FindItOut at http://www.awareci.com

Just a quick update - as this blog is still alive. I'm now blogging at Wordpress - http://awareci.wordpress.com or http://www.awareci.com. Blogger's improved since I left but overall I like the Wordpress format and so I'll stick there.

Moving to Wordpress

Not sure how many people have bookmarked this weblog. I've now moved my Blog to WordPress - and have written two new posts, with several more planned. I prefer the WordPress interface - it's easier to write, edit and make changes. The new site has all the same functionality as this one - plus additional elements. For instance, you can now subscribe and get told when I update the site. You can also contact me directly. So for future updates, go to www.find-it-out.co.uk Hope you like the new look - let me know!

Reading the news

In 1979 I visited Turkey for the first time. I like Turkey - it's a great and beautiful country with lots of history. It also shows how Islam and extremism don't go hand-in-hand and how an Islamic country can also be a liberal democracy. Like all free countries, it has its share of extremists who spout forth nonsense that would guarantee a jail sentence or death in the autocracies that govern most of the world. However that is not what this post is about - although Turkey is the seed for the post.

It was August 1979, and I was backpacking, staying in cheap hostels. A standard item of conversation back then was whether it was safe to travel through Afghanistan on the overland route to India. Turkey was one of the first stopping places on this route that travelled through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and on to India.

From a 1970s Trailfinders brochure showing suggested routes to India

Travellers were talking about the attacks on tourists journeying through the country and how some tourist buses had been shot at. 

A postcard sent to me by a friend I'd met when travelling through Europe who wanted to go on the overland routes to India. Karla had hoped to go through Afghanistan but as I've highlighted, felt it wasn't safe. This postcard was sent the day before the Iran hostage crisis and shows the atmosphere in Iran at the time. 

I knew nothing about Afghanistan at all and when I got back to the UK started to read up. There was very little in the press - and certainly no headlines. However reading between the lines, I realised that not only was there a civil war going on, but that this was threatening the Southern borders of the Soviet Union. The situation was unstable and something had to happen. 

Over Christmas in 1979, Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan with the aim of bringing back order to the country. The Soviet aim was not to colonise the country but to prevent the ferment from spreading and leading to sectarian movements on the Soviet borders. However that is not how the world, led by the USA saw things. This was the time of the cold war. Any way that the West could score points against the Soviet bear was legitimate. The initial response was massive anti-Soviet propaganda, ignoring the initial context. Later on, the US funded the Mujahaddin fighting against the Soviets, including Osama Bin Ledin - a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. 

My response however was different. I saw that the Soviet incursion had been an obvious solution to a problem that they faced, and that the correct approach was to treat it as such, rather than as a global problem. Afghanistan had been a flashpoint that the world had seemingly ignored. It led, eventually, to the break-up of the Soviet Union, when it became impossible to hide the costs in both lives and money by the secretive Soviets. I believe that Perestroika and the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union was partially a result of the Soviet's Afghan adventure. 

The point of all this is that newspapers publish 

1. what their editors view as of interest to their readership 
2. news when they have sufficient information for a story.

This is important for competitive intelligence, business analysis and common sense. Without this realisation people are likely to jump to incorrect conclusions based on what they read. The only way to read a newspaper is to question each story and ask why it was published - to understand the hidden agenda. 

When there is insufficient information or where it is dangerous for journalists to publish a news story, then however potentially important that news story is, it won't get published. That is why so few bad news stories highlighting lack of freedom, atrocities and so on are published on the autocracies that rule much of the world. Instead, news focuses on countries where there is a relative freedom to publish, and journalists can report on what is happening unimpeded by the authorities.

If something is not fashionable then it won't be published or what is published will correspond to what people want to read. This is the case with much reporting on Israel. Israel is now seen as a "shitty little country" (as described by a former French Ambassador to the UK). It's definitely not fashionable to support it - despite the fact that it is the only full democracy in its region with a free and functioning press, Arab parliamentarians, and equal rights for all its citizens. It has also been at war for over 60 years - with its enemies being countries that, in general, are totalitarian and that imprison, torture and execute dissenters. It has been attacked with missiles fired daily at its cities, yet is lambasted when it responds - most recently by blockading the territories from where the missiles were fired (Gaza). Israel is condemned for trying to protect its citizens and for fighting a territory ruled by a group, Hamas, that is viewed as a terrorist group by Western countries, including the US, the EU, Japan and Canada.

In contrast to the situation in Israel - where every action is microscopically analysed and hits the headlines, much less appears on newspaper front pages and as headline news about the very recent massacres of Uzbeks in Kyrygyzstan. Virtually nothing came out about the Syrian destruction of the city of Hama in 1982, in contrast to the blanket reporting of the events at Sabra & Chatila in the same year. Even in this case, Israel is blamed for the actual attacks while in reality the massacre was carried out by Christian Phalangists in revenge for earlier attacks on them by the Palestinians. The reason for all these examples is that much less information was available from Syria and Kyrygyzstan. Both countries don't have the free press that Israel has, and in both cases, publishing such news could lead to the journalists being arrested, and probably tortured or killed. As a result very little is seen.

The same selectivity appears in the business press too. Currently BP is under the spotlight for its responsibility for the US oil spill. Although I'm sure that BP bears much of the blame for this disaster, very little has been written about the other companies involved including Transocean and Halliburton. Although BP was the largest shareholder in the well, Texas based Anadarko Petroleum owned a quarter and the Mitsui Oil Exploration Company via its MOEX Offshore subsidiary owned 10%. Transocean owned the rig and of the 126 people working on the rig, 79 were Transocean employees (against only 7 BP employees). Halliburton cemented into place the casing for the well that blew. In fact, the other companies bear some of the blame - if only by not ensuring that best practice was followed and allowing BP to cut corners (if that is what happened). The US regulator, the Minerals Management Service, that had approved the well should also shoulder some responsibility.

