Information is all around us, constantly bombarding us in every direction.

News media, social media, friends and family – each one competing for your time, energy and attention.

Intelligence professionals know that without verification, information is useless.

Think about the last time a parent or trusted friend sent you an article, or a headline even, then followed with comments because they made a decision based solely on a headline.

Agencies and private firms around the globe use this process to get the answers their clients needs.

The process can be broken up into four steps.

Collection – gathering information from appropriate sources and methods.

Processing – sorting, reviewing and analyzing all collected information.

Exploitation – using the analyzed information to inform your next move.

Feedback – take what was helpful, throw out what was not; repeat.

In short, intelligence is about action.

The intelligence cycle is a closed loop that has you collecting information, synthesizing that information into intelligence, acting on that intelligence, then observing the results and finally adjusting as necessary; wash – rinse – observe – repeat.

Click here to learn more about what a private intelligence firm does.