The Last Decision We Have To Make... (Intel Analyst "Words To Live By")

The quotes have been collected, the surveys submitted, the results gathered and analyzed.

The Intelligence Analyst's Deck of Cards is almost finished. 

All we need now is a design for the back of the cards.

I hired a local design firm to come up with some ideas and through a wholly unscientific process have down-selected to the two you see in the Swayable below.

I am interested in your opinion!  Please vote and pass the site on to others who should vote on this crucial decision of national -- nay, international! -- importance.

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #10, Voting Closes 19 JUL 11!

This is the tenth, and last, list of "Intelligence Analyst Words To Live By."  

The tenth list is below and links to the previous nine lists are below that.  I am off to the Global Intelligence Forum next week and will not be back until 18 JUL so I decided to keep the voting open until then.  Please pass these lists on to any analysts you know!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Links to the previous nine lists:

List 1
List 2
List 3
List 4
List 5
List 6 
List 7
List 8
List 9

The current frontrunners from the ninth list include (with the percentage representing the percent of respondents who said move it up the list):

"The greatest derangement of mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so." -- Louis Pasteur (77%)
"I suppose that if we in intelligence were one day given three wishes, they would be to know everything, to be believed when we spoke, and in such a way to exercise an influence to the good in the matter of policy." -- Sherman Kent (53%)
"There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." -- Ronald Reagan (64%)

All other entries are currently below 50%

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #9 (SurveyMonkey.com)

This is the ninth of 10 surveys I intend to conduct to determine which are the "best" quotes, sayings and words of wisdom for intelligence analysts.

If you want more detail on why I am doing this, see the previous post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Voting on the first eight lists is still open:

List 1
List 2
List 3
List 4
List 5
List 6 
List 7 
List 8

The current frontrunners from the seventh list -- I am one behind -- include (with the percentage representing the percent of respondents who said move it up the list):

"The intelligence analyst's function might be described as transcending the limits of incomplete information through the exercise of analytical judgment." -- Richards Heuer (58%)
"What experts think matters far less than how they think." -- Philip Tetlock (77%)
"If you can imagine it, the enemy will do it." -- Numerous (70%)
 "The noblest service comes from nameless hands, and the best servant does his work unseen." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes (58%)
"Uncertainty, ambiguity, debate, and partial answers to tangled questions will remain an existential condition of the analytical process." -- Loch Johnson (56%)
 "Bad news does not improve with age." -- Anonymous (63%)
"The best defense for the analyst who feels pressure to reach a certain judgment, or the case officer pressured to “bend the rules,” is the ethical recognition that no one—analyst, interrogator, or policymaker—is well served by such corruption." -- William Nolte (67%)      

All other entries are currently below 50%.

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #8 (SurveyMonkey.com)

This is the eighth of 10 surveys I intend to conduct to determine which are the "best" quotes, sayings and words of wisdom for intelligence analysts.

If you want more detail on why I am doing this, see the previous post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Voting on the first seven lists is still open:

List 1
List 2
List 3
List 4
List 5
List 6 
List 7

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #7 (SurveyMonkey.com)

This is the seventh of 10 surveys I intend to conduct to determine which are the "best" quotes, sayings and words of wisdom for intelligence analysts.

If you want more detail on why I am doing this, see the previous post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Voting on the first six lists is still open:
List 1
List 2
List 3
List 4
List 5
List 6

The current frontrunners from the sixth list include (with the percentage representing the percent of respondents who said move it up the list):

"It is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong." -- Carveth Read (55%)
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" -- John Maynard Keynes (76%)
"Summarizing is not the same as analyzing." -- Kathleen Cassedy (76%)
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain (67%)
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. -- Sherlock Holmes (59%)
"Have the courage for what you already know." -- Frederich Nietzsche (52%)
"Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many. The intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden." -- Phaedrus (64%)  

All other entries are currently below 50%.

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #6 (SurveyMonkey.com)

This is the sixth of 10 surveys I intend to conduct to determine which are the "best" quotes, sayings and words of wisdom for intelligence analysts.

If you want more detail on why I am doing this, see the previous post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Voting on the first five lists is still open:
List 1
List 2
List 3
List 4
List 5

The current frontrunners from the fifth list include (with the percentage representing the percent of respondents who said move it up the list):

"90% of everything you need is public." -- Numerous (52%)
"There is nothing more necessary than good intelligence to frustrate a designing enemy and nothing requires greater pains to obtain." -- George Washington (74%)
"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is." -- Yogi Berra (52%)
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." -- Aristotle (70%)
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." -- Sherlock Holmes (77%)
 "Correlation is not causation." -- Anonymous (72%)
 "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." -- Sun Tzu (74%)
  
All other entries are currently below 50%.

