Tim Wood Powell     The value of knowledge

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 similar across different organizations, in different industries, in different countries. Even as I compare Workshop results from different years, I find the results amazingly consistent.

The intelligence producer IPoPs cluster into major repeating themes, to paraphrase:

• “I’m stuck at the bottom of the value chain.” People feel pigeon-holed into doing tactical research when they should be doing strategy, not in touch with senior management, being stuck as a data retrieval service (“stick-fetchers”), etc.

• “My value is unclear.” People report having trouble getting feedback from internal clients on their work.  This is essential, as it is often the best-available proxy for actual measurable business results.

• “I’m invisible.” People report that colleagues don’t know what they do, don’t know how to use them, that they’re “out of the loop”, etc.  Worst of all is the often-experienced problem of doing all the heavy lifting, then having someone else slam-dunk your results and take all the credit.

• “I’m drinking from a firehose.” The sheer volume and velocity of data we’re required to take in and process is getting to some of you. It’s gotten much greater since I started doing corporate intelligence work twenty years ago, and I expect this “data acceleration” to continue.

• “I’m overworked and under-resourced.” This gets directly to the value proposition, since as your value becomes clear, you will generally gain access to greater resources.  Put another way, if you’re positioned as a positive-ROI investment, greater invesment will naturally result.  If you’re positioned as a cost, and an overhead cost at that, you’ll be carefully scrutinized at budget time.

I feel your pain!  In my own work, I’ve heard myself say each of these things at various times.  Some of these problems I’ve solved, some I’ve found “work-arounds” for, and some still challenge me on a regular basis.  I’ll explore ways we’re addressing these “IPoPs” in future posts here.

Do any of these sound familiar to you?  Please send us your comments below.

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