablers of senior executives’ addiction to graphs that always move up and to the right.

A tripartite cause for the war on strategic intelligence and emperical insight come in for criticism:

1. Industry consolidation enabled by cheap capital. It’s intuitive that most mature industries are more concentrated today than they have been in the past. I argue that most industries have a diverse second and third-tier of competitors, there is a tendency towards “too big to fail” market leaders that are given special treatment by central banks, regulators and politicians to maintain their incumbency against market dynamics, disruptive innovation and poor management.
2. Consolidation has created huge bureaucracies out of once-thriving businesses. The problems of agency in business are well-known, where managers’ and owners’ interests diverge. Firms that have reached this stage do things very differently from smaller, entrepreneurial firms. In these institutions it is better to fail conventionally than to innovate and face risk. Internal politics become the criteria for how decisions are made.
3. Today’s global economy is driven by policy decision-makers and not by competitive markets. In the wake of 2008 the nation-state has its hands in the economy more than at any time since World War II. I attended a recent session of senior competitive intelligence and strategy executives from diverse industries, and the unanimous top priority for all of the firms represented in that room was regulation. Literally every industry has a set of regulatory and policy priorities that will almost by themselves determine success or failure, or at the very least define the shape of success or failure. The state  of our economy is being decided in Washington, Brussels and Beijing rather than in a competitive market.

Eric finished the editorial with several examples of former clients became frustrated or even enraged when presented with the most basic strategic facts, such as the aging global population or how long it could take for housing prices to regain 2007 levels (if ever). I’ve been here as well, tasked with defending the blatantly obvious against a corporate orthodoxy, only to have decisions put off because “the verdict isn’t in yet” on clearly settled matters of technological disruption or demographic shift.

While I agree with almost everything Eric has to say in his article, he and I diverge  on our personal conclusions about what to do about it:

• In the last year I’ve moved to a firm where strategic realities are given their day in court. Not all big firms are closed to the value or import of good strategic intelligence. Sometimes you do need to pick your battles.
• There are smaller firms competing in truly dynamic markets that demand real insight instead of CYA feints at strategic analysis. I’m always happy when I see smaller firms advertising to fill CI positions.
• Eventually we will see a dramatic scaling back of state intervention into the economy, either at the bond auction or the ballot box. This changeover won’t happen everywhere at the same time, and the transition will be extremely painful to the leading firms in industries that have come to depend on central bank largesse and government intervention, but it will open up a world of opportunity for those small and medium firms to make their marks on their respective industries.

So, what’s your take on “Peak Intelligence?” Do you disagree with the concept entirely? If you agree, where in your career do you see the bright spots? What companies or firms are doing strategic insight the right way to support quality decision making?

As a fun addendum, here is Eric being interviewed about his article on Russia Today. Stick around for the last few seconds because the look on Eric’s face when the anchor has clearly missed the premise of what Eric is trying to convey is really priceless.

Here are the slides from that presentation. I know the CI Division will have replay details shortly. For anyone who has information they would like to add to the discussion or questions they would like to ask please feel free to do so in the Comments to this blog entry.

We will be developing a scenario analysis capturing the specific drivers and inhibitors of semantic technologies that will shape the future of this platform. We’ll also describe the disruption that semantic technologies will bring to the media, telecommunications and other industries.

Even if you’re not planning on coming to SxSW but would like to see this session please cast a vote. I promise that, if selected for SxSW 2012 I will hold this session as a webinar sometime after the conference.

You’ll have to excuse me that all professionalism has fled from me as I write this. I have just come through a painful migration not of my choosing. Confusing decisions by Wells Fargo and Intuit have eaten a significant portion of my weekend and cost me $60 to purchase new software. After all of this I am still not made whole. I’m not sure I will ever be.

The World that Was

For many years I have been a Wachovia checking customer. As you probably know Wachovia was one of the banks that didn’t make it through the mortgage meltdown of 2008 and was acquired by Wells Fargo. The transition of the Wachovia franchise to Wells Fargo has been a relatively slow, state-by-state process. Recently the Commonwealth of Virginia made the switch. All of my accounts have been transitioned from Wachovia to Wells Fargo. This includes digital access to my account information.

I have also been a long-time user of Intuit’s personal money management software. In 2008 Intuit chose to no longer update Quicken for the Macintosh and rather introduced a lightweight application called Quicken Essentials. It seemed odd at the time that the team at Intuit would choose to basically downgrade a computer platform on a strong ascendency with an attractive user base. But Quicken Essentials was Good Enough™. I was able to download transactions for all of my checking, savings and credit card accounts– including my Wachovia accounts. So I cast caution to the wind, moved my data over and continued along with Quicken Essentials.

Wells Fargo Upsets the Apple Cart

Last weekend Wells Fargo pulled the switch on moving the Wachovia customer base in Virginia over to Wells Fargo. Imagine my surprise to find that Wells Fargo does not allow users to automatically download their transaction records to Quicken Essentials. Quicken? Yes. QuickBooks? Yes. But Quicken Essentials? No.

