With all the buzz around connecting through social networks, cold calling is often forgotten. While cold calling is a nervy way to conduct research, if you’ve done your homework ahead of time, you can be successful in gathering information quite expeditiously.
This is a longer blog than usual as I reflect on my Dad’s life and what I learned about the end of life through being by his bedside much of the last couple of weeks. I share this close to our American holiday of Thanksgiving since I celebrate the many years I had with him, Tom Duffy, who died on Nov. 21, 2009 in his home surrounded by his family.
What is ‘social’? I find that the connections I make and the blogs that I read through social networking are shallow in comparison to the connections and knowledge I gain and exchange in conversation. Social networks provide snippets and tidbits of information. As a society are we losing our ability and culture of conversation?
Over the years very little has changed in the competitive intelligence (CI) process, while the execution of the collection phase has changed remarkably over the 20+ years I have been in the business with the advent of the Internet in all its iterations, e-mail, text messaging and more recently through social networks. This also affects counterintelligence, since it is easier for your competitors—or anyone who is interested enough—to dig up information about your company that you consider proprietary.
August Jackson is one of the competitive intelligence profession’s leading edge users of social media, which he openly shares. I was honored earlier this month when he interviewed me for a podcast on cooperative intelligence. As August was interviewing me I had the feeling that he had done a lot of podcasts! Check out his podcast postings http://www.cipodcast.com/ which go back to 2005!
Here are my takeaways from this leadership session sponsored by Sustainable Business Group. We all have a tendency towards a particular leadership style. A good manager is flexible and uses the right style to be effective at the appropriate time. It’s also good to employ people whose styles you lack to keep balance in the workplace. Empathy is the foundation of emotional intelligence regardless of your culture. “Nobody cares what you know until they know you care.”
SCIP just announced that its formal merger was consummated with Frost & Sullivan’s Institute. This merger is a sign of the times: it’s hard for associations to survive in this tough economic climate. But I think it’s more than that: the association model is changing not just due to competition from other associations, but for people’s time and easy access to connections formerly made through associations via social media.
Social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are fabulous! However, be aware of what additional information may be leaking out about your organization through these same social networks! In this session, Marcy Rodney will share real examples, and will discuss issues and best practices around security and privacy when using these networking tools as well as how to find information. This free event takes place on August 25 at 6 pm on Second Life http://slurl.com/secondlife/Info%20Island/62/114/33.
Last weekend, we were at an outdoor art show in a prosperous Chicago suburb. Rodgers’ painting “Urban Sunset” an original oil painting of a Chicago city scene was stolen (24” by 30” + frame). We would love to recover this painting, but it’s probably not that likely, so I thought I would share this story with you to remind you to be careful, and to share some sources to recover stolen art.
A recent Forbes survey of 354 executives at large US companies indicates that competitor analysis is the most critical area for research. The Internet is valued more than any other information source, including internal, external and personal contacts as well as newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, conferences and trade shows. Connecting with the executive suite has always been a challenge for competitive intelligence professionals, but now that they can access information so readily, it’s even worse since it can give one a false sense of power! Today more than ever, we need to help our executives realize the value of accurate, insightful intelligence–which is NOT posted on the Internet!