Dr. George Friedman — founder of Stratfor, a private intelligence firm — has been taking his company “Web 2.0” over the past few months. Most recently the boss himself has joined the blogosphere. All of us at CA are/were subscribers of Stratfor. I recently began checking out their podcasts (sorry about the iTunes link Roy) which I know Chirol is a fan of.
The INT lords at Kent’s Imperative have mixed sentiments on this development, and offer their take on Stratfor and the industry in general. KI cautions Friedman to be wary of the level of potential readers in the blogosphere, which offers a dimension of interactivity that Stratfor may not of encountered with its previous consumer set (George does have comments turned on). KI even gives us a shoutout (Cheers!):
For example, their latest piece on Blackwater could well have been far better informed with the cooperation of established bloggers that have long discussed the impact of PMCs (first in our minds is of course Mountainrunner, but also the boys at Coming Anarchy, and Shloky). Let us hope that Stratfor learns from their example, and involves such SME’s in their future products.
The thing I look forward to is the shop-talk, which I hope makes it into the blog. I would like to hear more about the techniques Stratfor uses in doing their analysis. For those interested the Handbook of Country and Political Risk Analysis is a great book detailing what some other private int shops like the EIU do their work.
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