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Learn Elicitation Skills at AIIP in Baltimore, Apr 2: 8 – Noon

Posted on March 14, 2014 by ellendnaylor

AIIP Logo 2014AIIP holds its annual conference from April 2 – 6 this year in Baltimore, Maryland at the Hyatt Regency in the Inner Harbor. I will be giving a half day workshop from 8 am – Noon on April 2. The topic is elicitation skills with my corporate spin rather than the military intelligence angle.  The talk is entitled, “How to Use Conversation to Optimize Data Collection.” After all, elicitation is best done conversationally.

So here is a little more detail about why you might want to attend this workshop, especially if you live in the DC or Baltimore metro areas.

Many info pros and CI professionals dread conducting telephone, video, or in-person interviews, an essential skill for data collection. Through conversational interviewing, we can probe more deeply, and gain much more intelligence than through the Internet and social media. Actually my best audience for this workshop has been sales people who want to close more deals and retain their customer base. Elicitation forces them to organize their thoughts about what they’ll cover before they visit or telephone their customers.

Attend this workshop and learn how to successfully conduct interviews every time. Discover how to take your collection skills to the next level, and use this session to practice your skills.

Prepare yourself to conduct a conversational interview: physically, mentally and emotionally
Conduct a conversation to optimize data gathering–whether it’s a cold or warm call
Present your findings persuasively to your client

Ellen Speaking AIIP2012 1For those of you who don’t know me (Ellen Naylor), I have been using elicitation skills since about 1985, and have led workshops at SCIP and for clients privately for many years. I keep learning new ways to be more effective, which go far beyond the elicitation skills that we learn as competitive intelligence professionals.

The fee is $125 for AIIP, SCIP and SLA members, and $150 for everyone else. This is about 1/3 what I charge when I give this training at corporations. The maximum class size will be 20, and you will get individual attention, not just from me, but from fellow attendees. For more details about this workshop, check out AIIP’s site.

For more details about the AIIP’s conference, check out the detailed schedule, and the 4 other pre-conference workshop presenters. You can register for the full conference on line, which includes the pre-conference sessions on page 2 of the registration form.  There is a member rate for my session–How to Use Conversation to Optimize Data Collection–listed at $125, but it doesn’t specify SCIP and SLA specifically. I will honor these memberships, so if you belong to either, take the “member rate.” If there is a problem, we will sort it out at the session.

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Filed under: AIIP, Competitive Intelligence, conversation, Denver, Elicitation, Ellen Naylor, interview, sales people, SCIP, SLA, telephone | Comments Off on Learn Elicitation Skills at AIIP in Baltimore, Apr 2: 8 – Noon

How to Find Health Information for Veterans

Posted on August 2, 2013 by ellendnaylor

Dana AbbeyDana Abbey, Health Information Literacy Coordinator at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Library gave a most informative presentation entitled “Combating Information Fatigue: Health Information Resources for Veterans,” to our Rocky Mountain SLA chapter. In the spirit of cooperative intelligence you will gain the benefit of the research that Dana has compiled.

Skills and coping mechanisms developed during military service, particularly at war, may be counterproductive or misunderstood in civilian life. Readjustment after returning from war is a major challenge, not just for veterans, but also for their families, friends and caregivers. Looking at the numbers: there are 8 million Vietnam veterans; 6.7 million World War II veterans; 4.3 million Korean conflict veterans; 697,000 Gulf War veterans and 1.4 million Afghanistan/Iraq war veterans.

Military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan are surviving wounds in numbers far greater than previous wars. This is largely due to advances in body armor, combat medicine and the rapidity of evacuation. Thus many suffer polytrauma, which is multiple injuries. These severe injuries require sophisticated, comprehensive and often lifelong care. Many injuries are the result of explosives which can cause traumatic brain injury (TBI), blindness, spinal cord injury, burns and damage to limbs causing amputation. TBI can cause attention, memory and language problems, headaches, sleep disturbances and personality changes. A closed TBI injury can be hard to detect, and sometimes goes untreated. PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) is common among veterans, many who have survived traumatic events.

