SCIP Oregon

Interview with Dennis Muscato

Posted by campsean - 21/11/08 at 08:11:57 pm

Interviewee: Dennis Muscato

Interviewers:Sean Campbell and Scott Swigart of Cascade Insights

Topics Covered:

The relationship between competitive business intelligence and corporate responsibility

The business value of social responsibility

Value of social consciousness in recruiting new talent

Long-term strategic issues associated with corporate responsibility

Statistical analysis of the benefits of philanthropy

Building corporate responsibility into a company’s DNA

Scott Swigart: Could you please take a minute first to introduce yourself?

Dennis Muscato: Sure. My educational background is a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources Management and a Master’s in Computer Science. The first phase of my 30-year career was at Oregon State University providing information services for forestry research. I was working with statistics, data management, and biometrics involving old growth, genetics and so forth, trying to understand the ecosystem and biosphere. That was in the mid ’70s.

From 1980 to about 2000, I worked with information technology, building the HP I.T. infrastructure. My work in those days involved Unix and NT. We went from large mainframes, to mini computers, to PCs, what we have today. I’ve worked a lot with SAS and other data management and analysis tools.

My third stage was from 2000 to 2007. HP was interested in building its corporate responsibility. I took some of the background in environment, math, computer science, analytics, and business process, and I started to apply that to helping HP develop its role as a world leader in corporate responsibility.

I took the retirement package in 2007, although I’m not fully retired. I’m still continuing to learn, and I am working on using analytics, computer science, and corporate responsibility to improve marketing and sales.

Continue reading Interview with Dennis Muscato…

Registration Reminder for November 20th Event

Posted by campsean - 13/11/08 at 10:11:57 pm

Just wanted to remind you all to register for the 20^th before attending.  We’ll have mechanisms in place to handle registrations in place at the event but it would be greatly appreciated if you register at the link below before arriving at the event on the 20^th at Jake’s Grill.

http://www.scip.org/Training/EventsDetail.cfm?itemnumber=5422

We already know a number of you are planning to attend and you’re planning on bringing additional folks with you, hence this post.

SCIPOregon and the iPhone

Posted by campsean - 11/11/08 at 03:11:40 pm

Having been an iPhone user since the first version of the iPhone came out (I’ve been a proud owner of the 3G model since the day it released) I’ve been planning to set up this site so it has a nice iPhone interface as well.

And now it does.

For those of you with an iPhone if you browse this site you’ll get a nice mobile interface for the posts, etc.

Sean Campbell – Chair – Oregon Chapter

Mark Chussil on: “Blame and ban, easy and satisfying”

Posted by campsean - 07/11/08 at 05:11:04 pm

Mark Chussil is one of the members of the local SCIP chapter. His company is Advanced Competitive Strategies.   We’ll be highlighting a series of posts from Mark on his thoughts on war gaming and strategic decision making. Here is the first post of that series…

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The three words that begin the next paragraph are three words that I never thought I’d use to begin any paragraph, let alone one offering strategy advice for businesses feeling their way through the financial crisis of our times. Mind you, the three words merely begin the paragraph. They are not advice in themselves, which we’ll get to later.

Governor Sarah Palin was asked in the vice presidential debate who was to blame for the subprime lending crisis. She answered, “Darn right it was the predator [sic] lenders.”

There’s a lesson there for business strategists, and for politicians. A lesson we can use to help us move forward. However, the lesson has nothing to do with predators, lenders, lending, crises, or governors. It has to do with solving problems effectively.

Say we blame the predatory lenders. If you’re a predatory lender, consider yourself blamed. Problem solved? Not exactly, although we did get to enjoy some righteous indignation.

Say we blame the predatory lenders and throw them in jail and/or confiscate their ill-gotten gains. Problem solved? Not yet, although we might add a few pennies (relative to the size of the crisis) to our righteous indignation.

Say we blame the predatory lenders and ban predatory lending. Problem solved? It depends. It depends on whether predatory lenders and lending were the problem, or at least enough of the problem that a ban would solve the problem. It depends also on whether “solved” means undoing pain already suffered or preventing future pain.

As easy and satisfying as it is to explore blame and ban, that isn’t the point. The point is about identifying the problem and its potential solutions. If we see predatory lending as the problem, we will contemplate action, and perhaps take action, about predatory lending.

Tangent: Note that the ease and satisfaction of doing something quick and clear — blame, ban, etc. — is part of the problem. (I haven’t read this book yet but I like the title: Don’t Jump to Solutions, by William B. Rouse.) End of tangent.

But blaming predatory lending, on-target as it may be, begs another question. Where does predatory lending come from? What if it’s due to human nature? What if it’s implicitly encouraged by lax rules? What if it’s the result of greed on the part of lenders, bosses, or investors? What if it comes from more than one of those sources? What’s the problem we want to solve? Different options.

