Print Media Demise: Farewell to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News

Today is the last day for Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News. While we will miss our Rocky Mountain News, Denver is a mid-tier large city which challenges the limits of supporting two local papers. Print media in its many forms is threatened as people read their news, for free, on the Internet before it hits the newspapers. We have become a nation of “6 or 10 points of how to do something,” which while interesting, is cursory communication. Will we lose our competitive edge due to relying on this more shallow electronic communication?

More Competitive Technical Intelligence – CTI

CTI is action oriented findings of science and technology events and trends that can affect an organization’s competitive position, either presently or in the future. Here is a sneak preview of a portion of my chapter for SCIP’s upcoming book on Competitive Technical Intelligence, which focuses on Best Practices in CTI.

Next Generation Competitive Intelligence Deliverables: SCIP Webinar

Next generation companies will be more collaborative, with far more interactions among their customers, suppliers, employees and partners. This will mandate that competitive intelligence professionals incorporate next generation technology when they create competitive intelligence deliverables. This webinar illustrates cooperative intelligence practices, both cooperative communication and cooperative connection, by adding Web 2.0 to your communication and connection arsenal. Marty will illustrate case studies from his deep experience at Cisco Systems. While he focuses on competitive intelligence cases, these practices will benefit anyone who provides a service.

Getting into Your Competitor’s Head: A Case Study

Competitive intelligence professionals often spend too much time collecting competitive data and not enough time digesting what it really means. In the February McKinsey Quarterly, “Getting into Your Competitor’s Head,” the authors assert that in order to be more predictive you need to insert yourself into both your competitor’s company moves as well as their decision-making, which often don’t match. Some companies conduct elaborate wargames to get into their competitor’s head which is warranted in complex cases. Sometimes it’s as easy as identifying the key decision-maker’s motivation, personality style and track record through personality profiling.

Sharpen Your Emotional Intelligence Skills

In my field of competitive intelligence, strong emotional skills are essential since we’re often delivering people bad news which can cause stress since often “they” don’t want to hear bad news or threats to the business even if it is the truth. We have to stay strong not just to deliver bad news, but also be sensitive as to how “they” are going to take the news and not spring surprises, for example. What’s neat about EQ versus IQ is that we can learn and be coached to improve our EQ skills. Check out EQMentor, a web 2.0 delivery mentoring service to sharpen you EQ skills.

Diplomat Dennis Ross: Cooperative Leader & Active Listener

Dennis Ross says, “I tell people that work with me that one of the most important skills in negotiations is active listening.” Active listening is a leading characteristic of a cooperative leader and crosses all job functions. I think executives who are cooperative leaders give their companies a tremendous competitive advantage since they are open to listening and learning so are less likely to be blind sided by surprise market developments, new technology or an emerging competitor.

Win Loss Analysis is more than Competitive Intelligence

Win loss analysis is my favorite tactical cooperative intelligence practice as it offers the best ROI of any sales intelligence tool. As a competitive intelligence professional, you will be more successful in capturing competitive data from sales if you have an understanding and empathy for the challenges and joys of their job. You will most certainly gain this by reading the book Rain Making. You might even be giving your company’s sales and PR folks some tippers from this book.

Netiquette on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is primarily a business to business social network with over 30 million members as of Jan. 09. Users have different objectives and come from different cultures on LinkedIn. Some people use it to connect with people who they would never otherwise know, while others will only connect with people they know well. This post contains 12 LinkedIn user bad habits.

Connect Cooperatively through your social & old fashioned networks

When Bonnie Hohhof, SCIP’s editor of Competitive Intelligence Magazine asked me to write about social networking etiquette, I was totally overwhelmed since there is reams of information on this topic.  How could I make it meaningful to SCIP members?  I found my answer in Chris Brogan‘s blog entry of Jan. 27, 2009 entitled, “You’re All Doing It Wrong.” …

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Integrate Competitive Intelligence and Marketing: Jazz Up Your Presentations!

Last week I shared a book list which we used to supplement our AMA (American Marketing Association) course on Integrating Competitive Intelligence into Marketing. In the cooperative spirit, this list continues with 3 books to help you spruce up your communication and presentation skills. I love Advanced Presentations by Design: Creating Communication that Drives Action by …

Read moreIntegrate Competitive Intelligence and Marketing: Jazz Up Your Presentations!