Business & competitive intel as a gadfly

Don't kill the gadflies.

Intel - It is… a matter of experience, intellect, initiative and judgment, nurtured within institutions that welcome gadflies in their midst. http://tinyurl.com/yhzj4et

From Wikipeida on "gadfly": "During his defense when on trial for his life, Socrates, according to Plato's writings, pointed out that dissent, like the tiny (relative to the size of a horse) gadfly, was easy to swat, but the cost to society of silencing individuals who were irritating could be very high. "If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me," because his role was that of a gadfly, "to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

CI professionals come in all shapes & sizes

I think I found my calling in life. Learning to blend in to go unnoticed! http://tinyurl.com/ygblexb

Stretching a metaphor

So I have a new dog. A Giant Schnoodle puppy. Complete ADD case. Everything is fascinating, distracting, confusing for him and he wants everyone to like him. Has much to learn and much to teach. Reminds me of what it's like to walk into a new organization to try to make a difference with CI skills when the information world is out of control with data and perspectives you must find and sift. No surprise the first two commands are "sit" and "no!!!"

Childlike CI Sales

It's about the magic of the story really. To wit, my wife cares for a 8 or 9 year old girl in the mornings...gets her off to school. I'll call her Brittany. Brittany is completely enthralled/enthrallable still with the mystery of Christmas. Her house has a gas fireplace without a chimney. Question came up: How does Santa get down our chimney? Answer: He twitches his nose with his index finger and shazzaam he becomes a little tiny Christmas mouse and comes in anywhere's he wants...under doors, gas fireplace flues, etc. Result: Astonishment and instant identification with this and a little ego involvement so that she instantly went off on her on story about how she and one of her friends had seen him do it, had personal experience of same. She was in the moment. Lost in wonder. Made it her own.

Can you tell a good enough story for that A-type personality you have to sell it so they have to have it too and can boast that they can/are doing same. It's just a different mystery isn't it. Need some good stories? Contact me.

Consulting and homemakers

I'm back. While I consider consulting to be a successful avocation (so far this year I've scoped out a new way of driving business to a major hospital, done a cultural comparo for an acquiree of their expected acquisitor, prospected medical devices, built business plans for a couple of small/medium businesses), it's also true there are periods of "business development" when little income is coming in.

This causes me to understand in a fresh new way what it is like to work so hard at being a homemaker (stay at home mom or dad) and to receive so little recognition. Doubly so perhaps to be a CI Consultant as companies/clients continue to struggle with understanding the value of what we do and we continue struggling with how to "sell" it and make it come to life. I like the way Sara Chi talks about "it". She calls herself a "Corporate Information Optimizer" - see her thoughtful posts on Twitter (Infosara).

It's good to be back.

CI or die

Failure is always an option. I consider this blog a failure and am closing shop for now. Probably emerge elsewhere in the blogosphere at later date.

CI - metaphors (Black Egret)

Black Egret. CI technique. Provocative metaphor: http://bit.ly/P5RyA.

Black egrets arrange their feathers into a canopy to attract fish as the core way of finding food. How many fish are you attracting in your research? Is your shade appealing? Peer intently under your umbrella. Of course, you have to peruse the waters' edges that have real fish.