This book constitutes a summary of investigations, which I have carried out for years, surrounding collective creative intelligence. This form of intelligence is not the first that has been a particular interest of mine. The more my research has advanced, the more I have been able to identify the diverse relationships between intelligence and innovation, as well as between intelligence and creativity. All of this really began in 2002 when writing a business thesis concentrating on the improvements of intelligence processes in a context of competitive territorial intelligence. Like all doctoral students who are interested in competitive or competitor intelligence, it was necessary to start this work by creating a summary of the diverse information intelligence uses. I was soon to discover the most classic forms of information intelligence, namely technological, competitive, strategic, market or legislative intelligence. However, by observing and putting these intelligence practices into their professional framework, I noticed that numerous requests to investigate information have revealed the need to identify new solutions. Consequently, it is on this relationship, between information retrieval and identifying new solutions, that my investigative work will intensely focus on.

Throughout the years, I have explored the existing relationships between the functions of competitor intelligence and the requirements and functions of innovation, and then between design and processes of competitor intelligence and knowledge management. This led me to concentrate my investigation on the lines separating intelligence from creating information, in order to eventually link research activities for information and creativity within the same research objective. It is in this way that in 2007, I opted for the expression “creative intelligence” in order to give a name to a type of intelligence that has the objective of directly contributing to processes of innovation, invention and creation. On reflection, I quickly realized that I was far from being the first to employ this expression to link intelligence and creation. I then refined my readings and investigations to better understand the specificities of this intelligence explored previously by practitioners and theorists. Nowadays, I consider creative intelligence to be a process that links competitor intelligence and innovation. Like other forms of intelligence, it seeks to do this through various functions such as acquiring, processing, shaping and sharing information, and also two other functions, associated more with knowledge management and innovation, which are the creation of knowledge and identification of innovative spaces.

The aim of this book is to push you to discover creative intelligence through different methods that I have tested or developed. This is why I have chosen above all to prioritize the questions that are relevant for understanding the problem, the collection and arrangement of information regarding creative intelligence. The concept of creative intelligence addressed in this work is mostly considered as a type of intelligence, which allows us to make discoveries in development stages, to identify creation paths which have not previously been dealt with, to develop original strategies, to anticipate innovation strategies and to form new points of reference. All of these methods presented have to be considered as advanced intelligence methods. I thus presume that the reader is at least already familiarized with the concept of intelligence, questioning the problems inherent in information retrieval, challenging search engines, using social media or creating alerts. If this is not the case, I advise you to read works like those completed by G. Balmisse [BAL 14], P.-Y. Debliquy [DE 14], J. Deiss [DEI 15], C. Dupin [DUP 14], D. Rouach [ROU 10], etc. It must be clarified that I will not address the practices of systematic and automatic intelligence. At most, I will cite some of them and put forward their main principles in order to tackle a method or a means to increase their relevance using a “push” approach based on the automation of a digital intelligence process.

As already mentioned, I did not create the expression “creative competitive intelligence”. In fact, it seems that it had been awaiting recognition since at least the start of the 1990s. I no longer remember the precise moment I discovered it and I cannot tell you if I ended up employing the expression after a lecture or an exchange with an intelligence specialist, or even if the idea came to me naturally when reflecting on a term which could express the idea of intelligence that is directly related to innovation. If you try this terminological investigation yourself, you will realize that when you are searching for an expression inspired by intelligence and which expresses a strong link to innovation or creation, the expression creative intelligence naturally emerges and, consequently, it is very difficult to forget about it. Nevertheless, other expressions such as “innovation intelligence” and “inventive intelligence” appear. Since 2012, these two expressions are increasingly used in job offers that require a similar skill.