It is now fashionable to attack BP - with President Obama (showing an anti-British prejudice), referring to the company as British Petroleum, when the correct name has been BP for many years, reflecting the fact that more of its employees are American than British (BP has 23,000 US employees and under half that number of British employees. Of its 9 senior executive members there are more non-UK members than UK ones with four US positions). The problem is that sometimes it is better for those in power to hide the truth - whether they run a company or a country. 

Competitive Intelligence means looking behind the news and doing an analysis to find the truth. That is not the role of newspapers. Their role is simple: to sell and make profits for their owners. If that means subjective reporting, then so be it. Fortunately the quality press sometimes does publish unfashionable news stories and carries out independent analysis. An excellent recent example is an article by Jose Maria Aznar - the Prime Minister of Spain between 1996-2004. Aznar writes (in the London Times - 17 June 2010) about Israel and how failure to support Israel threatens Western values overall. He states that the Gaza episode "is a distraction" and that "Israel is the West's best ally in a turbulent region". A shame that there is not more analysis of this type. As this is what true objectivity involves. 

Proof of Aznar's thesis can easily be found. For example, a recent Twitter tweet lamented the loss to the Moslem world of Andalucia, and advocated the route of the martyr, and reaching for life in the hereafter in preference to life in this one. 

@Jnoubiyeh the second we lost andalus we lost dignity. wars came 2 remind us again. We lost it was when we chose this life over hereafter

Unfortunately publicising such views are unfashionable and often suppressed - so instead we draw incorrect conclusions and victimise the victim (e.g. Israel) and praise the oppressor (e.g. Hamas).

Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics & Facebook

I've been impressed with the numbers of people using social networking sites - and the importance of social networking for marketing has become significant over the last few years.

Facebook claims 400 million users (i.e. nearly 6% of the global population that is approaching 7 billion people). I've always thought that this figure must include duplicate accounts - as I don't believe that most people in China, India, Africa and many other areas of the world have Facebook accounts (or even computers - although the numbers are growing). The World Bank stated that there were just under 300m Internet users in China and 52m in India in 2008. (There's a great graph of this at Google's Public Data tool - that shows that in 2008 there were around 1.5bn web-users).

Even taking account the exponential growth - let's assume that web users globally are now over 2 billion  people - Facebook's figures imply that 1 in 5 users have a Facebook account.

I know of many people who don't have an account and some who refuse to get one. In my age group (over 40), I'd guess that the majority don't. So where this 400m figure came from and what it includes is a key question.

It now seems that Facebook has been boosting it's membership figures. I just read this article from one of my favorite sites (www.pandia.com). Apparently Facebook has been telling advertisers that it has 1.6m users in Oslo. The trouble is that the greater Oslo metropolitan area only has 900,000 people. Facebook apparently counts members by IP address - and I guess that it is feasible that this could include users who access the site via Oslo based web-servers. However not if you consider the next statistic given. The Facebook advertiser tool says that there are 850,000 Facebook users between the ages of 20-29 in Norway - which is 235,000 more than the total numbers (613,000) in that age group.

This over-inflation isn't just a Norwegian issue. According to CheckFacebook.com (a site that tracks data from the Facebook advertising tool giving Facebook membership numbers), almost 63% of online users in the UK now have a Facebook account. That's 27m out of a total UK population of 62m. In some countries it's even higher. Apparently all (100%) Nicaraguan, Qatari and Bangladeshi web users also have a Facebook account, as do 99% of Indonesians, 98% of Filipinos, 97% of Venezuelans, and 85% of Turks.

It's possible that these statistics are true. However, if so, I'm sure that they also include occasional and infrequent users as well as dormant and duplicated accounts.

One of the most important types of competitive intelligence analysis is to not take everything at face value. When presented with figures, it's important to sense check them - wherever possible by using other sources (e.g. official population statistics). Only then should such data be used in decision making. You should also ask whether there is an incentive to exaggerate or under-estimate statistics. If there is such an incentive, it is likely that this will be done, at least in the published data. Decisions made using such erroneous or manipulated figures will probably be poor decisions and fail to achieve the expected results. In the case of Facebook, the incentive in exaggerating membership figures is that they can then boost their attractiveness to advertisers, and consequently their advertising revenues.

Quotations & Competitive Intelligence

I've been reading Seena Sharp's new book "Competitive Intelligence Advantage"

The book is good (at least so far) - and an easy read which is more than can be said for a lot of business books. More importantly Seena's approach corresponds with mine. She emphasises that competitive intelligence is not just about competitors but about understanding the total business environment and how it is changing, and using this knowhow to make effective business decisions. This means it's not just a how-to-do-it book like many of its competitors but a why-to-do-it book too. This is important. Many businesses still fail to understand why they need competitive intelligence. If you don't understand the need, why do it. Others see the focus as primarily on competitors - but they already "know" all about them so are "OK" (or so they believe). The book exposes this canard - and shows why surprise is so dangerous for companies.

Although so far, I have mostly praise for the book, there is one niggle. Making decisions on inaccurate intelligence is dangerous. It is always important to check facts first rather than to assume that just because something is common knowledge or sounds right it is correct. In the world generally, there have been many mistakes made based on information that turned out to be rumour or false. Part of the role of analysis is to verify information - and act accordingly. Failure to verify information is a route to strategy failure.