Veterans suffer higher rates of diabetes and overweight/obesity than the average population. One third of US veterans suffer from arthritis. One third of US veterans from the Iraq war access mental health services after returning home. The prevalence rate of mental health is higher for Iraq veterans: 19.1% versus 11.3% for Afghanistan veterans and 8.5% from other war locations. Veterans suffering from depression are 7-8x more likely to commit suicide than the general population. That amounts to 22 suicides per day or one every 65 minutes.

Homelessness is another issue among veterans. Poverty and high housing costs contribute, as do the lingering effects of PTSD and TBI which render unstable behavior and substance abuse.  More than 11% of the newly homeless veterans are women. The VA (Veterans Affairs) is making a large effort to prevent homelessness by providing 2 years of free medical care and identifying psychological and substance abuse problems early.

1.3 million veterans have no insurance and with ACA (Affordable Care Act) about 50% will qualify for Medicaid coverage. The VA encourages veterans to examine their eligibility for VA health benefits using its Health Benefits Explorer.

Dana shared the robust CU Health Sciences Library resource guide she developed (and updates) for veterans and their families looking for support. Following are some of the categories of data provided in the resources guide:

Limb loss and prosthetics; Mental health services and resources; Spinal cord injury and disease; Traumatic brain injury; MedlinePlus health topics; General military health; Health resources; Demographic group resources; Insurance and benefits; and Support groups and organizations.

There are links to government websites, white papers and relevant books including:

There are numerous libraries across North America which have compiled on-line resources to help veterans and their families find support, as well as personal support for physical, mental and emotional issues incurred from deployment in wars. Don’t forget to email or telephone your friendly librarian if you need help navigating through this maize of information. CU Health Sciences Library can be reached at AskHSL@lists.ucdenver.edu or 303-724-2152.

BTW, here is a great PTSD blog, which I became aware of since writing this blog.

Filed under: Cooperative Intelligence, Ellen Naylor, research, SLA, telephone | Comments Off on How to Find Health Information for Veterans

Tips to Improve Your Collection Interviews

Posted on March 1, 2013 by ellendnaylor

I recently gave a webinar for our SLA competitive intelligence division on “How to improve your collection skills through interviewing and elicitation.” I particularly enjoyed the Q&A and will share my 2 favorites which I have embellished on since I have had more time to think about them.

How do you differentiate yourself from a telemarketer? Do you say what you’re doing, like a research project?

I usually don’t tell people exactly what I am up to in a cold call. It isn’t really necessary and most people don’t care. We are usually more experienced in communication than telemarketers, who try to have us not hang up on them. A telemarketer usually has the same approach and objective for every phone interview, such as to get us to buy something or to donate money to their charity. Not surprisingly, there is high turnover in telemarketing. I have been doing primary collection interviews for over 20 years. I have specific and different objectives for every telephone call. I also have multiple approaches to obtain information, but I am not asking anyone to buy my service or donate money to a charity. I don’t expect anyone to hang up on me and am polite. I have a level of confidence in the tone of my voice that telemarketers don’t have, just as soon as I say “Hello.” Remember it’s not just what you say, but how you say it that makes you a successful interviewer.

What are some tips to get the interview in the first place? Reaching people live, referrals or customized email requests leading up to a telephone call?

When it’s a cold call, it’s pretty straightforward. I call the company and ask to be transferred to the department that I think will best help me. Switchboard operators are usually quite helpful. If one is not, I will wait until lunchtime, when s/he is often replaced with someone else, or the telephone goes into auto-attendant, so I can make my best guess and get transferred through automation. Sometimes I don’t know who I should talk to and the switchboard will give me a name to connect with as she is transferring the call. It is now a referral which warms the call up a bit.

If it’s not a cold call, people increasingly expect you to email them to set up a time to talk on the phone, since they don’t appreciate having their day interrupted with unscheduled telephone calls. You have to figure out a short value proposition to get their attention, and be willing to call them to set up a time, since often enough they don’t email you back in a timely fashion. This is particularly true when querying people in technology.

However, with all the turnover in technology, the person you want to talk with to may have left the company. Meanwhile the administrator will let you know who their replacement is, ever willing to connect you immediately. You can decide to call later and look them up on LinkedIn, or you can be transferred right in to the person immediately. I always opt to be transferred immediately. By now I know enough about that person’s job and have done a little research on their company. Reading their LinkedIn profile isn’t going to help me that much, and will delay me from talking to them. These are often win loss analysis calls. They have inherited someone else’s decision, and are now responsible to make it work. They are happy to tell me all about their experience, and in these interviews I probably do about 10% of the talking. I think it’s also because they’re new with the company, and not so well connected with other employees just yet. I am a pair of willing, listening ears.

