“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 are two sides of one coin - and that dealing with both is not a zero sum game.