So what is my niggle. It relates to a quotation on page 20: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." This is a great quotation - and it is widely used. A search on the Internet turns up multiple examples - and most claim it was written by Charles Darwin, in his works looking at evolution. The problem is that Darwin almost certainly never said or wrote this. A few years ago, I wanted to use this quotation in an article I was writing - and needed to provide a reference. I searched through Darwin's complete works online and couldn't find it. I then contacted Nigel Rees, an expert on quotations who couldn't either. Replies to a post I made to the FreePint Bar suggested that the attribution was probably false (but nobody knew where it originally came from). The series of posts at FreePint both by me, and others, debunk a few more commonly attributed quotations too. (E.g. "Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics" was definitely not originally said by Mark Twain as many claim and possibly not by Disraeli either, as I and others had thought.

Whenever I use a quotation I try and attribute it - and give a reference for the source, where possible. Maybe it's because I'm pedantic or overly thorough. However I also believe it is part of the mindset needed for effective competitive intelligence. Just because something is commonly believed doesn't make it true and I wish Seena had either stated that the quotation was "attributed" to Darwin instead of being by Darwin - or found the source.

In fact, the source was probably a close follower of Darwin - such as JBS Haldane. And Haldane supplies a lesson for all involved in competitive intelligence: just because something is unexpected doesn't mean it won't happen.

A discussion between Haldane and a friend began to take a predictable turn. The friend said with a sigh, 'It's no use going on. I know what you will say next, and I know what you will do next.' The distinguished scientist promptly sat down on the floor, turned two back somersaults, and returned to his seat. 'There,' he said with a smile. 'That's to prove that you're not always right.  Found at Today In Science History's page on Haldane - quoting from: Clifton Fadiman (ed.), André Bernard (ed.), Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes (2000), 253.

RIP Kartoo

When I conduct training sessions on how to search I always emphasise that it's more important to know how to find information rather than to depend on a small selection of key web-sites.

Many searchers depend on their bookmark list but what happens when a key site disappears: if you don't know how to search you are stuck.

Searching isn't just going to google and typing your query in the search box. Expert searching demands that you consider where the information you are looking for is likely to be held, and in what format. It requires the searcher to understand the search tools they use - how they work and their strengths and weaknesses. Such skills are crucial when key sites disappear as happened in January with the small French meta-search engine, Kartoo.

Kartoo was innovative and presented results graphically. It enabled you to see links between terms and was brilliant for concept searching where you didn't really know where to start. Unfortunately it's now gone to cyber-heaven, or wherever dead web-sites disappear to. It will be missed - at least until something similar appears. Already Google's wonderwheel (found from the "options" link just above the search results") offers some of the functionality and graphic feel, and there are other sites that offer similar capabilities (e.g. Touchgraph). Kartoo however was special - it was simple, free and showed that Europeans can still come up with good search ideas.

Example of a Kartoo Search

Of course Kartoo isn't the first innovative site to disappear. Over the years, many great search tools have gone. Greg Notess lists some in his SearchEngineShowdown blog - and an article in Online magazine. There are more. How many people remember IIBM's Infomarket service - an early online news aggregator from 1995, or Transium.

In fact, it was learning that sites are mortal that led to my approach to searching: don't depend on a limited selection of sites but rather know how to find sites and databases that lead you to the information wanted. That's a key skill for all researchers and is as valid today in the Google generation as it was in the days before Google.

Google - public data explorer

I've just been pointed to a new Googlelabs initiative - the Google Public Data Explorer. This promises to be a useful tool for finding public data in one place. (It's always worth keeping an eye on GoogleLabs as they often bring out new ideas and products. These are kept together until ready to launch - and can be found from www.googlelabs.com.).

The data is not new - although i think some of the presentation is. I don't recall being able to manipulate the figures from Eurostat so easily (but then that may be because I've not had to use Eurostat for a while). Eurostat - the European Union's statistic service - is large and complex (or was). With Google a couple of key Eurostat databases (unemployment statistics, minimum wage, consumer price index) now become easily manipulable. Other databases include OECD, World Bank and a number of US databases.

Hopefully many more databases will be added - and eventually the service may become a one-stop-shop for global statistics, replacing the need to visit various local country statistics services (e.g. the UK's Office for National Statistics).

Even though there are currently only a handful of databases available many of the most important types of data looking at GDP, population trends, health, etc. are available - plus interesting, but probably less critical examples, such as Internet users per 100 of the population. In this example, I compared the UK and US with two of the emerging power-houses - China and India for Internet usage. I found it interesting that the UK had more users per 100 than the US but not surprising that China and India were so low, despite the total web user numbers in China being higher than those for the US and growing rapidly. It would have been possible to add any of the countries on the left to the chart. 

Unethical CI - out in the open!

As a competitive intelligence specialist, we try to practice what we preach - and keep an eye on our own competitors. In most cases, we view ourselves as complementers as much as we are also competitors. There is enough work for all of us - and the market is far from saturated.

Part of the task of a Competitive Intelligence consultancy is to show companies that competitive intelligence is a necessary business skill - and that it is legitimate and ethical to outsource competitor research to external consultants whatever can't be handled in-house. (Reasons for outsourcing include lack of time, lack of skills and experience and the need for an objective view - which can't be obtained by doing research in-house). In fact AWARE views training in competitive & marketing intelligence as a key element of its business mission, so as to raise CI/MI skills.

