Facilitator: Michael Neugarten, Manager, Business Intelligence, IAI (IL)

Michael works in Corporate Marketing at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Israel's largest aviation and aerospace company. He holds a BSc in Physics from Southampton University, an MSc in Applied Optics from Reading University, an MBA from Henley Management College, and is currently concluding a PhD at the Swiss University of St Gallen on aspects of noticing as applied to Competitive Intelligence. A member of SCIP since 1996, he tutors a CI course at Henley, and will teach an MBA CI elective at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology this autumn. He has published in the AGSI Journal, in SCIP's JCIM and in Futures, and presented on "Seeing and Noticing: an optical perspective on CI" at the 2000 SCIP conference in London.

Panelists:
Hüda Tuzlu, Marketing & Kommunikation, ZF Friedrichshafen AG (D)
Andrew Michael Garrett, Sales and Marketing, Manager Esmerk GmbH (D)
Manjula Nadarajah, Technology Solutions Marketing, Strategic Marketing & Communications Shell Global Solutions International BV  (NL)

Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI) is often considered to be a subset of CI, and deals with information and insights sought and gained through technical or scientific & technological lenses. As a result many CI professionals often sidestep CTI, preferring to leave it to the 'experts'.

A number of issues will be raised during this expert discussion:

• should CTI be left to the experts? and if so, what should they be expert in?
• is there a place to widen CTI to encompass softer issues such as the search (competition) for technical personnel resources?
• what is the role of social networks in this aspect of CTI?
• is there or should there be a European slant on CTI, given the flow of skilled workers from Eastern to Western Europe, while production flows eastwards?
• just how separate from CI should CTI be (or become)?

The discussion should be of interest to practitioners, users of CTI, consultants, and purveyors.

Expert talks are interactive panel discussions, where the facilitator engages the audience with his experts (panellists). Experts are either invitees from the speakers, conference participants or exhibitors. After a short introduction from the facilitator the experts are asked to set the stage with a candid initial statement.

Expert sessions are designed to provide you with an opportunity to exchange experiences with colleagues and to address CI issues not covered in depth during the session presentations! Be prepared to contribute actively and passionately - or simply enjoy the high calibre exchange of CI best practices.