Originally published on Medium.
As an Intelligence professional, it comes with the territory you want to be at the forefront of breaking news to the rest of your Organization. On a good day, you anticipate product launches and strategy changes before they happen in the market, sharing updates as soon as new information is available.
So, it can feel disheartening to be surprised when someone else finds and shares a critical piece of information about market dynamics, especially if you didn’t see it coming!
When you get news
The process may start with being copied on a message shared with a broad group, it has a link to an article or a blog post and one sentence saying something like: “Thought this was a good article, so wanted to share” or even something as brief as “wow”.
You may wonder, “what’s my value add if I’m not the one on top of what’s happening in our market?”
The actions you should take
The answer I’ve found is that an Intelligence Team’s value add doesn’t end at sharing market information; it’s just the beginning. So, in times like this, when I’m surprised by market news, I start with a quick set of actions (about 10mins worth) to get on top of the situation and make notes for future work.
Alex Walton
The process runs like this:
First, I read & summarize the article/report/news item
Whether it’s a few paragraphs or hundreds of pages, I aim to synthesize the essence to 1–3sentences. The summary will provide a synopsis for anyone who doesn’t have time to read it in detail. Start with a skim read; more in-depth reading can happen later.
Categorize what type of news it is
It could be a product announcement, trends report, opinion piece, pricing change, marketing campaign, business organization update or regulatory related.
Interpret the tone
Depending on whether it is positive, negative, or neutral can indicate the motivation and opinions of the writer. Any spurious claims or statements without source reference give me cause for concern, and I’ll make a note to follow up later.
Next, it’s time to assess why it was written
This step takes a little more effort, and it’s where my ongoing market tracking becomes useful. Recollect the last relevant news related to this piece and try to string together how this announcement may fit into a broader strategy.
Thinking about what is known about this topic or competitor will help indicate why this may be happening now. Research may also involve doing some quick research on the author and their past work to assess how credible they seem.
For anything that requires more than 5minutes of investigation, I make a note to follow up later.
With these steps complete, the most practical step is to contextualize the information from the Company’s perspective
I try to answer the following questions — Why would my Company care about this? How will this news be interpreted, and will that interpretation vary by department? Finally, what, if any, action should happen based on this news?
Alex Walton
What next?
By the end, I’m able to summarize: (i) what happened, (ii) why, (iii) what points (if any) are relevant (iv) what action (if any) can be taken based on this information. I’m then ready to share a summary of the news with the Organization, some background context and what impact, if anything, this would have on the Company.
Finally, I’ll outline the next steps and a timeline I’ll follow to investigate further.
When news is shared without sufficient context, while some people may read further, many won’t have time; your colleagues will know something important may have happened but won’t know what it is or why it’s noteworthy in the first place.
Lack of context can risk spreading panic or misconceptions. Putting information in meaningful terms for your audience is the crucial value add of an Intelligence Team. You can provide a value-added service for 10 minutes of additional work to benefit everyone else in the Company.
With this process in place, I’ve gone from my heart stopping whenever I’m caught off guard with new market information to loving it because it allows me to add value to the conversation with market context.
Having a good process in place also helps in high-stress situations, when time is limited, and effort can be focused on action rather than planning or hypothesizing the right approach.
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Alex Walton
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