The perks of being a competitive intelligence analyst are few and far between. ?Journalists receive a constant stream of free food and drinks from manufacturers who hope to receive praise and adulation in return. ?I know a lot of journalists who get free presents from manufacturers in the form of mugs, pens, shirts, and even free products to “test”. ?Market and Industry Analysts have it good too. ?Manufactures want Market Analysts to say great things about the company and will hold “Analyst?Briefings” that are really an excuse to wine and dine these folks at great spa resorts at exotic locations around the country. ?In order to get “in” for these kinds of presents and gifts and trips, you have to be “in” with public and analyst relations departments at manufacturers – and therein lies the problem. ?My job at gap intelligence is to discover competitive insights on manufacturers before they make it to the wire – I am suppose to blab about new products and strategies before they happen. ?In other words, I am public relations’ worst nightmare and treated pretty much as a?pariah.

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On the very, very rare occasion, a company will take us out for a great event, which is what happened a few weeks ago as an unnamed camera manufacturer took me and Gary to an NFL Football game. ?In order to keep my neutrality, I won’t tell you the name of the company, but it is the official camera sponsor of the NFL, located in Japan, starts with the letter “C”, and rhymes with “manon”. ? Easily the sweetest part of the day was to get loaded down with very expensive professional camera equipment, walk down to the field, and snap pictures of players warming up before the game.

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The experience brought to light two things: 1) NFL Players are absolutely gigantic human beings and I wouldn’t want to take one out for burgers and fries and 2) any shortcomings in experience and photographic talent can be largely overcome with good equipment. ?My professional DSLR was loaded with a 1GB memory card that allowed me to snap over 260 full resolution pictures – though I snapped roughly 300 shots and deleted about 100 of them on the fly. ?Easy statistics suggest that even ME, a novice photographer who simply pointed the camera and snapped photos, can capture one great shot out of a 100 – roughly 1%. ?So if I snapped 300 shots, then I should have maybe 3 solid photographs that I can possibly put into a frame or create a holiday card around.

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Here are my three for this blog.

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Thanks to the mysterious company who invited me and Gary to the Charger’s game. ?If any public relations departments want to spoil me, please send all invitations to

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P.S. – We heard that the NFL has tighter controls on pictures of its players than the Pentagon, so we might be in violation of some kind of copyright.