Intelligence can be difficult to obtain, even secret, or it can be banal and widely available, in newspaper articles or internet posts. Effective intelligence involves all-source collection, storage and indexing of data, in the expectation that some small portion will later prove important.

Principle among sources are people. It's where we learn the most. In our experience, people are generous, thoughtful and often brilliant. We have learned to listen carefully. 

The other primary source of intelligence is experience. There is no learning experience more powerful than doing. Every installation, every display, every project we have undertaken has taught us. 

Observation can never be overestimated as a tool toward knowledge. Everything we see, everything we have ever seen, is stored. 

And finally, there is the story an object tells. Every product is the result of an intervention, a plan, a precise and complex interaction between maker and material, possibility and reality. The Lobmeyr stemmed goblet in this photo is so thin and fragile, it forces the user to change his behavior. Can anything be more powerful?