Here is the Interviewing & Elicitation presentation. Here is the YouTube that combines audio with the slides. However, the slides are a out of sync with the audio. For those who attended the webinar, I have included the YouTube link to the video of the awesome Walter Cronkite predicting the office of 2001 with pretty close accuracy, back in 1967!

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, Elicitation, Ellen Naylor, interview, LinkedIn, research, SLA, telephone, win loss analysis | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Interviewing Versus Elicitation

Posted on February 22, 2013 by ellendnaylor

People often ask, “What is the benefit of elicitation versus the standard interview?” Actually they have a lot in common.

Preparation in similar. You want to learn as much about that person as you can before you talk to them. Is there something about their profession that you can comment on to get the conversation flowing? Do they work in an interesting industry? Is there some industry jargon that you better know to be believed? What is their communication style? What will put them at ease to share with you early in the interview? Do you have something in common that you can build rapport with?

For an interview, I list all the questions I want answered and then rephrase them in a way that makes it easier for the person to become engaged based on my research of their personality, preferred communication style and profession. This is a great exercise since mentally I start thinking about all the different ways they might respond, and in turn what other questions I might ask, that are not on my list, based on their response. I create something like a decision tree for interviewing, and you thought decision trees were just used in statistics. You can never be too prepared to talk to people, since interviews seldom go as planned, especially over the phone.

Whether you have an appointment or make a cold call, you are interrupting the person’s day, so you need to use your words wisely so as not to waste their time. With some people, a little small talk is all it takes to jump start the interview. With others, state your purpose and get to the point. Others will ask you questions to test your knowledge before they’ll share.

Elicitation is a conversational interview, a planned conversation. People remember the beginning and the end of a conversation more than what is spoken in the middle. If you are asking a series of questions they might wonder why you are asking those questions, and how they should answer. How is the interviewer going to use the information I share? Hmm, I wonder how much I should share? What’s in it for me to share this information?

So you start and end your elicitation conversation with some inconsequential questions about the weather, last night’s football score or ask what brings them to the trade show. Other than this small talk, you don’t ask questions. For some this takes practice. For me it comes naturally, since it’s human nature. When John Nolan taught us a workshop on elicitation in 1995, I remember thinking that I had been using some of these techniques and didn’t know this was elicitation.

Elicitation builds off human tendencies that most people have: a desire for recognition, showing off, curiosity, gossip, complaining, correcting you. Most people can’t keep a secret. There are numerous techniques, and I will illustrate a couple.

One of my favorites is flattery. Some people have a strong ego while others get so little recognition that stroking their ego really works.  Simple flattery often coaxes a person into a conversation that otherwise would not have taken place. Everybody, whether prominent, or very low on the totem pole, reacts to flattery as long as it’s genuine. A common way to use flattery is, “I’ve heard you’re the best…an expert…”

Another favorite is coming across as naïve. People just can’t resist enlightening you. Naïve doesn’t mean stupid. It just means that you don’t quite understand something.  For example when I spoke to a trades person about his instrument, I wanted to learn why he liked this particular competitor’s model. I simply said, “I am not as familiar with this company as I only know the market leader’s instrument which you replaced with this competitor’s model.” That’s all it took, and he told me what he liked about the competitor’s model, and why he didn’t replace it with the market leader’s.

This above call didn’t go as planned. According to my client’s database, this trades person was using one of their instruments. However, that was an error, and he was using a competitor’s model. I didn’t hesitate to find out more information about the competition.

I bet many of you who conduct primary research or interviews use elicitation techniques and don’t even realize it. If you want to learn more about this, you can read John Nolan’s book, Confidential. I gave a webinar for SLA’s Competitive Intelligence division. Check out the Slideshare deck.

Filed under: communication, competition, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, conversation, Cooperative Intelligence, Elicitation, Ellen Naylor, research, SLA | Tagged: | Comments Off on Interviewing Versus Elicitation

Why Business Researchers Should Be Skeptical

Posted on February 6, 2013 by ellendnaylor

cynthia leskyCynthia Lesky, CEO of Theshold Information, gave a great webinar entitled, “Business Research in the Age of Truthiness” to the Competitive Intelligence division of the SLA.