There are many ethical competitive intelligence consultants apart from us - in the USA there is Market Analytics, Fuld and Aurorawdc to name three. In Australia - the Mindshifts Group,  led by CI industry leader Babette Bensoussan is important. Within Europe there are similar consultancies. We link to a number of top CI consultancies on our alliances web pages.

Unfortunately there are also several companies that fall short ethically and even legally. I recently came across one - with a great domain name, but that's as far as it goes.  This "business intelligence" company (which I won't name for now, for legal reasons), openly states that they engage in industrial espionage.



Secondary research - their "light touch" is legitimate if it doesn't employ hacking or password cracking. However their in-depth research placing moles into the target company is highly unethical and probably illegal (depending on the information supplied, and any non-disclosure agreements signed by the agent and their "employer").

Such behaviour brings all competitive intelligence under suspicion - which is part of the rationale behind this post: to expose such shenanigans.

Fortunately this "business intelligence service"  doesn't come cheap and only very few (probably desperate) companies will avail themselves of such services. In fact the company actually implies this by saying on their web-site:

"We hope that you never need our services, but if you do, then you can be assurred of an excellent service."

Their charges range from £10,000 for the "light touch" research to £150,000 for their in-depth research (including "employee placement and surveillance"). Even this is not their top price. When looking at individuals, pricing ranges from £25,000 for "light touch" research verifying personal details, employment, connected people, etc. to £200,000 for fully in-depth analysis (lifetime checks, asset checks, lifestyle, etc.). Some assignments are charged at fees of up to £25,000 per day (although most are claimed to be a fraction of this).

To put things into context, we have never charged anything like £10,000 for pure desk research and from conversations with other consultants, they haven't either.

They claim that their "researchers" come from military, police and government service backgrounds - but they don't mention any business or marketing background. They seem to be ignoring, or perhaps do not even know the risks involved in industrial espionage and based on what they offer, I'd question whether they'd see the value in standard strategic analysis as a means for understanding competitors. (The US Economic Espionage Act, 1996 is just one risk. Even when companies don't go to law, there can be serious financial ramifications for espionage).

Instead of looking at public non-confidential intelligence that, when aggregated, can create a detailed picture of all aspects of a company they seem to prefer subterfuge. Such approaches may say what a company is currently planning but it won't help in understanding what the company is thinking or likely to do in the future

Interestingly this company is not as immune to standard CI investigation as they probably think. Standard secondary research suggests that they use a Plymouth, UK, based front company for finding work placements for their agents, and that their minimalist web-site has at least one hidden / secret directory - which can be found by searching for a robots.txt file. 

The value of information

I've probably said something like this before, but it's worth saying again.

This was part of a post by Amelia Kassel of MarketingBase - on the AIIP member mailing list.

I recall someone in a workshop I gave about using the Internet for CI about 10 years ago. I introduced the concept of fee-based databases and a young fellow from a business analyst firm raised his hand in front of group of more than 30 participants to stop me from proceeding. He didn't want to hear or learn about fee-based databases. He had tried them once and they were too hard to use. I asked what he did when couldn't find information he was looking for on the Internet and he didn't have an answer but said it didn't really matter.

I've also come across attitudes such as this - why pay for information when you can find it for free. That would be true and valid if the time required to find the information, and the work required to put it into a usable format, was the same. In reality this is rarely the case. The advantage of paying for information from services such as Factiva, Dialog and several other similar services is that you can save a lot of time. The information purchased will be formatted consistently - so it becomes much easier to edit for a report.

Further, relevant information is collected together so there is no need to check hundreds of potential sources. These services index thousands of sources in a way that users of the free services, including Google, can only dream about. As an example, on Factiva, you can specify that search terms appear in the first 50 (or 100 or whatever) words of an article, or within so many words of another term. They support full Boolean searching and wildcard searching far beyond what even the advanced search in Exalead offers.

If that was all such services offered then there could be an argument that with today's budgetary constraints, good researchers would first focus on the free sources. However many sources held won't even be available on the free web, as their publishers only make them available on a pay-to-use basis or don't keep full online archives. This means that unless the researcher has accounts with a multitude of publishers they won't get the material they need for decision making.

I think part of the secret of being a good researcher is knowing when to use free sources and when to use fee sources. I'm sure that a proportion of the information that is available on pay-to-use sources could be found for free - IF you looked long and hard enough. However employers pay you for your time - and just because something is free doesn't make it really free if you have had to spend a day finding it when you could have got it within 15 minutes by paying. Then there's the risk factors of NOT finding something at all!

People who feel it doesn't matter - that you can justify not paying for information - are actually high-risk employees. They may provide information that allows correct decision making to be made 80% of the time. Unfortunately the Pareto effect comes into play - and that 20% of the time they get it wrong represents 80% of the risk. Decisions made on inadequate data are likely to lead to serious consequences when they are wrong. Saying that you only did a Google search because Factiva cost too much won't save you or your company in such situations - as it will be too late.

CI versus corporate espionage: thoughts on an ABC News story

I read this news item from ABC news 'James Bond' Tactics Help Companies Spy on Each Other" and had only one thought: that guy is totally unethical and wrong.

A few years ago, an Israeli colleague commented to me that in his experience, most of the ex-secret service operatives who try and enter the commercial world of CI fail. The reason he said is that they don't know the boundaries of what is legitimate competitive intelligence collection and what is corporate espionage, and illegitimate. He also said that in many cases, they also have no real idea of budgets and what is valuable to a company strategically versus the cost of obtaining it. Most never had a budgetary role when working for the various national security services and so could not do a cost-benefit analysis effectively.

