Briar Patch Research

If you are curious, Casandra, a prophet and priestess of Apollo in Troy, is the Patron Saint of Knowledge Workers, condemned by Seniormost Management always to be right, but never to be believed.


I am Richard J. ("Rick") DeLotto, MBA, former knowledge wrangler, ignorance manager, Cassandrist, competitive intelligence worker and research analyst... currently wandering around unattended exercising my curiosity.  This is almost indistinguishable from being retired.​


You might have met me at Our Lady of Mercy, Saints John & Mary, Byram Hills, Coe, Vanderbilt, Iowa, Gilwell, Sacred Heart, GIA, or SCIP; or worked with me at Hawkeye, Pergament, Caldor, Waldenbooks, Alexander's, JCP, Avallon, MECA or Gartner. You might also have been a customer of mine at various Carefully Unnamed Endeavors, or scouted with us at Washington Irving, Hawkeye, or Quinnipaic. Aside from that, I seem to stand on line a lot and talk to random strangers. I have been active on-line since dial-up bulletin boards.


My current business research focus is the development of Situational Awareness Management as a business philosophy.  Otherwise, I spend far too much time researching genealogy through both vital and genetic records, and learning metalcraft.  I am neither retired nor non-retired and am now mostly using insights from economic geography and geopolitics in personal investing.  I am proud to be Chief Minion-at-Arms for the Mysterious Red-haired Woman.  


"No boundaries, no limits, no surrender, not now, not ever, never."

 

Professional Experience

I have researched, published and made various public presentations on

Emerging Issues:

  • Continuity of business operations through pandemics, civic bankruptcy and societal strife.

  • The rise and inexorable spread of neoFrontiers, "Abandoned Areas," the Distributed Nationstate, and eBanditry.

  • Demographics as destiny, including the the baby-boom to geezer-glut transition.

Competitive Intelligence Issues:

  • Situational Awareness Management.

  • Why hasn't anything changed in CompIntell since 1994?

  • Trend detection, scenario development, horizon scanning, situational awareness management and watchkeeping.

  • Leveraging CI methods into any knowledge-consuming activity. "Grey areas in research ethics" and Keeping Your Boss Out of Trouble.

Compliance Technology

  • Financial Services industry: Technology related impacts of The USA PATRIOT Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act, Americans with Disabilities Augmentation Act.

  • Non-regulatory compliance issues: Green IT, Corporate Social Responsibility, pricing, ethics management and stakeholder relationship management.

  • Bet-your-company issues such as financial crime management, including issues in money laundering, interdiction list management, security, privacy, risk identification. 

I am not going to dredge up past history here, though (or even provide links). You can

  • “Check my work" at www.gartner.com, by googling "DeLotto" and "Gartner" together, or by reading my blog, "Circumspections"  You can still buy copies of my early work directly from Gartner, Inc.
  • Find my public resume, professional contacts on Linkedin.
  • Meet my friends-and-relations on my Facebook page, though you might not get all your fingers back. Please note that you were warned in advance.
  • Follow me on Twitter, where I used to Tweet as "delotto4gartner”, and now do so as "rickdelotto" whenever I remember to.

Finally, I have been known to respond to e-mail. Honest. For some reason, though, I still have an aversion to answering telephones.