I want to use my first blog post to talk about what we’ve been hearing lately from our customers. Recently, we solicited feedback from our North American customers with the intent to take the pulse of our users and improve our understanding of the issues that are at the forefront of the intelligence and law enforcement communities.

Interestingly for us, information sharing tools were the most cited factor in effectively accomplishing respondents’ missions. This is, of course, one of the reasons we got into this business in the first place.

The vast majority said that the pace of investigations at their organization is appropriate for them to be successful — I’m glad to hear that. The world in which our customers work is increasingly chaotic, fast-moving and asymmetrical and we know that it’s a challenge to connect the right dots in the middle of the data blizzard. I hope that we can take some credit for making that pace manageable, and rest assured we will continue to look for ways to help you be more effective.

In the aftermath of security events like the foiled attempts to detonate an explosive device in Times Square and to destroy Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day last year, the public, elected leaders and the media alike turn their attention to the efforts of those who work to prevent such activities; the ability of our law enforcement and intelligence professionals to effectively share information is often called into question. Seventy-three percent of our survey respondents either agree or strongly agree that their organization collaborates well with other agencies, however, and only 13 percent perceive the ongoing public conversation about intelligence and data collection/exploitation as accurate or relevant.  To me, this key finding demonstrates that the core issue is not being discussed in the larger ongoing public conversation.  For this reason, i2 is helping to focus this dialogue on the things that really matter, like the ability to quickly upgrade to new versions of software and the willingness to share data from the bottom up without the risk of internal criticism or legal repercussions.