And those explanations beg other questions. Where did lax rules come from? A sincere belief that deregulation works best, a surrender to lobbyists and campaign donors, a decision (perhaps purposeful, perhaps not) to ignore danger signs, an inability of human beings to anticipate every way that deregulation can be exploited? Different options again.

Tangent: in “Name That Economy” Jacob Weisberg identifies no fewer than 14 variations on capitalism and other economic models, each designed (intentionally or not) to solve particular problems. End of tangent.

In business and in government we make decisions about the decisions we’ll make. In other words, we decide first on what the problem is, and then we decide what to do about the problem. We humans like to solve problems, and we like action: we reward action without thought more than we reward thought without action. And so we are prone to speed through the first decision, especially because the problem may seem so darn-right obvious, and jump to the second.

My point is not that there is a single right choice for that first decision and that our job is to find it. After all, options for the what’s-the-problem decision for a bank on the brink of insolvency are probably narrower than those for a technology company, a toy company, or a shipping company wondering about market demand.

My point is that we must make our first decision — the one where we choose the problem we want to solve — well, especially because the issues we face today are so complex and consequential for the world banking system, corporations’ ability to compete, and families’ financial futures. It’s essential that we think rigorously, guarding against deceptively easy and satisfying assumptions. Watch out for “either-or” thinking, unsupported or ideological “it’s obvious” statements, and blaming a single cause for complex problems.

It’s not all bad, far from it. As I said in my essay “A Dark and Stormy Night,” you have an opportunity to make great strategy decisions. Turmoil can give you a chance to distinguish your business (and yourself) from your competitors. The good news about a crisis is that leaders find people receptive to change. What if you think not only about how to “get through” the current crisis? What if you think about how to build customer loyalty, strike up new partnerships, revisit your business model, or redefine your business? Darn right there are major benefits to probing, to creative debate, to looking through different glasses, and to asking what if.

I wish to acknowledge Jay Russo and Paul Schoemaker, whose excellent books Decision Traps and Winning Decisions taught me about key points about “framing” decisions that I made here. If you like what I wrote, please give them credit; if you don’t like what I wrote, please blame me.

SCIP Oregon Chapter Committee Notes – November 4th, 2008 Meeting

Posted by campsean - 07/11/08 at 12:11:55 am

Here are the notes from our last committee meeting.

Next Event on November 20th

• Everything is on track for this event.  Looking forward to seeing you there.

January Event

• Our topic for this event is going to be a “Introduction to CI.” However the emphasis beyond this high level topic is going to be on making the event a place where practitioners in other fields (marketing, research, etc.) can come and leverage the combined knowledge of the local SCIP chapter.  More news to come as Roger, I, and Scott pull together more details for the event. Everyone should get a chance to participate in what are planning to be a lively moderated discussion.
• Date/Time for this event is going to be January 27th @ 8am.

April Event

• In our next committee meeting we’ll be talking further about topics for this event but we’ve brainstormed a number of them in the last meeting and it will simply be a matter of prioritizing these.
• Todd Lue and I will be co-owners of this event.
• Date/Time for this event will be April 7th @ 8am.

June Event

• At this point I merely want to get this date on the chapter’s radar as we’ll be picking a guiding committee for this event over the next few meetings. But the event will be held on June 9th @ 8am.

Upcoming Committee Meetings

Reminder: These are open to all local chapter members not just those on the committee and you’re all welcome to attend. Last meeting we had a number of people who came in addition to the regular committee members.

• December 9th – Jake’s Grill on 10th
• January 13th – Jake’s Grill on 10th
• February 10th – Jake’s Grill on 10th
• March 17th – Jake’s Grill on 10th
• April 14th – Jake’s Grill on 10th
• May 19th – Jake’s Grill on 10th
• June 16th – Jake’s Grill on 10th.

-Sean Campbell – Chair – Oregon Chapter – SCIP

Shadow Boxing with Virtual Machine Images

Posted by campsean - 03/11/08 at 11:11:02 pm

Virtualization has had a significant impact on the hardware and software industry over the last couple of years. The ability to package virtualized operating systems and their applications as virtual machines has generated a true “sea change” in the way that the software and hardware industry operates, markets, performs consulting activities, etc.

However, while virtualization is becoming more prevalent in the data center and is also expanding its reach to desktops and mobile devices, there are other areas where its potential is overlooked.

Competitive intelligence (CI) is one of them.

With virtual machines it is easy (and relatively trivial) to spin up five or ten competing products and quickly ascertain differences in features and function among them. In addition, utilizing virtual machines for this type of analysis alleviates any concerns that arise about how these multiple product installations might conflict with the default OS install that you use daily.

