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Working trade shows (Part 2)
February 21, 2013 One thing you have to be sensitive to, when planning to work a trade show, is that your competitors might be, in fact should be, working against you. What can you do about that? You...
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Working trade shows (Part 3)
February 26, 2013 So you’re at the trade show. What you do now? First, take care of your business, the reason you are there. You do not desert your booth or exhibit space to check on your competitors...
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Keeping your eyes wide open (Part 1)
March 1, 2013 A colleague of mine, Mercyhurst Professor Kristan J. Wheaton, just posted a very provocative blog. In it he took a look at crowdfunding and then contemplated its application in all types...
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Where do I start my research? (Part 1)
March 8, 2013 Let’s say you’ve figured out what you data you need to find. Now what? Before you start off digging for particular piece of data, stop and think about the data as if it were a commodity...
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How close do you have to get? (Part 1)
March 19, 2013 One of the things that you’re going to find as you doing your own competitive intelligence is that you sometimes cannot get a complete or perfect answer. From my point of view, that is...
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How close do you have to get? (Part 2)
March 22, 2013 In the previous post on the subject, I pointed out the pressure to come up with numbers. The example that I used is not an isolated case, particularly when dealing with competitive...
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Where do I start my research (Part 2)?
April 8, 2013 Continuing on this subject, recently, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the federal regulator of securities markets, finally entered the modern world. The SEC indicated, in...
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Why not just pay someone else to do all of it?
May 6, 2013 Well, as a competitive intelligence consultant I suppose I could selfishly say “what a great idea!” But that’s not right Whether you hand off a competitive intelligence task to someone...
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Trade Shows and Business Conferences (Part 1)
May 10, 2013 Most discussions about trade shows in competitive intelligence focus on how to “work” the trade show. Here I want to attack it from a slightly different angle: how to protect yourself at a...
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Trade Shows and Business Conferences (Part 2)
May 24, 2013 By business conference, I mean a meeting which is not a trade show, where the prime focus is one or a series of large halls with exhibits, booths and even tables. By business conference, I...
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Trade Shows and Business Conferences (Part 4)
June 7, 2013 The trade show, for many businesses, particularly those in the business-to-business niche, represents a major investment and tremendous opportunity to retain existing customers and to...
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Data versus Intelligence
June 13, 2013 Too often, people confuse the presentation of data with the delivery of intelligence. There are major differences, since you should be converting raw data into actionable intelligence....
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Can you learn to analyze? (Part 2)
June 25, 2013 As I mentioned in a prior post on analysis, one of the ways to learn to analyze things is to read mysteries. I recently finished reading a 2002 mystery by Robert Ludlum, The Janson...
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Going to the source
July 3, 2013 One way you look for data for competitive intelligence, when you’re doing your own research, is to visualize the data as something that is flowing, like a stream. You want to figure out...
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It ain’t over till it’s over
July 15, 2013 The conclusion of the Zimmerman – Martin criminal trial illustrates an important lesson for CI analysts. Regardless of what level of interest you had in the matter, you have to admit that...
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Between, and Behind, the Lines
August 1, 2013 When doing your own competitive intelligence, often you will read materials released by your target. They can be useful, but you have to understand how to read what is there. Let me give...
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Assumptions
August 14, 2013 When analyzing the data you collect to develop CI, sometimes you have to make assumptions. Actually, you have to make a lot of assumptions a lot of times. Some of them a very small and...
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Look away
When you try to make sense of your CI data and can’t seem to do so, what do you do? If you’re like most people, you just take a look at your notes and materials again, and you review the most recent...
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How can you learn something new?
August 27, 2013 I’m not asking about how you are learning about competitive intelligence. Hopefully this blog, the books I recommend, and other sources are doing that right now. My question refers to...
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More learning about learning
September 4, 2013 In this blog, I continually comment about learning and about analysis. That is because they are both critical elements in becoming an analyst as well as maintaining your analytical...
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