Since there is no longer a Quicken for the Mac, Wells Fargo is effectively telling their customers who happen to own and use Macintosh computers that they are second class. Oh, sure, there is a kludge whereby you can download a transaction file and manually upload your account details to Quicken Essentials, but the process is a pain compared to the single button click update I enjoyed as a Wachovia customer.

Wachovia supported this function. Other banks large and small support this function. But not Wells Fargo. Why not? I haven’t been able to find a satisfactory answer. Most of the forums I review suggest that Wells has asked Intuit not to allow this access. The only reason I can imagine is that there is some smal IT overhead to support this access. I can’t really imagine what that is, but I don’t believe asking a major bank to do what it takes to deliver these table stakes is asking too much. My small local bank that owns my business account offers full access via Quicken Essentials. If the inky-dinky local bank can do it the mighty Wells Fargo can make it happen. ‘Nuff said.

quicken essentials is a roach motel

Upon learning that Wells would not support Quicken Essentials I had to once again swallow hard and move forward. Since I run Parallels on my Mac and have a virtual Windows 7 machine I decided it would be easier to eat the $60 to purchase and install Quicken Deluxe 2011 for Windows on my virtual machine. This is sub-optimal considering the slower performance of applications running in a virtual machine. At the time, though, I thought it would still be easier than changing banks.

Intuit, we have a problem!

You cannot believe how extremely surprised I am to learn that Quicken Essentials cannot export files to a format that can be imported by Quicken. Remember in the movie Apollo 13 when the crew had to built a Carbon Dioxide scrubber from scraps, spare parts and a sock because the scrubbers in the command module were incompatible with the scrubbers in the lunar module? Well, Intuit’s approach to file formats makes the Apollo design choices look like… well… rocket science. I can’t even fathom a “Why” for this decision. It’s pure stupidity.

In summary, these two companies have made three decisions of varying impact that never should have been made:

1. Intuit should have maintained a full version of Quicken on the Mac. Since building an application for a separate platform can be expensive, choosing not to do this is the most understandable or justifiable of all of the stupid decisions these two companies have made.
2. Wells Fargo should support full access to Quicken Essentials users to download their transactions the same way the customers of ever other bank worth their salt are able to do. There’s zero excuse that this is not available.
3. Intuit should definitely support file export and import among all of the financial applications. At the very least there should be a file format usable by all flavors of Quicken. Not allowing export from Quicken Essentials to Quicken is stupidity of JarJarian proportions.

As it stands I’ve spent a significant part of my weekend trying to make a transition that should have taken just a minute or two. I’m worse off as both a bank customer and a software user than I was before the transition happened. I’m out $60. Now I’m in the market for a new bank and a new personal finance application.

Please feel free to add me to one of your circles there. Here’s my Google+ profile.

If you don’t have an invite yet leave a comment and I will send one to you (while Google lets me).

Monday night is the Competitive Intelligence Division open house. This year the team from Aurora WDC is sponsoring a Pecha Kucha competition. My topic on creating a professional presence on social media was selected.

I’ll be presenting on using Internet resources to research private companies on Tuesday morning as well.

Here are the links to the individual articles in the series:

• How to Use Competitive Intelligence to Gain an Advantage
• Competitive Intelligence: How to Make People Talk
• Competitive Intelligence: How to Spot a Liar
• Competitive Intelligence: How to Work a Trade Show
• The Art of Garbology

The Good

For many if not most entrepreneurs this will be their introduction to the notion that there is a structured practice of understanding competitive market dynamics. Even for those who are familiar with the practice this is likely to be the most detailed look at the practice. If any press being good press, this series constitutes a win right there. My hope is that entrepreneurs will read this article and realize that they need to make systematic competitive intelligence part of their standard business practice. I hope those same entrepreneurs will follow up with some of the excellent CI resources that are out there.

Helm avoided jargon to make CI accessible to entrepreneurs. CI professionals can fall into the trap of diving too quickly into the details of specific collection or analysis practices. The community that has grown up around the practice can also sometimes be infatuated with the cutting edge of analysis or collection, desirous of expensive tools and is often invested in the narcissism of our minor differences. I know I’ve been guilty of this, and I’ve always tried to correct for this tendency by insisting that every presentation I deliver has to give my audience something new they can take away and try right away at no cost.

The series quotes a number of leading thinkers and figures in the field and mentions SCIP as a professional association for CI professionals. It’s clear that Helm interviewed some of the key people in the field, and this lends legitimacy to the material. Helm also interviews entrepreneurs that have used or conducted CI themselves for great value.

Helm clarifies that it’s best to narrow intelligence requirements at the beginning of the process. AMEN! If entrepreneurs or managers takes only one thing away from this series I hope it is the admonish to not say “I need to know absolutely everything about Company X” but to be laser-focused with their intelligence requirements. If CI customers will remember just this one bit of mindfulness they will save themselves a lot of time, a lot of money and avoid needless frustration. This one piece of advice is the key to getting value from competitive intelligence.

The Bad

Despite the fact that I was pleased to see this series of articles, there were some specific aspects that I didn’t like about the series.

While the series did a good job describing some of the basics of CI as a practice, the collection opportunities described came across as being based on serendipity rather than a systematic and often tedious practice.