Virtualization also makes it easy to suspend any activities you are performing with these products for a period of time (hours, days, or even weeks) and quickly return to investigating these products at a later time.

Virtualization also removes the need to set up or maintain dedicated hardware to perform competitive tear downs. This is a process that typically involves flat lining the box, loading the software, etc. As a matter of fact, you can get a fair amount of competitive CI done with a garden-variety laptop that also happens to be running a virtualization stack.

Virtualization technology makes it easy to “shadow box” with competing products at will and persist the state of your FUD decryption experiments for a later review period.

Accessing your competitors’ software via trial downloads is also a very easy process. Of course you need to ensure that you are representing yourself ethically and that you review the end user license agreement (EULA) and terms of use of the software.

Companies that have an entrenched set of competitors should be making available a library of competing products as virtual machines. Giving the field access to a library of virtual machines makes it easy for them to gain hands-on intelligence about competitors’ products without the need for each person in the field to individually set up an environment for experimentation purposes.

Virtual machines can be delivered directly to users and run via technologies such as VirtualPC, VirtualBox, VMware Player, or Workstation. They can also be centrally hosted on server-based virtualization solutions and accessed via the appropriate remote desktop protocols and interfaces.

“Shadow boxing” with competitors with a virtual machine “opponent” is one of the fastest ways you, as a CI professional, or others in your field can gain hands-on knowledge about competitors’ products.

Putting together a competitive “lab” such as this requires the development of a partnership between the CI professional and the technical professionals in a firm, but the benefits that result from such a partnership can be significant.

Official Event Registration Link – November 20th Event

Posted by campsean - 24/10/08 at 09:10:52 pm

Here is the link to the official registration page for the November event along with a bio of our presenter and a detailed program description.

http://www.scip.org/Training/EventsDetail.cfm?itemnumber=5422

Review of SCIP’s Conference and Trade Show Intelligence Book

Posted by campsean - 23/10/08 at 07:10:17 pm

SCIP recently published  a new volume in it’s “Topics in CI” series entitled “Trade Show Intelligence.”

I had an opportunity to peruse the book just before heading off to the Gartner Symposium in Orlando last week, which of course was good timing given that there was going to be a reasonably large trade show floor at the conference.

The book makes a ton of solid recommendation on how to structure intelligence gathering activities, how to do so in an ethical manner, and how to elicit information at the right times and in the right way while you are on the show floor.

Trade Shows can provide a wealth of information if you research the show in advance, attend with your ears and eyes wide open, and spend real time getting to know the products and solutions being offered in the booths.

I highly recommend this new volume in the Topics in CI series.

The only caution I would give to readers is that in a few places the book becomes repetitive in terms of the advice or solutions offered. This is only natural in a book that is essentially a collection of different essays and not a single cohesive piece written by a one author.

Sean Campbell – Cascade Insights
Chair – Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals – Oregon Chapter

Interview with Mark Chussil – Advanced Competitive Strategies

Posted by campsean - 08/10/08 at 08:10:42 pm

Mark’s Biography

Mark Chussil is Founder and CEO of Advanced Competitive Strategies, Inc. Mark began developing ACS’s ValueWar in 1986. Now one of the world’s most-powerful, best-known, and time-proven business simulators, ValueWar won the “Best in Class Software” award from Competia in 2002.

Mark has worked with ACS clients on four continents, including Astra Merck, AT&T Wireless Services, Bell Atlantic (now Verizon), British Airways, DuPont, GlaxoSmithKline, Kodak, Nortel, Novartis, Shell, Sprint, Sprint PCS, USWEST (now QWEST), Weyerhaeuser, and others who prefer not to be identified for competitive reasons. He speaks at conferences around the world about using virtual competitions (advanced business war games) and computer simulation to develop very successful competitive strategies.

Mark lectured from 1989 to 1994 in the Competitive Marketing Strategies seminar at the Aresty Institute of Executive Education, The Wharton School (the University of Pennsylvania).

Previously, Mark spent 15 years at the Strategic Planning Institute (The PIMS Program), where he was Director, Business-Unit Strategy Research and Director, PC Products. His experience also includes three years in market research and strategy at Sequent Computer Systems (subsequently acquired by IBM).

Mark is lead author of Strategy Analysis with ValueWar (Scientific Press, 1993). Mark’s articles and case studies on competitive strategy have appeared in Cases in Marketing Research (Reibstein and Farris), Competitive Intelligence Magazine, Competitive Intelligence Review, Marketing Research, PC World, Planning Review, SCIP.Online, Sloan Management Review, The Journal of AGSI (Association for Global Strategic Information), The Journal of Business Strategy, Wharton on Dynamic Competitive Strategy (Day and Reibstein), and other publications. He has been featured and quoted in Across The Board, Computerworld, Fast Company, Harvard Management Update, Oregon Business, The Wall Street Journal, and more.

