“To control your cow, give it a bigger pasture.” - Suzuki Roshi, Zen Master

In the field of competitive intelligence, primary research is loosely defined as ‘in depth interviews’ with individuals likely to be intimate with competitor or marketplace activity. This might include employees of a competitor, suppliers and buyers, partners, pundits, former employees and many other sources ranging from neighbors to local government figures. Everything else seems to become secondary research by default.

Is there room for more stratification? Could this perhaps be as simple as ‘first person accounts’ (and related) versus ‘one step removed’? For a moment, let’s rethink what we’re doing when we call ‘all other’ secondary research. It feels as though secondary has now become just about anything that can be faxed, photocopied or printed on cheap paper in black and white ink on old machines (think: after Chaplin rolled through the gears in Modern Times, but before Reeves entered The Matrix).

Step back from popular CI industry definitions, if you will, and imagine primary research to more broadly encompass any primary source that permits us to get close to what is happening, has happened or will happen while reflecting the individual viewpoint of the observer, participant or otherwise intimately involved person(s). This might allow one to generate alternatives where staple secondary research sources are exhausted, come up short, or otherwise prove to be of little value without deeper context. Isn’t this why we often spend so much time on the primary research? Though analysis is absolutely critical, primary research consumes the lion’s share of hours in execution.

I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here, just trying to reframe the Rosie-O’Donnell-sized universe of resources now available to all of us. If one were to reorganize secondary resources so that primary sources become more like a ‘layer of meaning’ (or value) superimposed on all such resources, then perhaps these might fall under the auspices of the following broad categories: (broad because this column must stay short, not because I’m simple minded).

Memoirs, Manuscripts, Autobiographies and ‘Corporate Cheerleader’ Business Books:

Tell-all stories and ‘how I conquered the industry’ books are generally the bane of my existence. Often these first person accounts are rife with bias, related distortion, dimming memories or outright ‘creative/selective’ memory. I much prefer quality fiction.

However, buried within many of these historical tales - both in print and in online excerpts - are countless references to specific project codenames, key figures, key dates and other data points often not captured in the reviews and brief write-ups. These range from Bill Gates’ ‘Road Ahead’ to the book-turned-movie tale, ‘Barbarians at the Gate’ (the RJR LBO war story).

Many other online libraries and related projects make a lot of text available online (in which books, manuscripts and other documents are scanned in to archives).For this, the Internet Public Library serves as a solid example (www.ipl.org), as well as the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (www.siris.si.edu), which also connects extensively to other categories discussed herein, ranging from photographs to manuscripts. Oh, and Barnes & Noble also operates as a library if one chooses to not leave the premises.

There will be ‘freshness’ issues surrounding the information. For research, focus instead on insight into attitudes and culture and, where relevant, first person accounts of major corporate transactions. I find it quite helpful to pull out the old pet project names used in corporations to track down living figures connected to the original effort.

For example, while researching operating systems, I had tremendous interest in a particular project from the 80’s, and needed to track down the alum nearly 18 years later. I found an ancient personal memoir that had been reproduced online. It detailed original (and unusual) codenames for the project during the first few years, along with notes regarding specific individual contributions. Using this information, I refined basic searches and tracked down the sources with a few phone calls.

Diaries, Minutes, Personal Web Pages, ‘Blogs,’ Journals, Letters and Memos:

First person accounts, replete with attitude and a full slant, are wonderful resources for uncovering key figures as well as for corroborating findings. While published diaries and first person narratives are often dated, many blogs and personal web pages are quite current.

I’ve mentioned one site ‘memos’ site many months ago, InternalMemos.com (www.internalmemos.com). They are focused on gathering insider memos from major corporations. Interesting stuff…a bit smarmy, but really very interesting. Beyond the memos are the infinite corporate/industry rumor mills (a subject of a much earlier column in 2003); these are interesting resources to keep in mind as they often overlap with the blog entries found on personal sites.

For those unfamiliar with web logs (aka “blogs“), picture a world full of updated online diaries and personal narratives connected dynamically to large socially networked communities. Regular people have decided to take themselves very seriously and assume that others will want to follow their occluded daily/weekly thoughts, bookmarking their often cryptic and poorly maintained diaries. Can you tell that I’m kind of down on blogs? If you really want to get technical about what makes a blog, you can read up on the subject at Harvard Law School (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/whatMakesAWeblogAWeblog). By the way, the same goes for the vast universe of dull personal home pages.

With my own purposes in mind, I’m generally far less interested in what’s ‘on the blog’ or the personal home page than what’s connected to it; that is where I find tremendous value. These authors often maintain extensive links to industry and social relationships, typically as a long vertical list of names (connected to other blogs, or personal pages). This is an outstanding resource for those consultants constantly in search of a better or more knowledgeable source, preferably connected to the original source. There is a risk: you might wind up tracking down buddies from his/her softball team as well as from work and industry.

For example, while researching advanced security architecture, I stopped by the personal page of Ron Rivest at MIT (http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/). For those unfamiliar with Ron Rivest, he’s the ‘R’ in ‘RSA,’ arguably the most important commercial encryption company in recent decades. Within his site, a hyperlink to a larger page of industry and personal links, scroll down to ‘people’ to see what I mean (http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/crypto-security.html#People).