Grateful as I am for the admonition to focus on specific needs, the description of the CI practice is over-focused on finding specific pieces of information. The modern CI practice is more about interpretation and analysis of information and data flows rather than uncovering that one hidden gems.

It seems that this series, as with all articles about CI, maintains a sheen of cloak and dagger about the practice. There are numerous mentions of former government, military and law enforcement intelligence types involved in CI. The skill sets are applicable across domains, and many of the best intelligence education opportunities are geared towards these communities. The mark of a good CI professional, though, is their ability to analyze and interpret findings to the world of a profit-making business. A government intelligence background does not guarantee a person will possess these skills.

The Ugly (or “What I Would Have Liked to See”)

Many entrepreneurs who read this series will probably want to learn more about CI. I would have liked to see a brief section on where they could go to find more information and a few of the books they could read to learn more. My top web site candidate is the SCIP web site, a great source in itself and useful jumping off point. While a number of books come to mind as best candidates for your first CI read, Seena Sharp’s Competitive Intelligence Advantage is excellent for an entrepreneur to better understand CI.

I thought the series over-emphasized primary research. Some brief descriptions of basic secondary research would have been a strong addition. Some basics on how to examine a competitor’s web site would have been useful. Maybe the feeling was that this sounds too obvious. As obvious as it is, I’m often surprised how much low-hanging secondary fruit is overlooked. Social media in particular offers some very useful opportunities to easily and inexpensively deliver valuable insight.

It would have also been very valuable to illustrate some of the basic analytical frameworks such as SWOT and Porter’s Five Forces. SWOT is very easy to understand and compile, and when done well quickly summarizes the state of the competitors in a market. I know some in the CI profession look down on SWOT. I still find the framework so readily accessible to be a useful with stakeholders.

Finally I would have also like to have seen greater coverage of the issues of legality and ethics. While the articles hints at some of the questions of legality related to activities like dumpster diving, a whole article is devoted to the subject of eavesdropping at trade shows. Richard Horowitz, one of the CI thought leaders and a practicing attorney referenced in the article has asked the question whether or not CI professionals are obsessed with ethics in past presentations at SCIP conferences and local chapters. I agree with Richard that some organizations apply an overly-strict interpretation of ethics that go far beyond the SCIP Code of Ethics for CI Professionals. However, I do believe that CI practices must be far beyond the standards of behavior laid out in the Economic Espionage Act and guided by SCIP’s code (a policy analysis of the act by Horowitz is here in PDF format).

Ethics and Efficacy of Suggested Practices

Some of the specific practices described in this series create concerns for me that some entrepreneurs may engage in activity that at best runs afoul of ethical standards and at worst may violate the Economic Espionage Act or other laws. These practices include posing as customers, eavesdropping and dumpster diving. To my mind none of these practices constitute ethical or acceptable practices for competitive intelligence professionals.

Posing As Potential Customer

Houston-based Private Investigator J.J. Gradoni is quoted as saying. “I will pose as a potential customer and ask questions about a company’s pricing structure, how fast they ship, turnaround time, number of employees, and so forth. Then I ask for references. I call those people as well.” My interpretation is that this is a wholly unethical practice and very possibly violates some of the specific prohibitions against misrepresentation in the Espionage Act. If any practicing CI professional were exposed engaging in any such behavior I can only hope they would rightly be raked over the coals. Likewise for any executives or managers on whose behalf such a practice were employed.

Dumpster Diving

The series does touch on some examples of the damage to a reputation that can come from having been caught dumpster diving, Toledo-based importer Gary Marck is alleged to have been caught pilfering secrets from his competitor’s trash. The competitor used these stories to besmirch Marck’s reputation. Despite this cautionary tale the article hints that under certain conditions dumpster diving can actually be legal. Perhaps that is true, but my interpretation of SCIP’s ethical standards lead me to question this practice. The thought of rummaging through someone’s trash is absolutely disgusting, but now you know why I have a cross-cutting shredder.

Elicitation

I actually enjoyed some of the basic overview of interview and elicitation. The article illustrates some of the basics of appealing to a target’s self interest and summarizes five types of elicitation targets. Quality elicitation requires a lot of up-front research and is very structured. I was really impressed when we had Catherine Foley of CM2 Limited speak about elicitation at the Washington SCIP chapter in 2009.

Encouraging Staff to Participate in Collection

I agree that the task of collection is shared by everyone in the company, and I believe this works best when each role receives guidance that is specific to their standard activities. This training should also address some of the specific ethical and legal concerns for their collection activities.

Trade Show Eavesdropping

The recommendations to engage in eavesdropping at trade shows is one of the more problematic recommendations of this article series. At least as troubling as the ethics are my concerns I have for the efficacy of eavesdropping as opposed to systematic trade show intelligence. Two very useful sources on trade show intelligence are Conference and Trade Show Intelligence edited by Jonathan Calof and Bonnie Hohhof and The WarRoom Guide to Competitive Intelligence by Steve Shaker and Mark Gembicki.

There are many things that I want to say about this talk. I’m not sure I can say them without ruining it for you. So I’ll shut up now and just ask you to please do yourself the favor of watching this.