#10 Lessons From My Story

I will post a "lesson" from my life as an analyst once a week until I run out of them! Skip over these if they don't interest you. For those who read on, consider the power of your own stories and where they might take you. And if you want to follow these post threads, in the future click on the label "my story."

Lesson: Learn from the whole world. (Don't be an isolationist. )

My grandfather was born in Canada and we had a cottage there during my early childhood. Canada is  just across the Niagara River when you live in Buffalo - it is not considered by most Buffalonians to be a foreign country.

When I was working at the Buffalo Police Department as a crime analyst, it was no big deal for me to attend analyst meetings, even as far away as Toronto. It was important for my professional development, because the field of crime analysis was more accepted there than in New York State at that time. I was supported by and learned from Canadian analysts.

I had attended a colloquium organized by Robert Heibel from Mercyhurst College that included attendees from other nations interested in developing the intelligence analyst profession. There I met Mark Evans from the Police Services of Northern Ireland (PSNI). He was professionalizing the role of the analyst in policing in Northern Ireland (and later went on to receive an OBE from the Queen of England because of this work). I helped him arrange secondments with police agencies in the United States and Canada as an international exchange of ideas and insights.

In my work as a federal law enforcement analyst this would never of happened. There are so many restrictions on analysts at this level of service. While the two law enforcement analyst associations both have "international"in their names, I venture to guess that many analysts do not think about learning from the best practices of other countries.

I am so happy that I came from another professional background before I became a crime analyst and did not have the belief that any one country has all the answers.