Don't know how I missed this, but I just came across SCIP's blog called the Voice. Looks like it's going to be penned by Ken Garrison, SCIP's executive director, and his first post asks for feedback about SCIP's online initiatives. So far he's received several comments on how the organization's discussion forums can be improved. If you have feedback head on over and leave a comment.
August Jackson, he of Competitive Intelligence Podcast fame, has finished up his MBA and it looks like he's going to be using some of his newly found free time (is any time free?) to re-start his blog. That's good news for anyone interested in competitive intelligence as August is one of the more interesting practitioners in the biz to talk to. Here he writes about his efforts to incorporate RSS feeds into his blog. Welcome back August!
Full disclosure here: for about five years I worked with SCIP and for a part of that time I was responsible for managing the SCIP website. I use the term "manage" loosely because really it was just a band-aid job until SCIP was able to hire a real pro (hello Dan) who could take the site to a higher level. There was a quick upgrade to the site a couple of years ago, and then throughout much of 2007 a new site re-design was undertaken that would integrate SCIP's management system for the "member's only" section and would also include more up-to-date web tools.
While the site is still a work in progress I really like what the new home page provides. Basically it offers a nice one-stop-shop for the three major information categories that many people visit SCIP to find: upcoming events, a CI-related news feed, and the latest job postings in the SCIP Career Center. Members can still log in to access every article published in Competitive Intelligence Magazine, but the entire CI community, member and non-member alike, can utilize SCIP's home page for basic industry info and that's a huge step forward for the site. It's also much easier to navigate so even those not familiar with the site should find it much easier to use than in the past.
Anyone who's worked on website re-designs and launches knows that even the simplest appearing sites can be very difficult to manage. Kudos to Dan and the volunteer committee and SCIP staff who helped get this new iteration off the ground. I'm sure Dan would say that it's an evolving process and one that is never done (he's right) but at some point you have to stop and enjoy the progress you've made and I think this is a good point for them to do so.
From Global Intelligence Alliance's press release:
With a fresh approach to organizing corporate Market Intelligence operations, Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) is expanding its customer base in the Netherlands. GIA is very proud to announce that both De Telefoongids BV and Royal Vopak have recently adopted its Market Intelligence solutions.
De Telefoongids BV, the market leader in directory services in the Netherlands, has adopted GIA’s unique Intelligence Desk™ service. Intelligence Desk™ is a market monitoring concept that combines an optimized information source portfolio, a customized web interface, and professional analyst resources to monitor the external operating environment of the customer’s organization. Eric Knibbe, Manager of Marketing Research at De Telefoongids comments: “We are receiving many enthusiastic reactions from our end users regarding the Intelligence Desk™. The co-operation with GIA has proved to be very successful. We've made a big step within De Telefoongids in the field of Market Intelligence. We are looking forward to continuing this partnership.”
Royal Vopak is the world’s largest operator of tank terminals and has adopted the GIA Intelligence Plaza™ software for managing and distributing Market Intelligence content in their organization. States René Loozen, Business intelligence Manager at Vopak: “Intelligence Plaza is a very user-friendly and well designed intelligence platform. It helps us to ensure an efficient and effective process of sharing information and knowledge”
In the Netherlands, GIA is being represented by DeskResearch Nederland, a Member in the GIA Network since 2003. DeskResearch Nederland, founded in 1998, is an independent business research company that delivers tailor-made Market Intelligence and information brokerage services. Based in Amsterdam, DeskResearch Nederland works for an international clientele in a broad range of industries.
For more information and to request a free demo of the Intelligence Desk™ service or the Intelligence Plaza™ software, please visit the Global Intelligence Alliance website at www.globalintelligence.com, or send email to info@globalintelligence.com.