Cynthia extrapolates truthiness from Stephen Colbert, “Truthiness is what you want the facts to be as opposed to what the facts are.” Those reporting news want to build and keep a loyal following, so they take advantage of confirmation bias, which is a tendency for people to look for and believe information that confirms their prejudices.

Cynthia recommends three ways to improve your research skills in today’s hyper-mediated truth-challenged world:

  1.  Have a skeptical mindset as you are researching and reading articles.
  2.  Develop a strong source literacy skill. Learn which are more trustworthy. Gain industry expertise and learn to trust your intuition when something doesn’t look right.
  3. Put together a rich report at the conclusion of your research which provides as direct a response as possible to your client’s questions. Point out reporting errors and inconsistencies you discovered in your research, and new questions your research uncovered that were not answered.

You should be skeptical about the accuracy of the information you find through digital media and traditional media sources, since so much of it comes from press releases and is regurgitated more or less at face value by general news aggregators, industry aggregators and often enough by API, the source of many articles we read in newspapers these days. This information is used by bloggers, Tweeters and other digital media authors who may embellish on the press release, and sometimes do additional research to include facts that the original press release left out, or maybe not.

According to Jim O’Shea, former Senior Editor of the Star Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, most reporting today is churnalism. The story is not being reported: it’s being repeated. Newspaper staffs have been drastically cut and many papers have ceased operations or have moved to digital formatting. In The Death and Life of American Journalism, Robert McChesney and John Nichols report that as of 2008, there were .90 PR people to 100,000 versus .25 journalists, a ratio of more than three-to-one, better equipped and financed.

Remember press releases are carefully crafted to further the interests of the originating organization, whether a company, government organization, trade association or other special interest group. News aggregators, industry aggregators, newspapers, bloggers and social media writers share one thing in common: they write for a targeted (think truthiness) readership and want to increase the number of eyeballs who look at their publication. So they include data that supports their agenda within an article, especially the headline, even if it might distort the facts. The right headline helps them get found on the Internet.

Here is a blatant example of how bias distorts facts. API and Life Goes Strong, (NBC Digital Networks and Procter & Gamble Productions network of websites targeting baby boomers and promoting P&G products), conducted a poll of older workers. They both reported from the same set of results, but notice that the headlines have a different spin.

  • Poll Exposes Age Discrimination in Today’s Workforce (LifeGoesStrong.com)
  • Working Boomers Say Age is a Plus at Office (API)

So who is telling the truth? A skeptical, informed person recognizes that news contains some bias, distortion and misinformation. You also know you can’t rely on a single news source, and if the same news is repeated by many sources, it’s good idea to find the original source, so you can check its veracity and the content that JDLR (just don’t look right).

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, Ellen Naylor, research, SLA | 1 Comment »

How to become an expert in primary intelligence: Interviewing

Posted on September 19, 2012 by ellendnaylor

Last night I gave at talk to our DC SCIP chapter on primary intelligence collection and elicitation. I promised I would share the slides with attendees. They are on Slideshare.

Here are some of the key points from the talk about interviewing. The next blog will cover key points on elicitation.

When conducting an interview, most people know who you are and why you want to talk to them, except when you are cold calling, which is what we do often enough in competitive intelligence.

The first step in primary collection regardless of whether it’s a standard interview, elicitation or some combination is preparation. Do your homework. Find out about the person you will talk to, even if it’s a cold call. At the very least, you know their profession and their industry, which will help you develop reasons why they would want to talk with you, and more importantly, share! Do not skimp on this upfront time. Often conversations and interviews don’t go as planned. If you have done your preparation, you can more easily be flexible and go with plans b, c or d!

As you prepare for your collection project, think about what it is you will share and NOT share before you pick up the telephone or attend that trade show.

Think about why people will be motivated to share with you based on who they are: their profession, personal issues, politics, predisposition, and emotional intelligence. Be sensitive as to how they like to be communicated with based on how they come across in those first few seconds of the call or the meeting, and alter your communication style accordingly to a dominant, expressive, conscientious or amicable type. Recognize that people may change their practice and predisposition when they are under stress.