My definition of creative intelligence includes both aspects of intelligence as well as “creation intelligence” or “creative intelligence”, “creative trends intelligence”, “design intelligence”, “stylistic intelligence” and “artistic intelligence”, this last expression being linked with activities of artistic creation or the organization of artistic displays. Creative intelligence as a generic expression used to define a type of intelligence focusing on creative and innovative activities can also be combined with other forms of intelligence to create more plural expressions like “creative and technological competitive intelligence”/“technological competitive and creative intelligence”, “creative and strategic intelligence”/“strategic and creative intelligence”, “creative and competitor intelligence”/“competitor and creative intelligence” or “territorial and creative intelligence” which I will tackle at the end of this work. These combinations of different forms of intelligence simply illustrate that resulting forms of intelligence can be defined and put into place according to certain specificities of two initial intelligence systems which are joined together.

Now that I have given you an insight into what could define creative intelligence, I think that it is time to explore creative intelligence to a greater extent. In order to do this, I will make use of a diagram that I call a “reflective strategic framework” (Figure I.1) that I apply to all forms of intelligence and especially creative intelligence. This framework can also help to prepare the groundwork for problem-solving, whether this be in a context of innovation or not. It is made up of five frames which bring together the elements that strongly interact and that are relevant for resolving a problem from its initial emergence (resolution request) up to its identification (the resolution request is thus implicit). I encourage you to use this framework as a basis to resolve a problem that you are faced with. The order in which you will tackle the fields that compose this framework does not matter; the important aspect is to try to fully find out about them before starting to solve a complex problem. This framework summarizes numerous points which must be examined when we carry out an intelligence process. It also serves as a basis through which the chapters of this book have been organized. First, I will handle the request (expressed or not) in terms of digital provision it implies and interpretative problems that it may produce. If there is a request, it is essential to try to satisfy it by providing the information that is most suitable for their need, their expectations, preferences and availabilities. Then, you may concentrate on the informational problem that needs to be resolved by employing, for example, well-known questioning methods such as 5W&1H and Why Why Why (Chapter 5). As you will come to notice, certain tools and methods presented in this work are tips tricks, while others are more complex, some can be used by a single individual and others require the work of a group of people. It is perhaps convenient to remember that intelligence is not only the responsibility of those in charge of it or of the strategist, but also the responsibility of all of the members of the organization.

The intelligence expert is an expert in identifying, acquiring, treating, analyzing and disseminating important information which is often strategic for the organization, but it is also impossible for them to know everything about a problem or a particular product when working alone. Furthermore, in a creative intelligence framework, the link between information and strategic decisions is very weak. If you look for innovation paths, for example, once certain opportunities have been identified and discussed, a decision can quite easily be reached which will then have a great impact on the future of the organization. This potential impact and the rapidity of the discussed decision, according to the profile of the strategist(s), must then also be considered in terms of the form that the provision of creative intelligence will take. If you keep in mind this potentially important aspect of decision-making, the techniques and tools of intelligence that I put forward must allow you to identify the needs to fulfill them correctly, as well as the initial objectives and the usefulness of the information or other solutions which are to be provided from the work carried out to resolve the problem. In theory, these elements must resonate with the ideal final result that the person who made the request imagined was possible and that which the intelligence expert would feel capable of carrying out.

In order to do this, you must know what you want to do with the certain number of resources at your disposal. Moreover, this book aims to put forward a range of techniques and solutions to provide you with the keys to solve problems regarding information investigation, strategic reflection and encouraging a creative group in particular. As you will see, the essential point of the book is to present diverse means through which to organize information in order to identify, reflect on and communicate elements relating to changes to a sector-specific environment, associated threats or risks, new opportunities and other paths of innovation. You will also notice that many techniques which come from problem-solving involve some form of game. I thus believe that a specific source of inspiration conceives methods or techniques which are still ignored and which allow us to otherwise to solve numerous solutions.

Now, as already mentioned above, before developing all of these points, I will start by presenting in a conventional manner the most important notions handled in the context of this work. I will start with a history of creative intelligence which I will then associate with some of these practices.