a while back, before the forums went offline at passingnotes, i got a question requesting a definition and an example of elicitation (versus ‘interviewing’) - and a whole bunch of follow up requests to clarify and expand…what follows are the original examples, with notes, in a clean, easy-to-read format for folks who hate forums (plus they’re still offline, duh)…

…think of elicitation as conversation without questions, and where questions are used (sparingly), they’re used with little formatting…people going after very sensitive information tend to avoid a standard question-answer interview format and instead rely upon some very old tried and true methods to elicit information…because questions are often memorable (by their nature), it can be safer to just talk and talk and ease a source into a delicate conversation… this is much of what i do for a living on specific competitive intelligence projects (versus other business research)…there’s no duplicity, no rusing, no lying, just a very well controlled conversation…

yeah, so at any rate, about tactics in elicitation..here’s an intro to two very common approaches with ‘dialogue’ samples and notes (the only way to understand this stuff is to understand how the conversations flow):

first is flattery. to get a source talking, build rapport, etc, i might specifically flatter the source or his/her company or product/service (etc) - this gets them to react, like in this made-up dialogue:

me: “so you ran that whole product release yourself, that’s incredible!” (here i’m verifying span of control and responsibility at a very cursory level, no question is asked)
source: “yes, i had a few support folks, but i managed the entire budget and all of the relationships with the ad vendors, marketing firms, magazines, the whole thing” (response is further verification of control, triggers area of inquiry…in this case, the role of outsiders in a campaign might be what i’m after, so i add:)
me: “that ad was really powerful, really good copy on that one” (not a question, just a statement, followed by a LONG pause, ’til death if required)
source: “yeah, the agency’s writer was great, he came up with about 3 final ideas that we kicked around in brainstorming, i actually signed off on that one that you saw, everybody loved it.” (this came after pause, in which the soruce offers a response to NO apparent question - get it? that’s a crude example of elicitation, but hopefully this clarifies a little bit for you)

or for example 2 - and i’ll keep this short, look at ‘provocation‘ ….this means that i’m trying to literally provoke the source into offering info…here’s the same phony dialogue with provocation in place of flattery:

me: “there is absolutely no way that you or any one man could have run that whole campaign, it was just too damned big!” (no question, just a comically accusatory remark, slight provocation going on, gauging the source’s personality with this type of ‘light provoker’)
source: “no, it was actually just me, had a few outsiders helping along with my team, but i handled it all”
me: (again, after that same intelligence on the ‘role of outsider in the campaign’- but with a twist) - “that copywriter was pretty horrible, amazing that it made the final cut” (this is a negative comment specifically designed to provoke and elicit a defensive remark and offer the source a chance to perhaps assign blame or credit regardless of outcome)
source: “that was one of the guy’s from our agency, we loved it, and i actually approved it myself, in fact everybody seems to love it but you!” (confirmation and rebuttal, confirms role of others, etc.)
me: “maybe i just didn’t get it, because you obviously made a smart choice with that slogan, they should be giving you a serious bonus!” (turn it to flattery again, to keep the source warm and friendly, as provocation can be difficult to manage and has a LOT to do with the personality on the other end…)

…these are just random made-up examples based on past experiences… and taken out of context, i suppose that they might seem a bit absurd… please let me know if you have other questions or wanna read more about this stuff…there are dozens of ‘elicitation tactics’ - all of which are designed to fall into format around your intelligence gathering goals, and all tempered by source knowledge and overall source personality type (as in, don’t provoke everybody, duh…or: not all tactics work on all sources, that’s the real art of this game..)

Powered by Gregarious (21)

Share This

Some similar nonsense, if you like that kind of thing:

Links that were in this post, but only if there were any: