I’m currently in D.C. working at the International Conference on Intelligence Analysis.  Because of my work with Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals I’m used to working with some very smart people, but this crowd is, well, special.

Last night they had a poster session, which is basically a bunch of people standing at a table with a little three panel posterboard on it (imagine an elementary school science fair and you begin to get the picture) and then explaining their hypotheses to the attendees.  Oh, and it doubled as a networking reception.  Like I said, this is a special crowd.

Walking around this thing, listening to the assorted PhD.s talk about their newest algorithm that will allow intelligence analysts to more easily identify the meaning in some terrorist cell’s gazilion email messages caused me to really regret not paying more attention during my high school trig class.  I doubt it would have helped though; these people were way out of my league.  Which, when you think about it, is probably damning them with faint praise!

More on this event later.