NCB Workshop on Environment Scanning
Weaving a Web of Intelligence
March 23, 1998
Scope and Outline
The workshop presents an overview of environment scanning as a strategic organizational activity. It identifies basic design principles that have helped to ensure the effectiveness of organizational scanning. Environment scanning is not a homogenous activity, but is composed of four complementary modes of viewing and searching. The workshop discusses each mode of scanning, and presents an overall framework for managing and leveraging information resources on the Web and in online databases.
Speaker
Dr Choo Chun Wei is a professor at the Faculty of Information Studies in the University of Toronto. He is the author of three recent books on information and knowledge management: Information Management for the Intelligent Organisation: The Art of Scanning the Environment (Information Today Inc, 1995, 2nd edition 1998), Managing Information for the Competitive Edge (Neal-Schuman 1997), and The Knowing Organisation (Oxford University Press 1998). He is presently working on Knowledge Management on the World Wide Web: Augmenting Organisational Intelligence through Intranets, which will be published by Kluwer. At the University of Toronto, Dr Choo conducts courses in information management, intranet design, online information retrieval and organisational decision making. He also teaches knowledge management at the University of Amsterdam and environment scanning at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. He has also been invited to speak on environment scanning at the University of Helsinki (Finland) and INETI (Portugal).
Slides
Environment Scanning: 4 Design Principles
- ES as strategic activity
- ES as formal function
- ES needs user involvement
- ES is information management
- Undirected Viewing
- Conditioned Viewing
- Informal Search
- Formal Search
- Information Life Cycle of Emerging Issues
- Environment Scanning Information Products
Weaving a Web of Online Intelligence
Case Studies and Discussion
Resources
Web-based Resources
- A useful directory of sources of information and expertise is ebiz.enable Resources, created by Industry Canada.
- A popular directory of links is The Internet Intelligence Index, maintained by Fuld & Co.
- Another useful jumpstation is globalEDGE Resource Desk, created by the Center for Interntional Business Education and Research at Michigan State University.
- An annotated list of web resources for undirected viewing
- An annotated list of web resources for conditioned viewing
- An annotated list of web resources for informal and formal search
Books
George Day, Paul Shoemaker. 2006. Peripheral Vision. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Haridimos Tsoukas and Jill Shepherd. 2004. Managing the Future. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
- A collection of reports from the Institute of the Future is at the IFTF Library.
France Bouthillier and Kathleen Shearer. 2003. Assessing Competitive Intelligence Software. Medford, NJ: Information Today Inc.
Friedman, G., Friedman, M., Chapman, C., and Baker, J. 1997. The Intelligence Edge. New York: Crown.
- Fuld, L. M. 1995. The New Competitor Intelligence: The Complete Resource for Finding, Analyzing, and Using Information About Your Competitors. John Wiley & Sons: New York.
- Gilad, B.; Herring, J. P., eds. 1996. The Art and Science of Business Intelligence Analysis: Intelligence Analysis and Its Applications. J.A.I. Press.
- Kahaner, L. 1996. Competitive Intelligence: From Black Ops to Boardrooms - How Businesses Gather, Analyze, and Use Information to Succeed in the Global Marketplace; Simon & Schuster: New York, NY.
John Stoffels. 1994. Strategic Issues Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Environmental Scanning. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press.
