Defining Territorial Intelligence
Territorial Intelligence is a polysemic expression. Its frontiers and contents are fuzzy. Its current definitions are numerous and sometimes contradictory. However its usage is wide spreading whatever the risk of confusion is. Then the question: is it necessary or at least useful to attempt to define such a versatile object?
We think it is a responsibility for a project such as CAENTI i.e. a Coordination action of the European Network of Territorial Intelligence, to provide elements of a definition, if not a complete one, and guidelines for structuring research and action in the field of territorial intelligence. The aim of these lines is to sketch out a program of research in that direction. Several points of view are going to be briefly reviewed.
Firstly, the pragmatic approach will provide some insight of current usages. A quick googling request indicates 4830 quotations for the expression “territorial intelligence” in English, 18900 for “intelligence territoriale” in French, and 1050 for “inteligencia territorial” in Spanish (as of December 2007). Whatever the meaning of those quotations, the raw numbers indicate a frequency of the expression that is not negligible. It also indicates that it is not yet very popular. Cultural differences are also stemming from those figures. French people are largely more numerous to use “intelligence territoriale” than English speaking or Spanish speaking people. This introduces a second approach.
The semantic approach will focus on the explicit or implicit acceptations of the terms “intelligence” and “territorial”. The notion of territory is constantly evolving in particular under the pressure of information technologies and virtualization of the world. Intelligence is related to two poles: the one is more Anglo-Saxon and connoted with information gathering and exploiting, the other is more Latin and connoted with the capability to interpret and deal with new situations. From these starting points, several trends drive to different attitudes and visions as much for research as for applications.
The ecological approach will outline the environment in which the expression develops itself and the kind of relationship it nourishes with related concepts. Such concepts for example are competitive intelligence, economic intelligence, governance, knowledge management, technology, information system, and so on. A semantic network could well render the complexity of this relationship.
Our research program would thus include a) a review of present usages, current practices and definitions, b) a mapping of relations with concepts and cultural idiosyncrasies, c) a dictionary or an ontology of the multidimensional world of Territorial Intelligence. The premises of that work are planned for the next conference in Besançon in Fall 2008.