Regarding minutes and records, these are often insightful where they come from an organization or association of interest. They might glean tremendous insight into current attitudes and planning activities. I can’t possibly pay homage to the discipline of public (and related) records research in this one paragraph - sorry.

Movies, Television, Audio and Video Files:

This is a large trough of content from which to feed. There are many movies and documentaries tightly focused on issue/incident exploration -from the tobacco industry to children’s entertainment. For a quick sample, one might visit the Internet Movie Database (www.imbd.com) or the categorically organized documentaries and specials on commercial sites like Amazon.com or NetFlix (www.netflix.com).

Expect to find first person accounts, extensive interviews, commentary, as well as several resources via the bibliographic archiving of sources (might be found within credits, or special sections on DVD’s, both quite valuable). By the time it hits the screen, it is likely old news, though these are still great resources where the desired observer/participant proves to be inaccessible.

Consider also the world of television and radio transcripts. While several major Internet based projects are already underway to advance this archiving effort, I’ve mentioned one before - TVEyes (www.tveyes.com). With such tools, one might search transcripts and set up keyword alerts to monitor target subjects as mentions occur during interviews and broadcasts.

Lastly, reconsider the Internet itself. Beyond the obvious document collections buried alive online, there are also many audio and video components. For example, visit a major corporation like Sun Microsystems and you’ll find archived video clips of keynote speaker presentations, interviews and other subject-specific information. You’ll also find detailed web seminars and similar technical presentations. Internet video clips (e.g. interviews, speeches) are often considerably more current, and worth noting.

Photographs and Artifacts:

Photographs are intuitive resources. Imagine that you’re trying to profile a major organizational figure. You’ve tracked down articles, many with images, and now seek to interview individuals with something interesting to say. Peers and close relationships have rejected your overtures, so you consider revisiting the images. Standing alongside the figure at a corporate charity event are five figures, identified within the caption. You pick up the phone, call all five, and uncover one with something to offer (now this is starting to sound a bit like journalism).

Alternatively, images might serve an altogether different purpose. For example, one might seek to estimate foot traffic at a competitive retailer without sporting a ‘clicker’ in the doorway. This individual might photograph the parking lot at various times of day, over a period of time, and model the series to produce guesstimates. I think that you get the basic idea.

One interesting resource mentioned in part one of this series is the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (www.siris.si.edu), which also connects extensively to other categories discussed herein, ranging from rare books to manuscripts and other. SIRIS maintains an enormous archive of photographs, all freely available to the public.

Same thinking goes for artifacts, though this requires a bit more creativity. Picture the physical ’stuff’ that might be in the possession of the target. Understanding what they’ve purchased or leased might allow for one to surmise that spending habits are wanton, tight or conservative. For example, a target organization is liquidating high end office furniture and seeking to procure lower end items. This might tell you something about their financial sensitivity, and the information might only be as far away as a local paper, a liquidator listing (e.g. Gordon Brothers runs www.RetailExchange.com ), or Craigslist classifieds (www.craigslist.com). For specialized industry connections, you might consider contacting the International Reciprocal Trade Association (www.irta.com).

Observation:

For purposes of this brief column, let’s describe observation as A) a little bit of all of the above and B) standing real close to people with eyes and ears wide open. We all know the tale of the man who investigated the rust on the railroad tracks to determine the frequency of shipments from a manufacturing facility. That’s creative and interesting, though it unfortunately doesn’t map too closely to any of my own informational needs and client interests.

However, attending a conference or tradeshow and listening to key figures engage in public discourse with others is very interesting. Stop by the booth and listen to what they are saying. Stand by the stage following the presentation and listen to what they are talking about in one-on-one dialogue. Use these findings to formulate better questions, to augment current findings and observations, or to satisfy other curiosities.

Be an observer, not a bothersome eavesdropper, because there is a genuine difference. Do not engage in duplicitous conversation monitoring, and do not intrude on conversation. Simply become a better, more astute event witness, participant and observer.

Another variation on this is participation in teleconferences and web conferences. For example, if you are a shareholder, you might be entitled to listen in on many investor communications and analyst presentations. Contact Investor Relations at your target firm of interest for more information regarding accessibility.

Use common sense and care when expanding the pasture.

I’m certainly not advocating the use of any of these methods in particular, as many will not be applicable to your own projects. Rather, I humbly suggest that we rethink the value of primary sources as they map to primary and secondary research. All of the aforementioned resources will allow for one to get a bit closer to an event, organization or individual of interest prior to telephone interviews.

By the way, have you noticed a theme? It’s an interesting conundrum: these categories, like much of secondary research I suppose, are all potentially very time-consuming and unproven as particularly valuable for any one need in our interview-driven industry. I’d be very hard pressed to add “20 Hours: Watching Television” to any of my own proposals…though I’d be much more uncomfortable requesting “Another 40 Hours: Primary Research” as a result of unimaginative resource planning.
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I originally wrote this column in two parts in December 2003 for SCIP.Online, the newsletter for the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (www.scip.org). At the original time of publication, all Internet links were valid.

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