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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS & PRESENTATIONS

  • Weblog: Spaces.Icgpartners.com
    • Mini-publishing in a weblog medium, ICG's weblog makes a public record of analysis on aspects of strategic risk, terrorism, infrastructure defense, intellectual property theft, risk containment and pricing, and cybersecurity.  The public community weblog holds the last 15 notes regardless of subject area.  Categories allow the reader to view specific topics of interest.  Sir Harold Nicholson described diplomacy as “the understanding that for intractable problems there are only adjustments and not solutions”.  ICG's weblog leads readers to consider possible adjustments, question assumptions, consider the secondary effects of any action, and challenge glib actions that are useless if not dangerous.


  • Low cost is not low risk: Realistic IP Protection in China
    • GlobalAutoIndustry conference, “Key Strategies for Succeeding in China’s Booming Auto Industry,” Troy, Michigan, 21 September, 2006

    While there are undeniable Intellectual Property (IP) risks in China, the key is understanding that total risk is more broadly ‘global asset’ than specific ‘region,’ i.e., realistic protection starts with the understanding that a sufficiently valuable asset is at risk wherever it appears at any tier in the global supply chain. Focusing solely on piece part cost robs IP owners of many of the available means of protection. Numerous weblog items from the Intellectual Property Public category underpin this presentation.


  • Islamic territory from North Africa to South Asia: No solutions, only adjustments
    • Kirk in the Hills, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 8 September, 2006

    The US is the pole star of Muslim distress rising from centuries of contact with the Western World which ‘won’ more by force of arms than by force of ideas. Arabs in particular and Muslims in general see dominant Western systems created to enforce the rules of an international economic order that promote the interests of the industrialized West. The rise of asymmetrical warfare by small groups with increasingly potent weapons demands a very different form of engagement. Numerous weblog items from the Terrorism Public and Strategic Risk Public categories underpin this presentation.


  • Signals, Sprignals and Noise: Deception Analysis in Financial Events
    • The Journal, Stout Risius Ross
    Fall 2005, Pages 20-22

    Denial and deception (D&D) seeks to disrupt the analyst’s decision cycle and induce inaccurate impressions about capabilities or intentions. All deception, be it military, diplomatic, political or financial, has four components: Security, Plausibility, Adaptability and Integration. This article discusses means to authenticate what is presented and to identify what is missing in financial instruments.


  • Driving European Success in North America
    • CriticalEYE, The Competitive Intelligence magazine for Europe
    June - August 2003, Pages 37-39

    European firms entering the North American market need sound Competitive Intelligence (CI) skills, excellent analysis abilities in Risk Management, Finances, and Supply Chains in order to know whom to buy, at what cost, and with how much risk. Euro firms cannot depend upon the internal estimates of their US Joint Venture partners or acquisition candidates for guidance.


  • Supply Chain Analysis: Forensics or Fellowship
    • CriticalEYE, The Competitive Intelligence magazine for Europe
    February 2003, Pages 26-27

    Risk should not overshadow opportunity. The manner - the when and how - in which Competitive Intelligence (CI) is used can have an enormous effect on the health and welfare of the supply chain relationship under study.


  • Enron & Arthur Anderson: to comply is not enough
    • Part One, Spurious Signals – The Culpable, Gullible and the Hobbled
    Part Two, Mixed Signals – Sins of Omission and Commission, Cooptation and Valor
    CriticalEYE, The Competitive Intelligence magazine for Europe
    August 2002, Pages 20-25

    These serial articles apply the tripartite intelligence information theory model identifying signals amidst background “noise” and “sprignals” (spurious signals) to commercial analysis. Enron Corp. mimicked this model of strategic surprise in which deliberate “signals” designed to lull or defeat warning systems were issued in ever increasing volume. These signals took a variety of forms such as “designer investment” vehicles, obscured financials, and corporate pronouncements. Enron’s auditor, Arthur Andersen, alternatively abetted the creation of these signals or validated them as genuine. This is a story of those who generated those “sprignals”, those who were taken in by them, and those who were powerless to halt them.


  • Warranty Containment and Reduction
    • Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation
    Traverse City Management Briefing Seminars, 4 August, 1998

    Presented in association with J.D. Powers & Associates as part of “Field Failures, Warranty Costs and the Supply Chain.” Addressed warranty issues from "Colliding Worlds: Supplier Warranty Provision" in a joint OEM-Supplier audience, followed by a spirited Q&A session (which clearly echoed the divide between supply chain tiers).


  • Colliding Worlds: Supplier Warranty Provison and Warranty Cost Identification/Sharing
    • Competitive Advantage, February, 1998
    American Society for Quality Services journal

    The true costs of warranty in products of complex systems and/or complex distribution and service systems are proving to be enormous and intractable for OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers). Warranty costs continue to escalate, even as manufacturers make better products, causing suppliers at all levels to ask, “I have zero defects, so why am I receiving warranty charges?” Suppliers can benchmark “perfection” on their competing assemblers to reduce part-related costs (the “direct” costs of warranty), but the problem arises in the “indirect,” systemic, “open loops” in the warranty system. All too often suppliers are captive to the dysfunctions of the OEM-Supplier warranty system where “business as usual” may result in rising, unidentifiable, and frequent warranty costs.


  • Regional Impact on Global Intellectual Capital
    • Second World Congress on the Management of Intellectual Capital
    McMaster University, 23 January, 1998

    Different regions and peoples vary in their interpretation and valuation of intellectual capital. In a global sense, the US dominated the postwar technology markets, giving a decidedly US-slant to much of the products, services and ideas in international commerce - and that slant, along with its assumptions and expectations, is unspoken. The commercial control of what we call the “Invisible Dominance of US Market Characteristics”, is ebbing, but many nations and cultural groups persist in projecting “Us” onto “Them,” i.e., assigning the viewer's characteristics, needs and priorities onto another country, and assuming what is “different” to be “wrong” rather than merely different.


  • The Fall and Rise of Service in the 20th Century
    • Competitive Advantage, 1997
    American Society for Quality Services journal

    Introducing the concept that buyers view a purchase through one of three lens, purchase as best price, as service, or as theater, this article outlines the contribution that service makes to each and how it permits the seller to “transcend the transaction,” moving beyond an individual purchase to form an “inalienable trust,” thereby cementing a longer term, lower cost relationship with the buyer.


  • An Approach to Negotiation
    • Intellectual Capital Group, 1997

    Having negotiated on every continent save the Antarctic, my approach to negotiation has been shaped by the imperative to overcome the barriers of culture, distance, and time zones to build and sustain a working, lasting relationship between diverse parties. Originally prepared as lecture notes, these twelve interacting concepts frame a successful negotiation approach.