"A CIA operative who is assigned to read Soviet newspapers during the Cold War notices that a perennially losing soccer team in a small town suddenly starts winning all its matches. Curious, he asks for detailed photos of the area. Close scrutiny reveals a secret nuclear-weapons plant: the steady infusion of workers, it turns out, has been boosting the team's talent pool. While it would be comforting to think that today's intelligence community is similarly on the ball, that's not the point being made by Bradley Hoyt in his article "Early Warning: The Art of Inference" in the January/February 2002 issue of Competitive Intelligence Magazine. Hoyt's message is for business leaders, and it is this: seismic change often creeps in on little cat's feet, and the best way to spot it is to constantly scan for anomalies. Strategists, he insists, must learn both how to look (spotting change is a largely visual process) and where to look (early indications of change come not from within our companies or our industries but from the world at large -- your local Hallmark store is a good place to start)"
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