Ideas

The latest buzz-phrase in the fields of knowledge management and organisational strategy, Economic Intelligence, or EI, is not just what it says on the box. The term was coined 60 or so years ago by organisations such as the CIA when they realised that military intelligence needed to be supplemented by data about potential enemies' economic capabilities.

Today we're familiar with the knowledge economy and information as a commodity, but experts at the FT go further, saying information must be considered as 
'a source of energy, like oil or gas'. Gathering and analysing data from the global environment is crucial for a range of international bodies, from whole countries down to commercial SMEs, so EI's remit now goes beyond mere economics, encompassing legal, ethical, security, risk and policy issues, as well as competitiveness and technological prowess.

Send buzzwords, jargon and new and exotic usages to tony.thorne@kcl.ac.uk.

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