intelligence-collection-disciplines

# Intelligence Collection Disciplines

## Purpose

Stop doing competitive research like a term paper. The intelligence community solved this problem
decades ago: they don't collect "data," they run **collection disciplines** — independent channels,
each with its own sources, tradecraft, and blind spots — and then they *fuse* them. This skill gives
product managers that playbook: eight disciplines, each telling you (1) what to collect, (2) where to
collect it, (3) which signal → inference chains to run, and (4) which PM artifact it feeds
(TAM/SAM/SOM, ICPs, personas, battle cards, roadmap bets, win/loss, positioning, pricing). One signal
is an anecdote; three correlated signals from independent disciplines is intelligence.

## Input

**Works best with** the six instantiation variables below — fill them once and every discipline
becomes engagement-specific. Leave them blank and this stays a teaching artifact.

~~~
[TARGET]      = The competitor, partner, or acquirer you're researching
[MARKET]      = The category and its NAICS/SIC/NACE codes (or nearest equivalent)
[GEOGRAPHY]   = Regions in scope, at COUNTRY level, not continent level
[BUYER]       = Who signs the check (drives review sites, job titles, conferences)
[CAPABILITY]  = The strategic move you suspect (platform play, market entry,
                pricing shift, compliance land-grab, etc.)
[DECISION]    = What this research will change (roadmap bet, positioning,
                pricing, market entry, deal defense, ICP refresh)
~~~

**If [DECISION] is blank, stop. Research without a decision is a hobby.**

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an
appended `ARGUMENTS:` line — counts as variables already filled. Use it; don't re-ask.

**Arriving empty-handed? That works too.** Read the disciplines as a course in tradecraft, or ask the
agent to walk the instantiation block with you one variable at a time.

**Example invocation:** `Use intelligence-collection-disciplines — [TARGET]: Meridian Freight Systems,
[CAPABILITY]: suspected move into warehouse robotics, [DECISION]: whether we accelerate our own
integration roadmap.`

## Key Concepts

### The Eight Disciplines

| Discipline | Intel Community Name | Plain English | Primary PM Artifact |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. OSINT | Open Source Intelligence | Press, social, periodicals, analysts | Battle cards, positioning |
| 2. FININT | Financial Intelligence | Filings, earnings calls, procurement | Battle cards, SOM capture rates |
| 3. GEOINT/DEMOINT | Geospatial & Demographic Intelligence | Census, labor, trade, economic statistics | TAM/SAM/SOM, ICPs, personas |
| 4. TECHINT | Technical Intelligence | Patents, technographics, changelogs | Roadmap bets |
| 5. HUMINT | Human Intelligence | Talent moves, employee chatter, win/loss | Roadmap bets, battle cards |
| 6. SIGINT | Signals Intelligence | Web diffs, pricing changes, job posts | Battle cards, pricing strategy |
| 7. MASINT | Measurement & Signature | Supply chain, ops indicators | Threat assessment |
| 8. All-Source Fusion | n/a | Cross-validation and confidence stacking | Everything above |

- **Independence is the design.** The disciplines matter because they fail differently: a press
  release can lie, but a customs record, a patent filing, and thirty job posts are three separate
  bureaucracies that would all have to be lying in the same direction.
- **Signal → inference chains** are the tradecraft: each observable signal maps to a bounded
  interpretation, labeled per the `autonomous-investigation` protocol (Fact / Inference / Assumption).
- **What this is NOT:** espionage. Every source below is published, filed, posted, or publicly
  observable. See Guardrails in Common Pitfalls.

## Application

### 1. OSINT — The Journalist's Desk

*What a good beat reporter knows before the press release drops.*

| Source Type | Free | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| [TARGET] press & newsroom | Company newsroom pages, Google Alerts, PR Newswire feeds | Meltwater, Cision |
| Industry periodicals | Trade publications, association newsletters, vertical Substacks for [MARKET] | Analyst subscriptions |
| Analyst coverage | Gartner/Forrester press summaries, free webinar replays | Gartner, Forrester, IDC full reports |
| Social & community | LinkedIn exec posts, Reddit, Hacker News, X | Brandwatch, Sprout listening |
| Review sites | Whichever your [BUYER] reads: G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, app stores, Trustpilot | G2 Buyer Intent data |
| Conference footprint | Session titles, sponsor tiers, booth size, speaker rosters at [MARKET] events | n/a |
| Prediction markets | Polymarket, Kalshi, Metaculus, Manifold (crowd-priced odds on regulation, approvals, tech milestones relevant to [MARKET]) | n/a |

**Signal → inference chains:**

- [TARGET] exec suddenly posting about a new problem space → positioning pivot incoming (execs test messaging on social 3-6 months before launch)
- Sponsor tier jump at a [MARKET] conference → market entry or doubling down
- Review complaints clustering on one feature → their roadmap pressure point = your battle card ammo
- Analyst briefing requests (visible via analyst posts) → category creation attempt
- Webinar topics shifting → what they're teaching the market is what they're about to sell
- Sudden silence on a product line → sunset in progress
- Prediction-market odds moving on a regulation or milestone that gates [MARKET] → crowd-priced expectations for scenario planning; treat as a leading indicator of consensus, not ground truth, and check liquidity before trusting the number

**Feeds:** battle cards (objection handling from review mining), positioning (their words vs. customer words gap), win/loss context.

### 2. FININT — The Forensic Accountant

*Follow the money. Companies lie in press releases. They lie less in filings, because lying there is a felony.*

| Source Type | Free | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Public filings | SEC EDGAR (US), Companies House (UK), BR