I received a great and very though-provoking e-mail from Ellen Naylor this morning about how senior executives are seeking information. Obviosly this topic has significant relevance for CI practitioners, and this has generated some seeds of thought that have been sprouting throughout my day. Ellen's big take-away was that senior executives are engaging in self-service activity (such as "going on the Google") in surprising numbers.
First let me include Ellen's message in its entirety:
Naylor’s Mailer #13: How Executives Find & Value Information
A recent Forbes survey of 354 executives at large US companies indicates that competitor analysis is the most critical area for research. This bodes well for competitive intelligence, but somehow my phone isn’t ringing off the hook.
The Internet is valued more than any other information source, including internal, external and personal contacts as well as newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, conferences and trade shows. Rob Shaddock, Senior VP and CTO of Tyco Electronics explains his preference for digital information, “Newspapers and print are static. Often an article leaves you with just so many additional questions…on line, it’s so easy to find additional information.”
This is SCARY: info gained through the Internet is valued over experts! Furthermore, the c-suite first turns to mainstream search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Live Search. Yikes! They’re informative, but my, they’re shallow and, sometimes inaccurate and usually not that timely—the essential ingredients behind competitive intelligence—timely and accurate!
However, on the positive side, I like it that the c-suite does their own searching. Previously I think they relied too much on information from others and could more easily be blindsided by filtered information from managers who wanted to push their agendas. Now the c-suite is more armed to ask provocative questions based on their own research. However, their blinders might be swinging to an over-reliance on Google and the like!
Executives will dig through multiple links to find the information they seek and I can understand why they “Google” since search engines are “free” and easily accessed. However, to make good decisions, we need a balance of sources and I hate to think that the Internet wins over human intelligence—where you can engage in a dialog, not just more searching and multiple links!
I wonder how much time the c-suite wastes looking for data, which could be found so much faster through the various paid sources such as Dialog, Dow Jones, Thomson reports or the invisible web. I’m also concerned that the c-suite might be further distancing itself from people—who have expertise from years of industry experience—in favor of Internet searching. The answers and analysis that are required to make good decisions do not reside on the Internet!
The digital age has forever changed the c-suite. Younger executives make extensive use of social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook—which allow them to engage with a far broader group of people than they would meet otherwise—another great resource to prevent from being blindsided. President Obama epitomizes today’s c-suite executive as the first president to use email, social networks and a Blackberry.
Thankfully personal and professional contacts still trump virtual networks. Sophie Zurquivah, Chief Technology Officer at Schlumberger says, “I get the most valuable insight from my interactions with people.” She mixes the views “of vendors, colleagues, internal managers, workers...” While technologies such as email or Web video certainly enable such interaction, “you can never lose sight of the personal aspects—relationships with people are your most valuable information resources. You cannot discount personal interaction.”
You can read this set of articles in the July Forbes magazine http://images.forbes.com/forbesinsights/StudyPDFs/DigitalCsuite.pdf. It goes into much more depth, and doesn’t include my editorial comments! I hope you’re having a great summer—those of you in the Northern hemisphere. It’s heavenly here in Conifer, Colorado!
Three challenges, opportunities or roles for CI practitioners immediately jump to my mind:
1. We need to be aware of what our senior executives and other internal customers are reading in their info self-service. What search engines do they use? What publications do they read and trust? We need to know this because we then need to scan these for relevant information that may impact the assumptions or thought processes of our customers.
2. CI practitioners need to synchronize some portion of their products (ad hoc project deliverables, newsletters, briefings, etc.) to add context, support, build on or refute information from preferred self-service information sources appropriately. We can quote from trusted sources to gain credibility and be prepared if we're going to counter a trusted source (regardless if we mention them by name).
3. CI practitioners may have a role here to improve customers' information self-service skills. This would include giving them the tools to conduct better searches (some Advanced Search Options 101 such as booleans, negative searches, looking in specific domains, etc.). We should also work on turning them into good evaluators and skeptical users of information to evaluate the reliability and credibility of sources and information they find through their self-service activities.
I'm interested in the thoughts of the rest of this community.