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #5 (SurveyMonkey.com)

This is the fifth of 10 surveys I intend to conduct to determine which are the "best" quotes, sayings and words of wisdom for intelligence analysts.

If you want more detail on why I am doing this, see the previous post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Voting on the first four lists is still open:
List 1
List 2
List 3
List 4

The current frontrunners from the fourth list include (with the percentage representing the percent of respondents who said move it up the list):

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." -- Richard Feynman (61%)
"Trust but verify." -- Ronald Reagan (57%)
"Things change. There is no 'final' version of a report. There is only the 'current' version." -- Anonymous (77%)
"You are not doing your job if your research doesn't surprise you." -- Cynthia Storer (62%)
"If you think intelligence is expensive, try ignorance." -- David Jimenez (73%)


All other entries are currently below 50%.

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #4 (SurveyMonkey.com)

This is the fourth of 10 surveys I intend to conduct to determine which are the "best" quotes, sayings and words of wisdom for intelligence analysts.

If you want more detail on why I am doing this, see the previous post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Voting on the first three lists is still open:
List 1
List 2
List 3

The current frontrunners from the third list include (with the percentage representing the percent of respondents who said move it up the list):

"A problem well formulated is a problem half solved." -- Charles Kettering (69%)
"No matter what your conclusions are, always ask yourself if you have factored in the possibility of deception." -- Jim Breckenridge (73%)
"Knowledge a week too late is the same as ignorance." -- George Friedman (69%)
"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what no one has thought." -- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (74%)

All other entries are currently below 50%.

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" -- #2 (SurveyMonkey.com)

This is the second of 10 surveys I intend to conduct to determine which are the "best" quotes, sayings and words of wisdom for intelligence analysts.

If you want more detail on why I am doing this, see the previous post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

If you haven't had a chance to vote on the first list you can find it here (voting is still open).

The current frontrunners from the first list include (with the percentage representing the percent of respondents who said move it up the list):

"Always be aware that what you know and believe can taint your perception of what really is." -- Bill Russell (84%)
"What is your source?" -- Numerous (67%)
"Chance favors the prepared mind." -- Louis Pasteur (61%)
"Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain." -- Carl von Clausewitz (58%)
"If you always do what you aways did, you'll always get what you always got." -- Steve Gottlieb (58%)

All other entries are currently below 50%.

Intelligence Analyst "Words To Live By" (SurveyMonkey.com)

Last week, I asked for intelligence professionals from the business, law enforcement and national security intelligence communities to send me quotes, sayings and other "words of wisdom" that they have found useful over the years. My hope was to be able to put together a short list that would be helpful for intelligence analysts everywhere, students and professionals alike.

Over 100 emails and nearly 1000 responses later, I think I can legitimately say that my request has been answered. Many thanks to all who submitted something!

Now comes the genuinely hard part of figuring out which of these quotes ought to be at the top of the list. Rather than just pick the ones I liked, I thought I would ask the same people -- you -- who made the suggestions.

The short survey below is just one of 10 (each with 10 quotes, so 100 total) that I intend to publish over the next several weeks. I am not asking which quotes are best or worst (I know that this is next to impossible given the large number of very good quotes); I am only asking which ones should be moved closer to the top of the list and which ones should be moved closer to the bottom of the list. Assuming I get enough responses, the truly best quotes should rise to the top of the aggregated results.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

It is also legitimate to ask, of the nearly 1000 quotes I received, how did I downselect to the 100 I intend to survey? I looked for a couple of things. First, they needed to be general. The quote should arguably apply to intelligence professionals in any of the sub-disciplines of intelligence.

Second, the quote needed to be fairly short. There were several excellent lengthy entries that I hated to exclude but I felt that they fell more into the categories of "essay" or "story" than "saying".

Third, I focused primarily (but not exclusively) on intelligence analysis. I teach intelligence analysis and I want to create this list primarily to help my students and other students (young and old) of intelligence analysis.

My intent, once I have the results of the survey, is to take the top 52 quotes and have them printed on a deck of playing cards -- that's right, the "Intelligence Analyst's Deck of Cards".

We received a small unrestricted grant from a private donor a few months ago (yes, my academic friends, they do exist...) with the vague instructions to do something to improve analysis. This money should be enough to get a small print run completed through our Mercyhurst College Institute For Intelligence Studies Press.

Once they are printed, we will send out free copies to anyone who submitted an entry (whether it made it onto the cards or not). If there are any copies remaining after that, they will go on sale at our bookstore where whatever money we make will be donated to support the activities of our three student intelligence clubs here on campus.

Thanks again to all and please take a second to fill out the surveys as they get published!