Reword your questions to motivate people to open up and share. Start with open ended questions that are easy for them to answer, and that you think they will enjoy answering. Then move to more hypothetical questions and indirect questions before you get to the more narrow questions. I find that bracketing those narrow questions gets a better response.

Listen closely to what the target is telling you, and be flexible. Perhaps they really don’t know the answers to some of those issues that you thought they would know. What are they not sharing that you thought they knew? Did they really know it or are they purposely not telling you? With so many participating in social networks there are too many self proclaimed experts who aren’t so expert once you start probing.

Lay aside your preconceived notions. Many of us listen for what we think is the ‘right’ answer or for what we want to hear. We don’t listen to the full story that the other person is telling us. Listen and put your ego aside if you want to be good in primary collection.

If you are at a trade show or another form of in-person collection, take advantage of the person’s body cues. Do the words match the facial and body expressions? If they don’t, believe the body: it’s easy to lie. In America, people often misinform. They are often just trying to be helpful, but it’s misinformation. Sometimes that’s harder to discern. One way is to make an obvious mistake in a key assumption or statistic as I ask a question. If they don’t pick up on it, I am suspicious about their knowledge level.

Also realize when dealing with people in person that it’s easier for people to manipulate their smiles and facial expressions, less easy for them to control other parts of their body such as their shoulders, arms, legs, feet and breathing.

If you are connecting on the telephone listen for a change in their tone of voice, pitch, cadence, confidence, speed of speech, hesitation, sigh, shallow breathing, silence. There are so many cues when you listen to people beyond what they say or don’t say. Trust your intuition: it’s usually right.

In closing, many people asked me how I represent myself when I talk to people. I tell them who I am right away. Many people seem to think there is one approach that will work with every person, that there is a simple answer to this question. There isn’t. You should choose to be ethical when you conduct research. SCIP has a code of ethics; AIIP and SLA have codes of ethics. Your company probably has a code of ethics or business practices they want you to follow. But most importantly you have to be true to yourself.

BTW, if you want to watch a great interview check out John Clees here and look for my next blog on elicitation.

Filed under: AIIP, communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, Ellen Naylor, emotional intelligence, interview, SCIP, SLA, social networks, telephone, trade show | 4 Comments »

Maximize Your ROI through Competitive Intelligence

Posted on September 6, 2012 by ellendnaylor

This is the second in the series from my Pecha Kucha presentation for our SLA Competitive Intelligence tournament. In the first I described life as a competitive intelligence professional back in 1985.

This will focus on maximizing your ROI (return on investment) while providing market intelligence. You want to prove your worth as soon as you can. First you must find out what is missing that you CAN PROVIDE ETHICALLY! We conduct interviews with those who fund our competitive intelligence initiatives, as well as those we know will ultimately be great sources of CI (CI sources and users will often be the same people, but not always).

I was fortunate in that I came from field Sales, so I knew sales intelligence was an area where I could improve our company’s ROI by helping them win more deals. I had a good idea how I could help without interviewing anyone, since I knew what we were missing. We didn’t have regional detail on how to win against specific competitors. We just had a global outlook on the competition, and this was too broad to be useful. In addition, people in Sales didn’t know each other, so I could connect individuals who were combating the same competitor, and let them strategize together. Then I could share their success story so others could take advantage and win more deals. This would pump up the sales force, so they would share even more with me, since they liked this kind of publicity.

Competitive intelligence is a support role. You need to shelf your ego. I learned that I portrayed a cooperative attitude which I have since dubbed “cooperative intelligence”, which opened up the floodgates of sharing from Sales in particular. I went to them on a mission to help them, rather than to extract information from them. This was a first for them. Since I was a giver and a listener, this cut through politics and promoted information sharing. When you give without the expectation of something in return, anyone can tell.

There are more subtle ways to gain brownie points with Sales. I noticed that most staffers were coming to sales people with requests for information repeatedly, and that their requests were often for similar or even for the same information. I decided to become a conduit for others in our headquarters staff to centralize and consolidate their requests for information from Sales. Sales loved this since this reduced the number of staff requests. I also kept track of what other staffers had collected from Sales, so that I could intervene in some cases when Sales had recently already provided this data to a different staffer. Staffers appreciated this too since most of them didn’t like to call Sales with requests for information. This is a great way to insert yourself into the Sales process and prove your value. It doesn’t take much extra time, and Sales is really grateful.

