Analyst's Cookbook, Volume 2, Now Available!

The Analyst's Cookbook, Volume 2, is out right now(!) and can be downloaded from Amazon.com to your Kindle or, if you don't have a Kindle, to one of the free Kindle readers for PC, iPhone, etc.

We went with a Kindle edition of the Cookbook this time around for all the reasons anyone goes to digital publishing -- it is less expensive for you to buy (only $4.99) and easier for us to manage than paper books.

For those of you familiar with the first Cookbook, thanks for your support ... and for waiting so long!  Your loyalty has made The Analyst's Cookbook the best selling book in MCIIS' inventory (it is now in its third printing!).

For those of you not familiar with the first volume of The Analyst's Cookbook (still available in hardcopy here), it is a series of short articles that outline the basics of a variety of different analytic techniques.  Each chapter was written by a different analyst and addresses one specific method or technique, provides a short description, a how-to, and a sense of the pros and cons of the method.  The second volume follows the same pattern.

What really makes the chapters interesting, though, is the experience each  individual analyst had when they tried to apply the method to a particular problem.  In the past, these method/problem match-ups make for some fascinating reading (like when one analyst applied the business methodology of benchmarking to European terrorist groups).  The current collection is no exception in this regard.

The real exception in this volume is that, in the past, the Cookbook was a venue to show off graduate student writing, this volume shows off graduate student editing as well.  It was put together almost entirely by the editor for the MCIIS Press, Nicole Pillar.

Finally, while we had many good suggestions for improving the format of the Cookbook over the years since Volume 1 was published, in the end, we decided to stick with the less formal, "cookbook", approach of Volume 1.  The goal for us is to capture the experience of using a particular analytic method on a real problem, to give the reader a sense of how these methods work.  The purpose is not to provide a definitive evaluation of one approach vs. another.  It is a starting place for thinking about analytic methods, not the end point.

I hope you enjoy the new Cookbook!

To purchase The Analyst's Cookbook, Volume 2:  Go here!
To download free Kindle Reader software:  Go here!

Free Intel Studies Book! (MCIIS Press)

We have just published a new book, Walking Through The Halls Of Intelligence, and, in keeping with our philosophy, we have made a PDF version free to download.

The book summarizes the results of 12 recent graduate theses and covers topics such as:

• A Predictive Model For Clandestine Nuclear Programs


• Is China Stable?


• Accountability: Process And Outcome Systems For Intelligence Analysts


• Personality Types Of Intelligence Analysts

You can also buy a copy of the book (it is a great coffee table book -- with hard cover and dust jacket). All of the profits from the sale of the hard copy go to support graduate level research here at Mercyhurst.

The book was originally a class project in my graduate level class in Intelligence Communications last year. I wanted students to become familiar with the thesis process and the thesis results of previous graduate students (much of which covers topics not previously or, at least, not widely covered in the intelligence studies literature). I also wanted the students to produce an integrated document and to make that document readable.

As a result, I had them write a book...

Their guidance for the individual chapters was to mimic the feature writing style from good news and science magazines (such as Newsweek and New Scientist) and to compile all of the articles into a book length document.

In addition to reading the theses, contacting the original authors for more info, speaking with the thesis advisors and others regarding the importance of the work, they also had to make a variety of group decisions such as settling on a common format and make numerous production decisions (such as cover artwork and layout).

In the end, the book was good enough that we decided to publish it using the same model that we used with the Analyst's Style Manual (still available for both free download and purchase).

It is licensed under a Creative Commons license which means you can download it, share it, use it in classes -- whatever.

While you are there, you might also want to check out the new Mercyhurst College Institute Of Intelligence Studies website. We are still adding content but the look and feel are entirely different.

We have also done a better job of integrating the MCIIS website with the college's main site (for example, if you know a high school student that you think should be thinking about a career in intelligence, there is a link directly from the MCIIS website to a "request for information" page).

Finally, the last time we did this, you crushed our servers with requests, so, if you can't get to the download page immediately, I suggest you wait ten minutes and try again.

Free Analyst's Style Manual! (MCIIS Press)

Bill Welch has just finished packaging the Style Manual for use in our writing, presentation and communications classes here at Mercyhurst. Bill, an editor and writer with the Erie Time-News for 29 years before he came to us, integrated the practices from a number of other style guides (including ones from DIA and CIA) as well as his own considerable experience to put together a concise manual focused on the essentials of style for the intel analyst engaged in national security, business or law enforcement work.

Partly because he recognized he was building on the shoulders of giants and partly because we are really trying to keep textbook prices down, we decided to make a PDF version of the manual available for free and licensed under Creative Commons so that educators, practitioners and students can use it in any way they need to.

If you would rather have a print version of the manual, we have cut a deal with a local printer and the Mercyhurst College Bookstore to get you one. All profits from the hardcopy sales will go to support graduate student research here at Mercyhurst (Note: Every year our grad students wind up coming out of pocket for various pieces of software or other unique tools to do their theses. Rachel Kesselman, for example, wound up spending 200+ dollars on some content analysis software in order to analyze 60 years of NIEs. While we don't expect this little manual to be a best seller, we would like to be able to defray or eliminate those costs and Bill has kindly donated whatever profits might come from the sale of the hardcopy versions to the graduate research fund).