In writing and maintaining the Cottrill Research Blog, I have run across several great quotes from authors, journalists, and service and product providers. Here are ones that manage to brilliantly convey complex meaning in just a few words and some that wax poetic about business and procurement research offerings, which takes a certain type of talent.
“Data and information are not knowledge; they are like any raw materials, requiring some intervention and processing to make them useful.” – Ronald J Bennett. (Mintec Is a One-Stop Shop for Commodities)
“An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good.” – Budapest Open Access Initiative. (The Open Access/Knowledge Movement: Inspiration for Strategically Advancing Procurement)
“Business Signals are a richer vocabulary for the language of business.” – Avention, formerly OneSource, now D&B (Avention for Supplier Discovery and Diligence Research)
“The wisdom of any decision is proportional to the range and depth of context that informs it.” – Max Boisot. (Why Competitive Intelligence Is Needed Now More Than Ever)
“Standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world.” – Lauren Bacall. (Key Procurement and Supply Markets Research Resources: Innovative Providers Help Drive Digital Transformation with New Offerings, Launches, and Upgrades)
“We are living in a really interesting time right now, (but) our imagination is the one skill that is not developed.” – Futurist Brain David Johnson. (The Rise of Innovation Intelligence in Competitor and Supplier Research).
“…innovation starts before we come up with an idea. It starts with connections, creativity and spontaneity. All of which is turbo-charged if we are curious in our work…This curiosity is the fuzzy front-end of innovation.” – Andrew Pope, CSMWire. (Connecting the Dots Between Innovation Measurement, Competitive Intelligence, and Supplier and Location Discovery)
“Cherries: The Immortal One” – Title of one of ProduceIQ articles (Flavia Garcia), where writing about commodities is taken to a new, wonderful level. “In folklore, cherries have been associated with immortality, the ephemerality of life (contradiction dually noted), resilience, and harmony.” (ProduceIQ: A Fresh Approach to Produce Industry Supply Market Data)
“Many companies struggle with small data, let alone big data.” – Tom Fishburne, Marketoonist. (RAGE Frameworks Real Time Intelligence for Supplier Risk)
Image by Gregor Mima from Pixabay
April 16, 2025