Even doing all these things “right,” it still took me about 2 years to connect with Sales throughout our company. You cannot rush connection and relationships. It takes time to build trust.

It took me a little longer to connect with Sales Vice Presidents, the subject of my next blog.

Filed under: competition, competitive analysis, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, connection, Cooperative Intelligence, D. Sales Intelligence Articles, Ellen Naylor, sales intelligence, sales people, SLA | Comments Off on Maximize Your ROI through Competitive Intelligence

Competitive Intelligence in 1985

Posted on August 17, 2012 by ellendnaylor

When I wrote my Pecha Kucha presentation for our SLA Competitive Intelligence tournament, I decided to go back in time to 1985, the first year I focused entirely on competitive intelligence. This is the first in a series about how I evolved in my career in competitive intelligence, and what I have learned over time. Overall I am glad I had a start back then for the critical thinking and deeper relationships I developed. I am glad to still be in this field today where I can reach out to sources quickly that I would never have dreamed even existed, thanks to social networking.

1985 was a very different time and I will focus on the US.

  • Gas was $1.09/gallon
  • Movies were $2.75
  • Rent averaged $375/month
  • The Fed’s interest rate was 10.75%.

Technical differences were also noteworthy:

  • Windows 1.0 was introduced
  • CDs were introduced in the US in 1985
  • The first mobile telephone call was made in the UK by Ernie Wise

I started to focus on what we called competitive analysis just before the Society of Competitive Intelligence (SCIP) was formed, and didn’t learn about SCIP until 1989, two years before SCIP published its first membership directory. I worked for Bell Atlantic, a new company then, a Baby Bell from the initial AT&T divestiture. We were working out our company infrastructure as I was figuring out how best to provide and collect competitive intelligence.

I did not have a PC at my desk. My telephone was the most immediate form of communication with most of the company, although I could easily have in-person meetings with our product and marketing managers who sat close-by. In fact I had to be careful not to attend too many of their meetings else I wouldn’t get my work done. It correlates somewhat to spending too much time on email and social networks today.

We shared a fax machine among many of us, and waited in line at the photocopy machine. Secretaries typed up memos and reports. We took notes by hand. We memorized people’s phone numbers and had a Rolodex of names. I cross referenced my Rolodex names by job function in case I forgot a person’s name. We used company mail and US mail (which we didn’t call snail mail) for written communication.

Presentations would be typed up, given on overhead machines or written up on flip charts. I spent less time putting together presentations through these primitive means than I do today on PowerPoint decks since our standards were lower. I think people spent more time listening to what you had to say back then, since what you produced wasn’t much to look at. It also meant you had to know your stuff since there wasn’t the crutch of media to support you. People asked more questions and had more comments since they couldn’t easily get smart before a meeting like we can today by accessing the Internet to read up a bit.

I read the news in hard copy. We distributed news sources like Time, Business Week and Fortune among ourselves. I got my own copy of The Wall Street Journal which I read daily. We noted who got which industry consultant reports and subscriptions throughout Bell Atlantic. It could be that our Philadelphia office would get the only copy of an expensive industry report, and we would have to wait our turn to read it due to copyright issues.

The first organizational thing I did was a personal SWOT. My strength has always been visionary. I can see the big picture pretty readily and am creative. I am not strong with the details and execution although I am highly intuitive. I was lucky and found a wonderful lady to work with who was great with people and had a similar work ethic to mine. Unlike me, she was attentive to detail and great with execution. Over time we became a strong team, and are still friends some 25+ years later, although we live 2000 miles apart.

Our opportunity and our immediate threat were the same thing:

  • Learn how each of our regions communicated
  • Learn each region’s culture
  • Learn how individuals were motivated to share
  • Learn how individuals and each region would accept facts and ideas from a centralized group outside their region, namely us

We had to talk with each other more often than we do today, since there was no email; no voice mail or social media connection. I got copies of company’s (competitor’s) press releases from my company’s industry liaison person soon after she received them, so I could pass on the scoop to my company clients.

