Surveillance Isn't Only for Law Enforcement, Government, and Military - Try Business

You hardly have to join the CIA to become tell spy. In fact, these things are going on in all aspects of our overall society where people are using human intelligence gathering to get a leg up on their competition, whether it be in foreign negotiation, military effort, law enforcement investigation, or even in the modern day corporation.

If you are in business you need to keep quite a bit of information very close to the best, meanwhile you want the information about your competitors to flow into your hand. Information as it has been said is much like water, it wants to be free, it wants to flow, and more often than not it has a life of its own. In fact, if you have a few moments I would like to discuss this with you.

You see, there is a very good book that I own on intelligence and information gathering for businesses and corporations. Regardless of the size of your business you can use these techniques to help get a leg up on the competition, and stay ahead of the game. You'll also learn how to prevent information leakage from your organization. The name of the book is;

"Confidential - Uncover Your Competitors' Top Business Secrets Legally and Quickly - and Protect Your Own," by John Nolan, Harper Business Publishers, New York, NY, 1999, 385 pages, ISBN: 978-00666-1984-2.

The author suggests "using a well-planned conversation" to suck out information from competitors. Some of the best sources of information are employees of other companies, newsletters, their marketing material, interviews they give, as well as their vendors and customers. You might also look into their factory workers, sales and marketing teams, minor government employees the do regulatory enforcement, and believe it or not the law firm or lawyers they hire who are busy bragging about their list of clients.

None of this is illegal, and if you aren't doing it, perhaps you should, because your competitors are doing it to you whether you realize it or not. No, most aren't that sophisticated, but many are. And they spend time doing this sort of information gathering. The authors also get into the tactics to keep your competition from stealing your information using social engineering strategies and leading a conversation to their benefit of information gathering.

You might be surprised at fact that the most important information about your competitors whether large or small is some of the easiest to get using simple strategies and tactics. In fact, the authors have a 12 step strategy to getting that information flow through casual conversations. They suggest provocative statements, trading information, simple flattery, and using the instinct to complain to your advantage.

In the category of manipulating conversations they explain how word phrase repetition helps very well, and quoting facts and reports, or even giving criticism allowing the other party to deny, defeat, or help you get to the truth of that criticism. Another strategy is to use incorrect information or false facts, and let them explain why they are false. Further, if you tell them you don't believe them, they might further elaborate giving even more information away as they try to clear their good name, or have you believe them.

Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it, you should own this book just like me if you are in business for yourself.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of Book Reviews. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/

Everyone Should Learn To Read!

I can not imagine going through my everyday life and not knowing how to put letters together to form a word or reading that word. Whether reading for pleasure or out of necessity, humanity should be able to read. There are books on all sorts of genres or categories including books to learn to read. All books can be broken down into sub- sections for a more defined reading experience.

My five most important reasons for reading books are fairly self-explanatory. First and foremost is an interest in what I am about to read. If there is no interest or curiosity about the book, the title or the story, then why would I want to read that book? Sometimes there is a need to read a book such as a cookbook or a pamphlet from a doctor that encourages you to read for a particular reason. Mostly books should be read for fun as a way to de-stress. If it is not fun, you probably won't want to read another book for fear that you won't enjoy it. Puzzles books for me can be fun. I like the search and find as well as crossword puzzles. Required reading is a little more difficult. Not because of the words but if it is something that we must read, such as an instruction booklet or assembly instructions, it is important but not truly fun or enjoyable.

Reading is not always from a book. Today's technology has allowed us to read a book digitally so that we don't actually have a physical book in hand. Throughout the course of any given day for most people involves reading of one degree or another. As a child it is our class time and homework. We should be able to interpret our bills that we receive daily. Or what about all of the paperwork that we have to read and fill out when we are at the doctor's office for ourselves or children, to apply for a job, or to write an article that hopefully will be read.

I was raised in a single parent home like a lot of folks and had a great learning environment to help broaden my horizons. My favorite subject was always spelling and perhaps that is why I find reading easier than a lot of people. Unfortunately, I did not learn how to like and appreciate a book and what it can do for you until I was an adult. We did not have books in our home while I was growing up and when I became an adult I mentioned to both of my parents how much I enjoyed reading and both parents asked "Why?".

Reading is a useful tool. A book small or large, thick or thin, with or without pictures can be something of value. Since my husband has taught me that I enjoy a good book, it has added to my life in ways I never could have imagined. Though I do not enjoy a lot of the classics since I am not good at figuring out the moral of a story, I do like an easy read mystery. I have also figured out that I love reading to our grandchildren and sometimes changing my voice to fit the story characters. I wish that I had developed my love for books when I was young enough to share it my children so that maybe they would have a better appreciation for reading a book now.

Board books are a great beginning for toddlers to start their vocabulary and possibly recognize words on sight later when starting school. A book can be a guide to self-help through a time of struggle or a way to pass the time while mending a broken leg. Being able to read a cookbook has helped me to fix more healthy meals at home so that my husband doesn't suffer another heart attack (at least from my no-salt cooking).

Reading has had a lot of clichés attached to it over the years: reading is fun, reading is fundamental; the 3 r's...reading, writing, and arithmetic...that one always confused me. Whatever the reason that someone is reading, it is great and I wish that I could make it as easily available to everyone as going to the store and purchasing it from the shelf.

Pick up a book and read, read, read. Now that's 3 r's!