This story shows both examples. Purchasing the garbage from an organisation is not only unethical but strikes me as wasteful. Garbage is thrown away for a reason - it's not wanted and valueless. The majority of companies today have shredders and routinely shred anything that would be seen as highly sensitive. True, the mid-level material may be chucked, but not the high-level stuff. (And those that don't shred deserve what they get - I'd be surprised that any Fortune 500 companies don't have shredding contracts!)

As for the other shenanigans implied - any company that employed a consultant to use such techniques deserves to get sued and end up paying more than they gained. The trouble is some do - and the list of companies that learned the hard-way that espionage doesn't pay is still growing.

So let me make it clear: espionage is wrong, while CI is a legitimate practice that uses only ethical means to collect intelligence.

This involves declaring your identity and NOT collecting information that would be classed as secret or confidential. As Issur Harel the Israeli spy-chief responsible for capturing the Nazi war murderer, Eichmann, is reported to have said:

We do not deal with certainties. The world of intelligence is the world of probabilities. Getting the information is not usually the most difficult task. What is difficult is putting upon it the right interpretation. Analysis is everything. James Bond is not the real world.

Attacking a castle - or a competitor!

The leading management guru, Rosabeth Moss Kanter's, latest blog post discusses ways to attack a castle: Four Ways to Attack the Castle — And Get a Job, Get Ahead, Make Change.

Although the article is talking about job-seekers and change agents, the same applies to competitive intelligence and strategy, and I've sometimes used the same analogy in my training courses.

So how does attacking a strong fortress compare to competitive intelligence collection. Well - the approach that some still seem to think the best approach - is the full frontal attack. Go for the key contact and hope that they will speak to you. The problem is that these people tend to be surrounded by gatekeepers, guards and you may not even get their name, never mind getting to speak to them. This is the corporate equivalent of having hot oil poured down upon you.

Moss Kanter describes four other approaches that can also be used for CI collection.

1) Find other doors.
Rather than target the main entrance with your battering ram, look for a door that's not guarded. If you want to interview somebody, don't call switchboard and ask for the purchasing manager - as switchboard will ask what it's about and you will find yourself in an interminable voice-mail loop ending with a "send an email to suppliers@companyname.com". Instead, use networking tools - such as LinkedIn - to find the name of anybody involved in purchasing within the target company and ask to speak to them directly. Knowing the name means you get put through and bypass the switchboard gatekeeper.

2) Befriend the fringes.
Be polite. Switchboards get fed up with rude callers - so be friendly. Chat - and treat the operator with respect. They may know more than you think and you may get a name that way.

You won't get put through to the CEO or CFO or any C-level executive directly. Instead, you'll end up speaking to their personal assistant - the guard and gatekeeper for your source. Like the guards and gatekeepers of old, these people know who passes by, and what goes on. So rather than insist on the C-contact, be nice to the PA and chat to them instead. You may well find that all you need to know comes from them instead.

3) Go underneath
Often, going to the top won't help. If the information you require is sensitive, the people at the top know the sensitivity - including their PAs. They won't talk and you will get nothing. Rather, consider the people who report to them, or who have managers who report to them. Such people may not know the whole picture - but speak to several and you soon will. Each interviewee will feel flattered that you view their knowledge as important - and won't realise that the small bits of information they know, when combined with other small bits, can reveal the secrets the higher-ups would like to keep hidden.

4) Go around the castle
Rather than trying to contact the organisation directly, look for people who are now outside but know what goes on inside. These include ex-employees, obviously. However others may also know information - and be willing to share if asked in the right way. These can include your customers, your competitor's customers, their suppliers, as well as industry consultants, trade association staff and many more similar sources.

Collecting competitive intelligence doesn't always depend on looking for the obvious source. Like attacking castles, often the secret is to find the weaknesses that allow you to gain entrance, gather what you need to know and leave without anybody even noticing your visit.

A tale of two countries

I've just read the story of James Bain who was freed after DNA evidence proved that he was innocent. Bain was apparently convicted on the evidence of a line-up despite other evidence not linking him to the crime he was accused of. Of course Bain is not white - and so the US justice system - certainly that from 35 years ago - was prejudiced against him.

Contrast this to the cries against the Italian justice system that has just convicted an American citizen and her Italian boyfriend of a brutal murder - also based on DNA evidence. In the case of Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito it wasn't just DNA evidence either. There were bloodied footprints, erratic behaviour post-murder with changing and inconsistent stories, evidence of antagonism between Knox and her victim, plus more.

Too often, the American legal system seems prejudiced against those least able to defend themselves - look at the differences in the ethnicity of people sentenced to death versus those who escape a capital sentence.

Now contrast this to the Italian legal system where a white, affluent Italian, and his white affluent girl-friend were treated equally to Rudy Guede, a black Ivory Coast accused - sentenced earlier.

The only bias here is not the Italian legal system but the Americans who believe that you can only get justice in the USA, and that the Italian legal system and the judgement is flawed.

If this was the only example of hypocrisy emanating from the US it could be excused - but unfortunately it isn't. Another example is the US "justice" system's hounding of Gary McKinnon - an Asperger sufferer who has been accused of exposing weaknesses in US military computers and so has to be sentenced so that those who failed to protect the system can get off free.

So what has this to do with competitive intelligence? Maybe nothing - on the surface. However if you think about, a lot. As it shows how important it is to remain objective - unlike with Gary McKinnon; to avoid prejudice - as was shown with the Bain case and also the objections to the Knox case; and to ensure that there are multiple lines of evidence before coming to a conclusion and making a decision - as in the Knox case but not in the Bain case.

