When I first got to Yale, I was struck that our motto LUX ET VERITAS was an extension of Harvard’s Veritas. I used to kid people that Yale was obviously twice as good—you got all the same Veritas, with the 100% added bonus of the Lux. Whatever that was. Product differentiation Later I came to […]
In the interest of full disclosure, this post is not about algebra or calculus, nor is it about financial instruments. It’s about various kinds of business research ‘raw materials’ and how to discern their quality if you are a producer or user of such research. Whether you are navigating the waters off Tuscany in a […]
I recently managed to get the Knowledge Value Chain® boiled down to an eight-minute introductory video—then had a couple of people comment that it should ideally be half that length! So here, for you the time-challenged, the short-attention-spanned, and the just plain busy, are the key things that—if I had two minutes with you in […]
Why doesn’t early warning work? While it’s a good idea in theory, in practice it seldom seems to have its intended effect. In every major intelligence failure I’ve looked at, there were clear, credible early signals — and even explicit warnings—that tragically remained unheeded. Why is this, and what can we do about it? For […]
It’s not the latest Halloween ritual (sorry, couldn’t resist), but rather the basic choice every investor, corporate executive, analyst must make in forecasting what’s most likely to come next. If you had been paying attention in March, you could have made 48.2% since then on your investment in the DJIA index. If you did, congratulations—but […]
When asked to name his favorite kind of music, pioneering jazz musician Louis Armstrong is said to have replied, ”There are only two kinds of music, good and bad. I like good music.” You could say the same about information—there are fundamentally only two kinds, good and bad. According to one definition (“Intelligence: An Economic […]
Once again, our radar has failed. The current financial meltdown is much more than a serious financial crisis. It’s even more than a crisis of confidence. It’s no less than a fundamental abuse of information and its pivotal role in our economy. When our economy started in pre-historic times, we bartered for goods and services. […]
I recently conducted a KVC Workshop for intelligence producers at SCIP08’s international convention in San Diego. During the workshop I surveyed them about their biggest obstacles and problems in corporate intelligence. We’ve been collecting and analyzing this kind of data now for several years—I call it the Intelligence Points of Pain (IPoP) database. NEWS FLASH: Intelligence problems and challenges are remarkably […]
Financial Intelligence Requires a Deeper Look New York, NY – Arising Group, Inc. recently completed intensive exercises in financial analysis with Tim Powell of The Knowledge Agency® (TKA). George Karshner, Executive Vice President at Arising Group, said that understanding the financial fitness of a company is essential to proper due diligence. “Companies targeted for […]
When I started my own business in 1991, my late father showed a more keen interest in my career than he had previously. He had gone into business for himself late in his own career (as a business writer), and I always found his insights helpful. I always gave him whatever papers and books on […]
It is said that intelligence is the eyes and ears of the enterprise, and this is a useful analogy in some respects. In the obvious sense, through our eyes and ears we take in sensations that in effect are the “data collection” functions of the human body. These sight and sound sensations would just be […]
Why are some resources (in the US, at least) managed by government, while others are managed by the private sector (that is, business)? Simply put, some resources are public by nature—roads, for example, and the armed services—and are therefore managed collectively. Other resources—manufacturing, for example—are best run by private enterprise. Intelligence is conducted both in […]