Governance is concerned to help human society adapt to change. It must enable organizations to anticipate change in the external environment and thereby to benefit from opportunities or to avoid the harmful effects of threats. The tools required are foresight and insight, formulated through intelligence. Intelligence is widely misunderstood. Too much is made of secrecy, and of functions like covert operations and counter-intelligence, which are action domains informed by intelligence rather than integral to it. In many instances, intelligence is conflated with security and aimed at threats, so that opportunities for advantage or progress are missed. This paper argues for better understanding of the decision support nature of intelligence in modern governance. It proposes a standard definition which will permit clearer communication among intelligence practitioners, more effective audit and evaluation of intelligence functions in business and in government, and better understanding of intelligence by the academy, media and public. Proposed: intelligence is a corporate capability to forecast change in time to do something about it. Change may be positive, representing opportunity, or negative, representing threat. Definitions which converge with this proposal are found in several intelligence settings. The main exception is criminal or enforcement intelligence, where evidence and intelligence are widely confused, administrative jurisdictions fight to preserve independence and few recognize the value of consistent intelligence theory.
