Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology: Technical Intelligence for Business [Hardcover]

W. Bradford Ashton (Editor), Richard A. Klavans (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1574770187 | ISBN-13: 978-1574770186 | Publication Date: March 1997

Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology tells readers how to develop, manage, and use their own technical intelligence programs to gain the competitive advantage. The book shows readers how to anticipate technology, focus R&D programs, develop strategies, monitor competitors, address threats, and identify opportunities. Major sections include: * understanding the basic concepts of technical intelligence * managing technical intelligence organizations in business * producing technical intelligence * applying results to obtain value * looking ahead - contemporary technical intelligence issues.

Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology can show those just implementing a technical intelligence program how to get started, as well as bring experienced practitioners up to date on the latest techniques and developments.

It describes competitive technical intelligence practices and methods used today by leading-edge companies. Important hands-on information and examples from practicing authors are included throughout the book.

Chapters on managing technical intelligence organizations help readers understand how to establish and operate their own intelligence units. Information on gathering intelligence illustrates how key information sources are used to track and evaluate developments in science and technology. Additional chapters on computer support systems and databases show how to find new technologies rapidly anywhere in the world.

Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology is the first book to bring together information from practicing professionals in the emerging field of competitive technical intelligence for business.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology helps to see the forest and the trees of technical intelligence - its structure, strategies, systems, tools and practical tactics. Written for those who want to get started and those who are well along with path." -- Parry Norling, Planning Director, Corporate R&D, DuPont

"This book is an important contribution to the literature on competitive intelligence. Together with selected experts in the field, the authors present the basic principles of technical intelligence along with an understanding of how to organize and invest in technical intelligence for the strength and protection of the firm." -- Ernest R. Gilmont, Bladstrom Professor of Management, The Wharton School

About the Author

Dr. W. Bradford Ashton, Senior Program Manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, operated by Battelle, is an industrial and systems engineer with more than 20 years' experience in management and analysis of industrial energy technology R&D programs. He currently develops intelligence analysis tools for government and industry clients.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Battelle Pr (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574770187
• ISBN-13: 978-1574770186
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,096,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on the market for technical business intelligence, April 8, 2000

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology: Technical Intelligence for Business (Hardcover)

Dick is a genius, and he and Bradford Ashton have pulled together a number of very fine contributions in this book. Still, they sum it up nicely in the concluding chapter: "The formal practice of developing technical intelligence in American business is only in its infancy." They have a nice appendix of sources on scientific and technical intelligence that is missing a few big obvious sources like the Canadian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) and the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) as well as the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) and several smaller sources. On balance, this technical intelligence community is, as Bradford notes, in its infancy. It is U.S. centric, does not yet understand operational security and counterintelligence, is weak of cost intelligence, relies too heavily on registered patents, and has too few practical successes stories. Especially troubling is the recent trend within DIA and the Air Force of cutting off all funding for open source exploitation of Chinese and other foreign S&T sources, combined with a dismantling by many corporations of their libraries and most basic market research functions. This book is an essential reference and I admire its authors greatly-sadly, they are part of a small minority that has not yet found its full voice.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and insightful, May 6, 2001

By 

Heath C. Sturt (Down Under) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology: Technical Intelligence for Business (Hardcover)

This is among the most comprehensive, insightful and balanced books on CI that I have read. Although there is very little on the topic of CI in the scientic and technical communities, which the books editors accurately note, this book goes a long way to estabishing the basis for the field.

Among the things I like best in the book are: 1) the balance between the conceptual and the applied - both the theory and the management applications are covered, 2) The introduction to TI by the editors does a better-than-average job of setting up the field, and 3) the chapters by Herring on creating successful S&T Intelligence Programs, Tibbetts on technology scouting, and the future direction chapter by Ashton are among the best of their kind in the literature.

The things I liked less about the book (and there aren't many mate) include a bit too much introduction or overview material to basic CI in several of the chapters (the editors would have been helpful had they removed this overlap), and several of the chapters read far more like research studies and are too narrowly focussed to allow for much use(ex: Klavans chapter on research underlying TI, Penens' chapter on standards).

In sum, this book is clearly the best out there on technical intelligence for business. If this area is important to you, you will find value in many facets of this book. Being that the book was published in 1997, I hope that these authors will consider doing a follow-up so that we can see the field's development through the advances in the computer-mediated economy, globalization and evolving competition in S&T space.