Yauba - Big Brother isn't watching you

Sixty years after George Orwell published 1984 many of the ideas have, unfortunately, become commonplace. There are speed cameras watching how fast you drive, and CCTV monitoring many UK towns. On the Internet, search engines such as Google monitor your searches - keeping the data for months. They know what operating system you use. AWARE doesn't record this information, despite showing some in our top bar, but many sites, and most search engines do).

Yauba bucks the trend by proudly announcing that it respects user privacy. Its privacy policy proudly states:

We do not keep any personally identifiable information.

Period.

Following the Iranian elections (June 2009) many Iranian dissidents and protesters have switched to Yauba, according to the searchengine blog site, Pandia.

"Ahmed Hossain, CIO of Yauba, tells Pandia: “Our traffic from Iran has jumped 300% over the past several days, as many of them are using the Yauba Search Engine and the anonymity proxy filter to access blocked sites and get news from foreign sources.”

Anonymity may be important for some people. However for most, it's search results that count. Although Yauba claims to be able to search semantically, differentiating between Java the island, Java the coffee and Java the computer language is this a meaningless boast?

In other words is Yauba worth using for those not looking to hide their identity.

The short answer is yes. Yauba searches various types of content - which are separated. As such it enables you to quickly find Acrobat files, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, news, blogs, images, video, etc. in a single search. Each are kept distinct - and this is an interesting differentiator between it and other search engines. It also presents ways of refining queries and where there are alternative meanings it shows these - allowing users to pick the one they want.

Rather than use the search they suggest i.e. Java I put in Apple. The three meanings I thought of were

1. The fruit
2. The computer company
3. The music company founded by the Beatles

In fact, there are several more - as Yauba shows:

apple can mean:

Apple Inc. (formerly Apple Computer, Inc.), a consumer electronics and software company Apple Bank, an American bank in the New York City area Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation founded by The Beatles Apple (album), an album by Mother Love Bone Apple (band), a British psychedelic rock band Apple Records, record label founded by The Beatles Apple I, Apple II series, Apple III, etc., various personal computer models produced by Apple, Inc and sold from 1976 until 1992. Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment, an Indian experimental communication satellite launched in 1981 Apple (automobile), an American automobile manufactured by Apple Automobile Company from 1917 to 1918 Billy Apple, artist Fiona Apple, a Grammy award winning American singer-songwriter R. W. Apple, Jr., an associate editor at The New York Times

Clicking on Apple (automobile) gives a number of results - not all directly relevant but some which were. There is also a brief encyclopedia type entry at the top of the page:

The Apple was a short-lived American automobile manufactured by Apple Automobile Company in Dayton, Ohio from 1917 to 1918. Agents were assured that its $1150 Apple 8 model was "a car which you can sell!". Sadly for the company, it would seem that the public did not buy.

On the right of the screen are various suggestions for alternative searches. For example, a search for apple gives:

Compare the clarity of this to the same search on google. (Admitedly the search is not sophisticated and a competent searcher would refine the term - but for testing, it's good enough)


It means that amateur searchers are more likely to find resuls for complex searches - fulfilling Yauba's claim to allow people to search without a knowledge of Boolean logic.

Also interesting is that a component of each search includes a real-time element - from Twitter and social news from Digg. The real time search element is useful as it provides another option to scoopler.


Sponsored ads appear to come from the Google network. There are also options to filter searches (although there is currently no information on what is being filtered) and a Lite version which seems to remove the refinement options and the top-level definitions (i.e. making it more Google like in its results presentation).

There is also an option to refine searches - alongside the search box.

Selection of one of the options allows further search refinement either by keyword

or domain

Overall I like Yauba. The interface is clean (and the black background makes a change from competitors).


Currently the site says it's only an early Beta / Late Alpha preview release so more work / changes can be expected. Hopefully these will include Help files explaining what the Lite search is supposed to do and what a Filtered search actually filters. Also, what syntax is acceptable - to refine searches. Does Boolean searching actually work, for example? On my brief tests it seemed to - as did phrase searching i.e. putting search terms in quotes. What about other options - could any of the advanced search options from Exalead be included. And will the site cover more countries, than the current small number (Italy, France, UK, India, Brazil, Russia and the .com site)? Yauba promises to cover more countries - I'm just surprised that there is no Chinese or German version as I would have expected these before the Italian version. I guess the Yauba team have Italian speakers but currently no Chinese speakers.

Forte 1 - truth or lie? A brief competitive intelligence case study.

I received a phone call today from a charming lady who claimed to work for a company called Forte 1. I knew nothing about her company which seemed to want me to switch my business telephone line, and also said that they offered computers at great prices, and more.

Whenever I get a sales call out of the blue, a red-light goes on in my head. At the same time I'm not one of these people that will put the phone straight down. For a start, I view it as an opportunity to practice my competitive intelligence elicitation and interviewing skills - how much can I find out about the unknown company. Very occasionally also, they get it right - and do succeed in making a sale (when it's something I've wanted anyway and they offer a better deal).

In the case of Forte1, alarm bells started ringing early on. I was considering putting the phone down but really wanted to know a bit more about the company and its service offering, especially as I was interested in one service that was mentioned and if the company was bonafide, I could have become a customer.

Unfortunately the sales person wouldn't give me a straight answer. I suggested that she mail me information on her company and if it was suitable for my needs I'd recontact her. Instead she suggested I look at their web-site. This gave me the chance to check up on them - and it's an interesting lesson in what you can find on a company within 5-10 minutes, if you know how. It also showed that I knew more about her company than she did - confirming my suspicions that this may not be as genuine an offer as the salesperson was claiming. (However I don't really know - or care. If any Forte1 users want to comment on this post and give a client reference please feel free).

