Wharton School - Mack Center

Industry Partner Conference - May 2007

Intelligence Gathering

and Sense-making:

Coping With Strategic Ambiguity

More than 100 senior decision makers from industry and government attended our partner event on "Intelligence Gathering & Sense-making" on May 18, 2007. Speakers presented a wide range of insights including: the relationship between intelligence gathering and strategy, examples of intelligence gathering successes and failures by government agencies, academic perspectives on dealing with "predictable surprises" and other concepts, and how IBM is developing high performance stream computing systems to process large amounts of unstructured data.

Left to right from top: Harbir Singh and George Day (not shown), Co-directors of the Mack Center, welcomed attendees; Dr. Scott Snyder, co-organizer of the event, discussed strategic radar and signals; attendees participated in a "signal-sharing" exercise facilitated by Dr. Snyder; author Michael Raynor presented concepts from his new book "The Strategy Paradox"; Prof. Paul Schoemaker, co-organizer and Research Director of the Mack Center, discussed "peripheral vision" from his 2006 book (with George Day); Former Deputy Director of the CIA discussed the government intelligence community is structured including recent reforms; Arik Johnson discussed the relationship between information, planning, strategy and other factors involved in the intelligence process. Harvard Prof. Max Bazerman presented examples of intelligence failures; Nagui Halim described how IBM is using high performance stream computing to collect and analyze enormous amounts of unstructured data; Liam Fahey discussed "why firms can't (seem to) do intelligence work." (photos by Michael Tomczyk)

Conference Description

We live in an age of rapidly changing strategic environments, saturated by constant waves of new information. In this environment, corporations need to make sense of a vast array of intelligence to compete, survive and succeed. In the government sector, critical mission intelligence can be a life or death proposition. Both sectors—corporate and government—can learn from each other about sensing and interpreting changes in their strategic environments.

In less than a decade, we’ve seen dramatic advances in processing, storage and visualization technologies—yet, many organizations are still constrained by organizational blinders and broken circuits that can impede the flow of new intelligence needed to support better decisions. In the field of intelligence gathering, both corporate and government organizations have had to adapt to new realities—providing valuable lessons for both sectors.

Since the terrorist attacks in September 2001, the intelligence community has dramatically changed its models and capabilities to deal with a variety of unstructured, irregular and largely invisible adversaries. The need to collect information from eno rmous pools of information such as the Internet, media, public databases, etc. has created a need for Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) systems.

Corporate intelligence gathering has also evolved dramatically. The rise of the Internet has forced corporations to develop novel techniques, such as contextual search tools, for gathering intelligence in an era of blogs, wikis, podcasts, search engines and other web media. Consumer product firms reach into communities of interest to identify new fads and fashions, to guide product development. Companies are using sophisticated search technologies to find patterns in the millions of blogs and extemporaneous conversations found online. Best practice firms also use structured scouting processes to anticipate disruptions in industries and markets, and alert decision makers to new opportunities in technological innovation.

Why are some companies so adept at anticipating the next competitive move or emerging technology, while others struggle to keep up with each new piece of information?

Conference Themes

This conference will explore the following questions regarding to intelligence gathering and sensemaking:

What are some of the most successful techniques across government and industry for scanning and making sense of a changing strategic environment?
How can technologies such as contextual search and data mining be used to increase the effectiveness of intelligence gathering?
What are the latest developments in intelligence gathering and interpretation in government and industry? What improvements in technology and practice can be expected in the next five years?
What are the behavioral and organizational limits to effective learning from intelligence efforts?
How should firms organize to effectively scan, interpret and act on the early signals of changes in their environment?

Conference Participants

Attendees will include senior executives from large corporations involved in identifying new technologies and business opportunities, including decision makers responsible for strategic planning, R&D, market scanning, marketing and organization development. Participants will discuss current academic work as well as best practices for intelligence gathering and sense-making in such sectors as government, research, financials services, IT etc.