In
Memoriam
Prof.
dr. Stevan Dedijer
(June
25, 1911. Sarajevo – June 13, 2004. Dubrovnik)
Professor Stevan Dedijer died in Dubrovnik on 13th
June 2004. A physicist, journalist, diplomat, «the
father of business intelligence», he was part of the
editorial bord of National Security and the Future
from its very beginnings. In the present issue we
are publishing his article “Development and Intelligence”,
about which he himself wrote: “My last intelligence
paper.” We are grateful to professor Dedijer for his
enthusiasm, his contribution to the editing policy
of our journal and for the development of intelligence
culture, while being aware of the loss of a great
man and advocate of new ideas in intelligence. A review
of his ideas developed over several decades is brought
here as published in the foreword to the book Stevan
Dedijer “The World Jumper”, written by M. Tuđman.
Panta rhei tachista –
Everything
changes very quickly
The old way of thinking within individual disciplines
becomes invalid. It is still strongly adhered to by
some people at universities,which is crazy. I believe
that Intelligence science will be the foundation of
everything. It is what I want to develop in Croatia.
S.
Dedijer, 1995
Stevan Dedijer is a visionary of a new intelligent society,
whose main features are “organized intelligence”, “social
intelligence”, “planetary intelligence”, “global intelligence
system”, “global mind”. These are just different names
representing the same basic idea advocated by Dedijer
since 1960s. He believes that global trends – computers
and communication technologies being just one of them
– lead the human race into a new intelligence revolution.
This revolution becomes manifest in an increased demand
for intelligent individuals, intelligent products, intelligent
materials, intelligent machines and intelligent corporations.
It becomes manifest in radical changes forced upon traditional
intelligence and security systems (I&S) within government
organizations, corporations and other social systems.
It also becomes manifest in increasing needs to unite
scientific knowledge about all forms of intelligence:
biological, human, machine and managemental.
Stevan
Dedijer is fascinated with life and the fact that the
world changes very quickly (panta rhei tachista). This
idea is the foundation of his personal vitality, as well
as of his vision of, and strategy for a new intelligent
world. He firmly believes that growth and the future of
a society always depend on creativity and intelligence.
Furthermore, if intelligence is defined as an individual’s
capacity to cope with and learn from new situations, it
is the society that needs to develop its social intelligence
– to develop its own capacity to learn about itself and
from its environment. In other words, the society needs
to develop the capacity to identify and solve its problems.
S. Dedijer is convinced that social intelligence has to
be transparent, because “what is good for the world must
also be good for my people”. The development of global
intelligent and intelligence systems must therefore be
based on “global ethics”.
It
was as early as 1970s that S. Dedijer advocated the policy
of complete openness and access to all information. Such
a policy makes the society open and transparent, and promotes
“the development of information democracy”. Contemporary
“information highways” such as telecommunications and
the Internet have made information available to everyone
who knows what they are looking for. This fact has brought
about a series of changes. For “not every piece of information
is good and not every piece of information serves its
goals. Information is a resource.” Information is not
knowledge. And knowledge which is not goal-directed, and
which does not serve vital national, corporational or
personal interests, is not sufficient.
It
is not sufficient to have access to information. It is
not even sufficient to know. Nowadays 90 percent of all
data and knowledge is public and available to everyone.
To be able to identify, single out and formulate intelligence
from a multitude of data, one must be creative and have
a clear idea. Intelligence combines and assesses available
data and wanted goals, existing problems and wanted solutions,
motives and wanted purposes. Intelligence is an assessment
of the ways to attain wanted goals at least cost and/or
losses.
I
& S systems deal with the protection of national interests.
Their main task is to gather data and make intelligence
assessments. However, the need of national intelligence
services to be secretive also keeps diminishing. The ability
to gather information and form intelligence data “nowadays
depends more on the brains of individuals, rather than
on espionage techniques.” It is necessary to demystify
the role of intelligence services, since the share of
national intelligence services (both military and civil)
in the leading countries’ total intelligence efforts is
largely decreasing. The developed countries now invest
up to 65 percent of their intelligence efforts in economy
and technology, with only 35 percent being invested in
national intelligence systems.
Professor
Dedijer is one of the first advocates of I&S systems
in economy. He believes that no corporation or business
is able to survive without intelligence data or intelligence
operations. Management without intelligence is stupid
management, claims S. Dedijer. Intelligence operations
are “a special section to be developed in a company, it
is a special way of using reason to beat competition.”
Business
intelligence does not imply industrial espionage. As a
rule, espionage equals theft, rather than search for intelligent
solutions. Intelligence operations are used to solve a
variety of problems in a company: strategy making, planning
and choosing technologies and marketing, evaluating partners
and competitors, risk management in foreign investments,
etc.
These
and other ideas by S. Dedijer are present in this book.
They are not systematically presented nor are they explained
in a school-like manner. They are often delivered straightforwardly,
in order to attain their goal, to achieve success, to
debate with their opponents. All these ideas draw their
strength and vitality from the vision and want that the
world undergoing global changes can and must use reason
and intelligence in the name of a new better future.
This
is what I find important in Professor Dedijer’s ideas.
A firm belief that motivators and bearers of all future
changes can and must be looked for in intelligence, creativity
and ideas. It is not crucial whether we have correct predictions
and realistic expectations. Rather, all visions and visionaries
share the following: it is not important to what extent
their ideas are precise and their prophecies correct,
but to what extent they have helped us get rid of old
ideas and excess, useless knowledge.
In
the century of “information revolution” and “global village”,
we are overwhelmed by data, information and excess knowledge.
These are being loaded into our studies and our living
rooms as resources which will suffocate us unless we process
them. Unless we transform them into intelligence – an
intelligent solution combined with our goals and wants
by the world of data and information.
This
will not make the world easier. “Creativity is hard work,”
Dedijer says. But the world is changing. Old problems
will be replaced by new ones, old knowledge by new knowledge.
We will certainly not be able to use old behaviour in
new circumstances. Professor S. Dedijer’s work warns us
about the upcoming changes and required preparations.
This is a challenge we cannot avoid taking up because
the changes are global; it must be faced in order to preserve
identity and the future.
M.
Tuđman