The T-Factor - New Technologies and Intelligence Analysis Learning

Abstract

The world is continuously evolving in regards to the so-called VUCA environments (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity). If we adopt a PESTLE analytical model (which includes political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors), we can see that new technologies are the great “game changers”. This concept, usually considered in foresight and future studies, can be defined as “a new introduced element of factor that changes an existing situation or activity in a significant way”. This technological factor (T-factor) is changing the way that we live, think, interact, communicate, or access services in an increasingly digital world.

Considering what Lowenthal and other authors have pointed out, intelligence tradecraft is in a permanent process of “fatigue reform”. This paper will identify how technologies are: first, affecting the so-called intelligence cycle; second, offering new opportunities to collect, evaluate and integrate old and new sources of information; third, generating new corporative and personal risks for intelligence analysts, especially in the cyberspace; fourth, introducing new bias; fifth, modifying classical skills usually developed in intelligence analysts; sixth, offering new tools to support the daily work of the analysts: big data, predictive systems, semantic analysis; and seventh, changing the way in which intelligence products are disseminated, with more visual contents: maps, infographics, and diagrams.