From the press release:
PARIS, January 22 /PRNewswire/ -- TEMIS, The leading provider of Text
mining and Text Analytics solutions, and Roquette, the world's leading
producer of polyols and one of the largest producers of starch derivatives,
announced today that they have entered a major software licence and
services agreement. Roquette chose to implement a cutting-edge and
comprehensive Competitive Intelligence platform across its worldwide sites,
based upon the Luxid(r) Information Intelligence solution...
Roquette's requirements were to instantaneously combine and analyze
multiple types of information in order to generate a dynamic and
collaborative Competitive Intelligence work flow process thus accelerating
their innovative dominance. Senior Management decided to build its own
Competitive Intelligence portal based upon Luxid(R), the best solution on
the market for strategic information discovery and analysis. Luxid(R) uses
two standard application modules to automatically identify entities as well
as relevant relationships contained in multilingual documents from
heterogeneous sources:
- Text Mining 360degrees Skill Cartridge(TM) extracts entities like
names of people, companies, organizations, products and locations as well
as all numerical data.
- Competitive Intelligence Life Science Edition Skill Cartridge(TM)
identifies financial, business and stock information as well as any
information dealing with participation, mergers, acquisition,
joint-venture, research strategies or innovations.
LeaseLogic announced a new product for California community banks. From the press release:
This new service for California community banks gives daily reports of what financing deals happened the previous day. There are three main benefits for the users of this service. 1) The service allows banks to see if their existing customers are doing business with their competitors. 2) It allows banks to easily market to their competitor's customers. 3) It allows California banks to keep track of their market share, switch rate, and general trends within their territory.
Knowledge is king. With the threat of a slowing economy knowledge of the local market will be even more important than it already is. The banks that know the potential customers and trends in their local market are the banks that are going to succeed.
LeaseLogic's ultimate goal is to create a more efficient market economy. Where potential lenders can more easily find potential borrowers. Where small businesses can get the best possible financing they need in order to be successful, and where California community banks can find eligible borrowers more easily.
LeaseLogic is offering a free trial of their service for all California community banks. Please visit the following web address to get started http://www.llogic.com/cabank.
Thomson has announced the purchase of "B2B social search specialist" Contact Networks.
Proving several analysts clairvoyant, or at least bullish about the demand for social tools in businesses, The Thomson Corporation, Jan. 15, agreed to buy social search specialist Contact Networks for an undisclosed sum.
Thomson targeted Boston-based Contact for ContactNet, a search application that identifies colleagues who have the strongest relationships with a client or prospect.
ContactNet collects and prioritizes a business' internal relationships with business contacts from other companies, making it relatively easy to see who knows whom. This saves users the time and trouble of blasting out company-wide e-mails, trolling through a database, or manually hunting for data on a computer...
To do this, the software culls data from address books, e-mail logs and CRM (customer relationship management) applications. Using proprietary search algorithms, filtering and de-duplication technology, ContactNet pinpoints search matches, creating a searchable database that displays the strongest connections first.
Thomson, headquartered in Stamford, Conn., will let Contact continue independently in Boston, but will offer to integrate ContactNet with its existing business intelligence and relationship management services for legal, financial services and other markets, Hyatt said.
Ever since social networks MySpace and Facebook became smash hits in the consumer sector a few years ago, companies have looked for social media tools that give them a business advantage.
Businesses, including legal firms and marketing agencies, are increasingly using such tools to find referred employees, invite users to events, as well as for cross-selling opportunities and competitive intelligence to gain an edge on rivals.
Various and sundry online intelligence sites, listed for no particular reason:
The "corporate spying is now called competitive intelligence" meme in the mainstream press had its latest iteration printed in the Chicago Tribune. Those quoted in the article include Kurt Neubauer from Proactive Worldwide, Lenny Fuld of Fuld & Company and John Fiegel of SCIP.
eContent has their annual list of 100 companies to watch. Several companies that exhibit, sponsor or advertise with SCIP in the mix, including Thomson, Chemical Abstracts Service, D&B (Hoovers), Dow Jones, EBSCO and ProQuest.
