General
The Atlantic Community - an Online Think Tank
Recently I became a member of The Atlantic Community, a not-for-profit initiative based in Berlin and Washington, D.C. Apart from being an excellent source for political analyses the website provides the opportunity to join transatlantic debates on key issues of international politics and globalization.
I strongly recommend to take a look at the different features of [...]
Recent Posts
About this blog
"One irony of working the open source side of the intelligence business is that the better we do, the less we can talk about it." Says Michael Hayden, departing CIA chief, on the growing importance of open source intelligence in the area of national security. At the same time he confirms my assumption why Competitive Intelligence is still the most underrated management discipline: You cannot talk big about the results of your excellent research and analysis efforts because then you are about to lose the competitive advantage you just gained. And there is even a second order obstacle: If you want to stay in business as a consultant, you will keep your best ideas and methods for yourself. So what does this mean for those of us who try to make a living by the ethical collection and analysis of openly available information? "I'm not supposed to prove it, but INTELLIGENCE MATTERS, believe me!"?? In this blog, I will try to show that CI and PR do not necessarily have to be opponents, but that they are two sides of one coin - and that dealing with both is not a zero sum game.In the media
From time to time you will find some articles by me or about me in the press. This one was published in DIE WELT, one of the leading daily newspapers in Germany.
Please do not be disturbed by the s-word used in the headline - some editors-in-chief have an obsessive tendency to ignore the difference between right and wrong...
Public perception
"Only ethics can save CI profession in France and elsewhere in the world." Guy Gweth wrote a very interesting posting I ...
"Duplicity" with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen will be on the big screen in March this year. Ex-CIA and Ex-MI6 ...
Tradespotting
Three reasons to distrust major media or: Where deadlines meet speeding finesSometimes it’s just funny what happens when checking facts is a mere luxury. You may use this story as a good example for staying suspicious when it comes to secondary research based on open sources. And this is how it goes:
Last weekend the German Minster for Economic Affairs stepped down, and a new one was [...]
Competitive Stupidity
Competitive Stupidity: Infallible Pope meets Intelligence FailuresImagine you were the leader of an organization that is a spin-off of a current competitor. That competitor would have had to suffer hard in the past because your organization had violated basic rules you both share. Imagine that the only power you had is the power of words. Imagine that the most important asset [...]