Mark earned his MBA from Harvard University and his BA from Yale University.

Interviewers: Sean Campbell and Scott Swigart of Cascade Insights

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Interview Topics

 

• What business war gaming is and how it helps businesses competitively
• Establishing the right war gaming dynamic among participants
• How computer models help drive the results of business war games
• Using business war gaming to help overcome faulty assumptions
• Meeting the challenge of making good decisions about taking on risk
• Success stories and limitations: how war gaming contributes to running a business

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Sean Campbell: Mark, tell us who you are, what you are about, and what your focus area is around Competitive Intelligence.

 

Mark Chussil: I am the founder and CEO of Advanced Competitive Strategies. My colleagues and I focus on business war games and strategy simulation, mostly for Fortune 500 companies. We have conducted about 100 business war games on six continents, in many different industries.

We are not industry experts; we are strategic-thinking experts. We help people take the knowledge, information, expertise, and experience that they have in their industries and put it to the best use possible.

We have also spent a fair amount of time speaking at conferences and putting on workshops about strategic thinking and about business war gaming and simulation. We have published quite a bit in those areas as well.

Scott Swigart: One of the things that you mentioned was war gaming. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Mark: Sure. Business war gaming means different things to different people. There is no strict definition, as opposed to generally accepted accounting principles, for example.

Continue reading Interview with Mark Chussil – Advanced Competitive Strategies…

Meeting Minutes – 9/28/2008 Meeting

Posted by campsean - 01/10/08 at 05:10:52 pm

Next Committee Meeting

Date: October 28th – Now – November 4th
Time: 8:00am to 9:30am
Location: Jake’s Grill on 10th.

This meeting is an open meeting.  Those who are on the steering committee and those who are not are both welcome to attend as we will still be discussing next steps for the chapter, etc.
Please RSVP by October 10th if you not be able to attend.

First Event – November

Date: November 20th
Time: 8:00am to 9:30am
Location: Jake’s Grill on 10th.

Our first event is going to be focused on optimization engines to predict prices, analyze advertising, etc. Jess Laventall and Beau Martin will lead the discussion for 30 minutes and then we will turn to an open dialog for 30 to 45 minutes amongst the members in attendance. There will be a charge to attend this meeting as discussed in the first meeting.  Final cost structure will be discussed in the October meeting in terms of the breakdown in cost for members and non members of SCIP.

Committee Members

The following individuals volunteered to be part of the steering committee for the Oregon Chapter.

• Dennis Muscato
• Bob Cooper
• Todd Lue
• Roger Courville

Discussion of Possible Event Formats

There was discussion of a number of different formats.

• One idea was for standard 15-30 minute presentations, leaving 45 minutes for discussion and Q&A
• Another idea is for facilitated discussions allowing attendees to share their expertise around a topic.
• A third idea is for a moderated panels of experts, with Q&A.

There was a consensus that if someone has expertise, it’s valuable to have a presentation, but it would be good if the format was more dynamic than straight presentations.

Purpose of the Chapter

There was discussion around what the Oregon chapter could provide to the members, and the broader community.

• Networking between the members would let members know who to refer to for CI that is outside of their own expertise.
• Professional development – Members are interested to expand beyond the way that they’re going about certain practices, and are interested in best practices from others, and the discipline and rigor around certain CI techniques.  People want the chapter to educate them on CI.
• Outreach – People also felt chapter could raise awareness of CI in the local marketplace.  It is good for all CI professionals to have local marketing and executive level people know about the practice of CI and the benefits to their organization.
• Media relations – As part of community outreach and chapter promotion, the chapter could interact with local business publications.
• Online forum – The chapter should set up an online forum – likely a LinkedIn group – where members can post questions and engage in online discussions beyond the interaction that happens at committee meetings and events.
• Roster – The chapter should maintain a public roster of members, their area of expertise, and contact information.

TODO: Set up roster and LinkedIn discussion group.

The Linked In Discussion Group is already setup. Simply Log In to LinkedIn and request to join the group titled – Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals - Oregon.  You’ll then have access to the discussion groups.

We’ll also be putting together a Google Doc that all members can access and then populate with their contact info, brief backgrounder, etc.

Topic Suggestions for Upcoming Events

Topics suggestions for upcoming events:

• Communicating the business value of CI
• Building a CI practice in a business – under marketing or stand-alone.
• Data gathering – Primary, Secondary, Internal, Financial Statements.
• Common CI outputs and audiences
• Counter-CI, helping your organization keep secrets secret.
• Being the bearer of bad news in your organization – how to be rewarded for your CI efforts, rather than being seen as a disruption.

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