Why Does Technology Mapping and CTI Work?

Technology mapping and analysis with competitive technical intelligence depends on public disclosure of technically significant information.   What organization would do such a thing?   Answer.  Both large and small organizations!   BUT, you must be prepared to organize the disclosures AND you must be prepared to interpret the disclosures to make them tell a story.

What motivates organizations to disclose “sensitive” information?   Below are some of the forces. What other forces can you identify?  Please add a comment.

• Big business needs to convince investors that they are leaders and worthy of investment.  As a result, businesses publish useful information in press releases, annual reports and financial documents.
• Small businesses disclose information in order to raise money.
• Businesses seek patent protection for products and product improvements as a form of strategic advantage.
• Businesses publish to gain strategic advantage.
• Scientist and engineers are often evaluated on their publication and patenting frequency.  As a result, there is “pressure” from below to disclose technology information.
• Patenting and publishing timeframes are similar or shorter that product development cycles in many organizations.
• Others?

Competitive Technical Intelligence also benefits from the fact that scientific and patent information is very highly structured.   Patents and scientific papers have informative titles and abstracts.  Patents have claims which summarize the invention.  Papers have conclusions with a similar summary function.  The well structured formats make text mining and mapping fairly convenient.