While discussing in the alleys of KM World (San Jose, CA, 11/17-19) , I noticed the gap between knowledge managers and competitive intelligence practitioners is shrinking.

Indeed knowledge managers definitely have an inward view about their function although they seem to agree outside data or web data would benefit their company knowledge repository. As a matter of fact, many knowledge managers I discussed with, know intelligence practitioners within their firm and have been discussing some solutions to aggregate outside data with internal data.

I noticed a similar shift couple of years ago when few business intelligence managers mentioned they consider competitive intelligence as a part of their discipline.

As a result, the intelligence vocabulary gets richer although a little fuzzier. Maybe you’ve noticed some expressions including sales intelligence, biotech intelligence, technical intelligence, customer intelligence not to mention market intelligence.

What is your opinion on that topic, how do you define your discipline today and how do you envision it will evolve over time?

Chris.