We had to use our creativity to achieve real-time intelligence, since people were our only real-time source, and we had fewer people we could reach out to since our world was smaller. On a positive note, our relationships with people were deeper, perhaps since we had fewer relationships. Our critical thinking skills were naturally sharpened with these deeper relationships. I had a few people outside the company that I had provocative discussions with often. These people helped me reach outside of Bell Atlantic’s culture and expand my vision of the competitive environment.

Filed under: communication, competitive analysis, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, connection, Cooperative Intelligence, creativity, Ellen Naylor, real-time intelligence, SCIP, SLA, social media, social networks, telephone | 2 Comments »

Connecting with Business Colleagues in Thanksgiving

Posted on November 24, 2011 by ellendnaylor

Thanksgiving is a time for sharing, caring and expressing gratitude. I am grateful to have so many wonderful friends in business. In the spirit of cooperative intelligence and sharing, I recently was a panelist in a SLA Competitive Intelligence division (CID) webinar on “Integrating Marketing and Sales to Capture & Deliver Intelligence.”  While this is an SLA CID member benefit, all four of us panelists posted our slides on Slideshare.

I will list us in the order we presented so you have the benefit of a good flow:

Susan Berkman: Producing Intelligence for Sales & Marketing

Marcy Phelps: Competitive Intelligence for Marketing Professionals

Ellen Naylor: Collaborating with Sales

Anna Shallenberger: Research & Analyzing Competitors

Sponsored by Aurora WDC aka Arik & Derek Johnson

Likewise we just concluded a series of Colorado Future Ready blogs on SLA’s FR365 site which features a blog a day. This was initiated by Cindy Romaine, current SLA President as of Jan. 1, 2011. Here is the list and links to each of our Colorado blogs:

Who is SLA? by Connie Clem

Introducing eBooks into the Denver Public Schools by Charles Leckenby

The Value of Information Professionals by Laura Cullerton

How Cooperative Intelligence will make you Future Ready by Ellen Naylor

Economic Gardening by Recca Larson

Collaborative Librarianship by Joseph Kraus

Take a Risk: Reap the Rewards by Shelly Walchak

In closing, here is a poem about Thanksgiving that one of my Facebook buddies shared today. Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow or not, I think it presents a good way to view life!

Thanksgiving…. More Than A Day

As Thanksgiving Day rolls around,

It brings up some facts, quite profound.

We may think that we’re poor,

Feel like bums, insecure,

But in truth, our riches astound.

We have friends and family we love;

We have guidance from heaven above.

We have so much more

Than they sell in a store,

We’re wealthy, when push comes to shove.

So add up your blessings, I say;

Make Thanksgiving last more than a day.

Enjoy what you’ve got;

Realize it’s a lot,

And you’ll make all your cares go away.

By Karl Fuchs

Filed under: Competitive Intelligence, competitor, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, Denver, leadership, research, SLA | Comments Off on Connecting with Business Colleagues in Thanksgiving

SLA Annual Conference Competitive Intelligence Division: Presentations, Fun & Book Signings

Posted on June 10, 2011 by ellendnaylor

The Competitive Intelligence Division (CID) of Special Libraries Association (SLA) has a great line-up of presentations and fun events at this year’s annual conference in Philadelphia from June 12-15.  In the spirit of cooperative intelligence, I have listed the competitive intelligence (CI) events below in chronological order by date with book signings at the end. Look under Twitter #slacid for CI Division Tweets!

Sunday, June 12: Pre-Conference Workshop

1 – 5 p.m.: Convention Center 203B. Seena Sharp: Sharp Market Intelligence

How to Create the Advantage of Competitive Intelligence in Your Organization. Seena will share wisdom and highlights from her book, Competitive Intelligence Advantage.

Monday, June 13

10-11:30 a.m.: Convention Center 104B. Dr. Craig Fleisher: College of Coastal Georgia CI Division UnConference. Explore the future of competitive intelligence as we look to 2020.

Noon-1 p.m: SLA Bookstore Booth 1321. Craig’s book signing Business & Competitive Analysis

2-3:30 p.m., Convention Center 109B. Toni Wilson: MarketSmart Research CI Best Practices for Creating Value & Collaboration. Show how to create collaboration between Information Professionals and other areas of your company.