So what did I do? Well first, I went to their web-site - using Firefox (my browser of choice).

The page opened with some Javascript for displaying the date - that was written before the HTML tag - as in the screen print below:

That's always a danger sign - as it implies that the web-site's not been properly checked. The next thing was the text - for example

Who we are

ForteOne has applied a tactic of superb timing and entrepreneurial assertiveness to achieve success in the fields of communications through a vast array of business equipment solutions and information technology products and services.

Our goal is to build long-term partnerships with our customers and maximise the potential of our traditional business, through a combination of enhanced quality of service and creativity.

I'm not sure what this means. Although the words are English, the sentences are just a collection of management jargon put together to imply competence. For example, what on earth does entrepreneurial assertiveness actually mean.

My next step was to find out more about the web-site itself. Using Firefox's Page Info command (in the Tools menu) it turns out the home page was relatively new - from February 2009.

So how old was the domain name - over to www.checkdomain.com (one of many domain checking services). That shows that the domain was registered on the 23 September 2008, as was the parallel domain forteone.co.uk. The US .com domain is owned by somebody else and is bonafide - but my suspicions are still high with the .co.uk domain - incidentally registered by a Mr W Ahmed.

Next step - let's check the address to make sure that this is genuine. So over to Google and enter the postal code and address: "268 Bath Road" "SL1 4DX". Now that's interesting - dozens of hits come up, including the Slough branch of Regus - the virtual office company. Lots of small and SoHo businesses will base out of a Regus branch, but it doesn't add substance to the veracity of Forte1 - as their web-site description seems to suggest a large profitable business.

Now let's check to see if it is a real business - so over to Companies House and their web-check service. Enter in Forte 1 (expecting nothing but who knows) and hey-presto, up comes a real company - Company No. 06354706. So it is a genuine business after-all, assuming that this is the correct Forte 1. Only problem is that the address is different to the web-site (which doesn't include the company number).

In fact, there appear to be several changes to the record since this company was founded - in August 2007. It first appeared as Trus Com Ltd, then changed to Truscom Ltd before metamorphosing into Forte1 Ltd in October 2008. The company has also changed address twice - from a W2 4SA address in London to an address in Barnet on the outskirts of London.

However the key line connecting the two - and confirming that this is the same company comes on the 3 March 2009 - where a 288c "Director's Particulars" document is filed for Wesam Ahmed. Remember the name - the guy who registered the forte1.co.uk domain name.

So what about that W2 4SA address - is that another accommodation address.

Another Google search shows that there are 2 companies registered at

SUITE 4 REDAN HOUSE, 27 REDAN PLACE, LONDON, W2 4SA.

One is Motiontel Ltd listed on a D&B web-site, and the other is Nationtel Ltd listed on the excellent Applegate directory. Applegate lists the director - our friend, Wesam Ahmed again. Unfortunately a search on some of the people search sites doesn't give much - as there are too many people with the same or similar name to research in 10 minutes.

So where to now. Well let's see if our web-site shares a server with any other web-sites. If they have a dedicated server that's a good sign - and could indicate links between businesses. So over to Domain Tools and it's reverse IP lookup option. Enter in forte1.co.uk and it turns out that:

There are 5 domains hosted on this IP address.
Here are a few of them:

1. Aracom.co.uk
   
2. Forte1.co.uk
   
3. Fortecontactcenter.com
   
4. 2 more...

(In contrast, with forteone.co.uk there are 1000s - indicating that the server is shared and not dedicated).

Taking a look at Aracom.co.uk the look and feel are the same (including the same HTML error on Firefox) but in this case the site is under construction. However the fortecontactcenter.com domain is active - with a new contact address:

Smart Village Km 28 Cairo Alex Desert Road - Giza - Egypt

So it seems that perhaps Mr Ahmed is Egyptian - it's an Egyptian name after-all.

In conclusion - I can't (and won't) say whether or not Forte1 Ltd is genuine - with real products and services or not. Not having any experience of them apart from the phone-call it wouldn't be fair to make a judgement. However from what I uncovered I won't become a customer. Instead this can be viewed as a case-study in how it's possible to do a quick competitor analysis while speaking to somebody on the phone - in a few minutes. With more time I'd have looked to see whether Mr Ahmed had more companies under his belt, and whether any had failed. I'd have looked into more depth to see who else (if anybody) was involved and tried to find some customers to give actual opinions on how they performed. This is the sort of work we do for clients - rather than just to satisfy curiosity, as was the case here.

Google Squared - tabulate results instantly

Google Squared is a new addition to the Google Labs portfolio of products being tested by Google. Launched on June 3, it looks as though it's aimed at offering an ability to get more from simple searches - perhaps a bit like WolframAlpha.

It's still very much a beta-test addition to the Google product range so there are bound to be some holes. What happens is that you enter a search term and a spreadsheet type page appears with various headings in the leftmost column, followed by a description and various other (generally) relevant columns.

It's an interesting way of using Google's data - i just wish that the results were more consistent and accurate. Entering in the search term Planets should be a perfect way of testing how the spreadsheet approach works - and unfortunately it doesn't, at least not completely.

The Planets search gives a list on the left of Earth, Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Neptune but misses out Mars and Uranus. Fair-enough - as there is the "Add next 10 items" link at the bottom (and also an "Add items" option). Adding the next 10 items however doesn't give the missing planets, but instead, Ceres, Charon and various other headings relevant but only indirectly (e.g. "Planets in Science Fiction" or "solar system").