4-5:30 p.m., Convention Center 109B. Panel Discussion: Dispelling Myths about Competitive Intelligence

Moderator: Fred Wergeles, Fred Wergeles & Associates

Panelists: Victor Camlek-Thomson Reuters; Jill Heinze-Affinion Loyalty; Nathan Rosen-Morrison & Foerster; Seena Sharp-Sharp Market Intelligence

SLA’s Competitive Intelligence + Legal Divisions

5:30-7:30 p.m., Marriott Salon D. CI Division Open House. Listen to fast paced Pecha Kucha presentations among 6 juried competitors. Winner gets an iPad 2!

Moderator: Dr. Craig Fleisher-College of Coastal Georgia

Judges: Scott Brown-Social Information Group; Ellen Naylor-Business Intelligence Source; Cindy Romaine-Romainiacs Intelligence Research, SLA President & Instigator of SLA’s Future Ready blog

Sponsor: Aurora WDC; Booth 533 & 1429

Tuesday, June 14

8-9:30 a.m., Convention Center 203A. August Jackson: Verizon Researching Privately Held Companies: Information Sources & Techniques that Work

CI Division + News Division

10-11:30 p.m., Marriott Salon B. The Intelligence Café Join 10 CI experts in interactive sessions to learn several CI topics in an informal setting.

Moderators: Arik Johnson-Aurora WDC and August Jackson-Verizon

Topic Leaders:

Dr. Craig Fleisher-College of Coastal Georgia: Analytical Techniques for CI

Carolyn Vella & John McGonagle-The Helicon Group: Legal & Ethical CI

Ellen Naylor-Business Intelligence Source: Build Internal Knowledge Network for Primary Intelligence

Craig McHenry-Pfizer:Technical Tools for CI

Anna Shallenberger-Shallenberger Intelligence: Unique Collection Sources

Eric Garland-Competitive Futures: The Future is Hidden in Your Library

Derek Johnson-Aurora WDC: CI Model Innovation

Toni Wilson-MarketSmart Research: Collaboration with Clients & End Users

Seena Sharp-Sharp Market Intelligence: The CI Advantage: CI Value Proposition of SLA Members

Nathan Rosen-Morrison & Foerster: CI in the Law Library

Sponsor: IEEE Xplore Digital Library, Booth 1401

Noon-1:30 p.m.: Convention Center 203A, Scott Brown-Social Information Group & Joe Murphy-Yale University 60 Apps in 60 Minutes especially for iPhone, iPad and Android! Bring Your Lunch and Learn!

Sponsor: Dow Jones & Company, Booth 600

2-3:30 p.m.: Convention Center Ballroom AB. Seena Sharp: Sharp Market Intelligence Extreme Makeover: CI Edition—Spotlight & Need to Know Session. How to minimize risk, avoid surprises and grow your business. Tippers from Seena’s Competitive Intelligence Advantage book on how CI makes money or saves money every time!

CI + Advertising & Marketing + Business & Finance Divisions

Sponsor: LexisNexis, Booth 411

4-5:30 p.m.: Booth 411. Book Signing by Seena Sharp.

6:30 – 8 p.m.: Meet in Philadelphia Marriott lobby. No Host Competitive Intelligence Dinner. Sign‐up for the dinner during the CID Open House (June 13 5:30-7:30 p.m. in the Marriott Salon D) or email Robin Swan at r6s0wan@yahoo.com.

Wednesday, June 15

10-11:30 p.m.: Convention Center 105B. Integrating with Sales & Marketing to Capture & Deliver Intelligence Learn how to gain and provide competitive intelligence for Sales & Marketing in your company. Panel discussion. Informal venue: Q&A format. No PowerPoint.

Moderator: Toni Wilson-MarketSmart Research

Panelists: Susan Berkman-Research Ability; Ellen Naylor-Business Intelligence Source; Marcy Phelps-Phelps Research; Anna Shallenberger-Shallenberger Intelligence

Book Signings by CI Division Speakers:

June 13: Dr. Craig Fleisher: Business & Competitive Analysis—Noon-1 p.m.

SLA Bookstore: #1321 Exhibitor Hall

June 14: Seena Sharp: Competitive Intelligence Advantage—4-5:30 p.m.

LexisNexis Booth #411 Exhibitor Hall

June 14: Marcy Phelps: Research on Main Street—4:30-5:15 p.m.

SLA Bookstore: #1321 Exhibitor Hall

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