The "Add items" option does better in that it gives potential choices - which include Uranus and Mars.

The next column contains an image of each planet although the one for Pluto, culled from the SouthernWatch blog is actually a diagram of Pluto with a slogan attached saying Pluto for Planethood.

I'm sort of surprised that it didn't include a picture of the Disney character.

The next column is a description - again taken from various places so not showing any consistency. The description for Jupiter for example, seems accurate - and is taken from Wikpedia:

Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian planets. ...

The problem is that different sources are used for different planets - with both Venus and Saturn being particularly obtuse - taken respectively from www.venus.com and www.saturn.com.

Only at Venus, find the sexiest women's swimwear and clothing. Shop online or request a catalog for sizzling hot clothing and swimsuits. ...

and

While you're shopping for Saturn vehicles, we've given you an easy way to keep information for the next time you visit Saturn.com. With My Saved Info, ...

The following columns give the orbital period, equatorial surface and mean density - with an option to add further items at the end. The problem is not knowing how accurate these are - and in fact they appear as eccentric as the planet descriptions with some containing units and others just a number. I'd certainly not want to use the values or any entries in any school paper or anything where I need reliable answers.

In summary, Google Squared is interesting and if Google manages to include some quality checking - perhaps by only using certain sites or back-checking to ensure that correct context then this could be a winner. Until then, i'll stick with WolframAlpha and Wikipedia for a quick look at multiple facts.

WolframAlpha

I'm still not sure what to make of WolframAlpha - the new "computational search tool". I like what it can do - as a way of solving crosswords, or doing math calculations. For a lot of information it's probably easier to use than Wikipedia but i can't really see how it will help in most business type queries - at least it won't yet.

If you want to find a word where you know some letters it's great. Type in _i_i_i and you'll get the answer "bikini" and also "militia" - two words that match that pattern. Put in an equation and you'll get a graph, or a chemical or molecular symbol and you'll get information on the element or compound. Enter in stock codes and you'll get some company information but too often the result is "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." You'll get this if you put in British Telecom but WolframAlpha knows about BT as enter this and you get correct information on British Telecom's share performance.

I think part of the problem is that WolframAlpha is different and new. It's NOT a search engine (despite the hype saying it would be a Google killer). It's not an encylopedia although many entries are encylopedic. Instead, it's what it says on its description - it's a computational knowledge engine. Use it to carry out calculations or to bring up data that's in it's knowledge engine - but don't use it for much more. It's a useful addition to the search scene and will make life easier for some searches, but that's about it. For most searches I'll stick with Google and other search engines. For general information I'll remain happy with Wikipedia. However I will use WolframAlpha for information requiring some element of computation more complex or requiring greater detail than is available in Google's calculate functionality.

But it's not google - Bing goes Live!

Another long wait between entries - I really must update more often. However recent events in the Search world and in the CI world mean I have no choice but to update. My thoughts on recent changes at SCIP will have to wait till my next post. This post will look at Microsoft's replacement for Live and MSN Search - with its new Bing search engine.

Searches at Live or MSN Search now redirect to Bing.com. I like the front-end - it's clean and colourful. However I couldn't find anywhere to change the front image - at least on the UK version that's still in Beta.
The US version does allow you to scroll back to previous images - with a little arrow option at the bottom of the right side of the screen.

The US version also includes hot-spots describing aspects of the picture, plus a side-bar offering more search options.

At the bottom of both versions is a link for help - interestingly still pointing to Live.com. Obviously Microsoft still has more work to do on this. The help section gives the format for advanced commands and also allows you to remove the screen background.

So how does Bing perform. For the searches I tried, the results are good - and there isn't that much to choose between Google and Bing. One difference i did notice is that URLs with the search terms used seem to come higher than other sites - so, for example, AWARE's web-site came to the top for a search on "marketing-intelligence". Also relevant is that the algorithm is sufficiently intelligent to realise that "CompetitorAnalysis.com" is a likely candidate for searches on "Competitor Analysis". I'm not sure the same precision exists in Google. Another odd feature is that some titles seem to be edited. For example some searches on my web-site content bring up the following title: "

• Read an Article On Competitor Analysis On the Aware Website

This title doesn't exist on our web-site so has been taken from somewhere else - most likely from a link on a UK government business support web-site.

Where Bing falls is in the advanced searching and also the preferences. I like that you can set Google to display 100 hits at a time. Bing only allows 50. Bing also lacks some of the field / advanced search options available to Google. There are no wild-card searches (using the * character) or synonym searches (the ~ character) for example. However there are options that are not currently available in Google - such as the feed:, hasfeed:, loc:, and contains: options. These allow for searching for RSS sites (feed: and hasfeed:), location searches (loc:), searches for sites containing links to types of content such as WMA, MPG files, etc. - contains:. These options are not available in the advanced search boxes.

All in all - i like Bing and prefer its interface to Live. I like colourful pages, and have customised my Google page with iGoogle themes, and Ask with it's skins. Yet again, however, this is not a Google Killer - and perhaps it's not trying to be. The key thing: Bing is not google!

A number of other reviews on Bing worth reading:

Mixed reviews of Bing, Microsoft's new search engine - the Daily Telegraph
Bing Don't Bother - Karen Blakeman's review
Bing Launches - it's awful - Phil Bradley's review
Bing Bing: Microsoft's search engine unexpectedly live, but not Live - the Guardian