This year’s Annual NZIIP Conference delivered on its aspiration to Demystify Intelligence. Beginning with Director General GCSB, Andrew Clark, the day’s speakers provided unique perspectives on how the intelligence profession can come out of the shadows and make itself more widely known, and appreciated, to a public audience.
With a sense of humour and some creative use of AI tools, Andrew used the extraction, movement, refinement, and use of oil as a metaphor for intelligence. In so doing, he demonstrated how easy it can be to demystify the people, process, and products of intelligence and to communicate concepts in a way everyone can understand.
Andrew also provided relevant insight into the importance of walking in your customers shoes, and that’s not just the decision-maker you work for. Ultimately the customer is those that the intelligence professional and the decision-maker alike serve – the public.
Across the course of the day, this theme of intelligence being of use to those we serve was recurrent. Our panel of academics recalled the challenges they faced of gaining access to information, as well as how much they valued proactive releases of information. Often the media turns to academia for insights into the intelligence community, and so the importance of having genuine, two-way, push-pull, conversations with discussed, as a means of building the trust and understanding required to better support the analyst and the public. It also became evident how much academia and intelligence can share in common, including the resilience required to tenaciously search for information, process it with diligence, and disseminate it in the hope that it will have an impact in the real world.
We were also fortunate to have the NZSIS Head of Outreach and Engagement discuss how the work the agency had undertaken in recent years to become more transparent about their processes to help the public understand what they do and how it supports their communities. She used the phrase that “communities are experts in their own lives”, and this simple statement of respect summed up many of our speakers thoughts for the day; we work better when we can work respectfully and purposefully with the communities we serve. Impressively, the NZSIS is now conducting as many as 50 public engagements of some form or another each month.
The importance of public engagement was the theme for our second panel of the day, which consisted of intelligence practitioners and representatives in public-facing roles. Although they represented a diverse range of organisations from the public and private sector, they all echoed the the benefits face-to-face engagement, two way conversations, and the importance of listening to the communities they worked with. One particular example that stood out was from Michael Jagusch from the National Cyber Security Centre discussed the success of a recent campaign they held, using the words and experiences of everyday Kiwis to communicate cyber security messages.
The topic of respect for the community, those we serve, the privileged position we hold as intelligence practitioners—sometimes with very special accesses to information—was echoed in the Fellows speech conducted by John O’Reilly. John spoke of the importance of considering not only whether we may do something legally, but also whether there are moral or ethical reasons to be considered in practice. Drawing on experiences from his own career, John highlighted the importance of humility, humanity, respect for others, and respect for the law.
The day finished with a Chief Executive of DPMC, Ben King. Ben outlined with clarity the government’s desire to achieve results and an appetite to make decisions based on sound intelligence. In so doing, Ben echoed the words of the day’s opening speaker, Andrew Clark, and his metaphor of refined oil fuelling the decision-making engine. Ben also had some very clear advice to intelligence practitioners looking to have an impact, “Don’t wait to sandpaper the edges of your intelligence. Communicate it in a timely manner, with brevity. Senior leaders are busy people. Get to the point and get it to them quickly.”
The 2024 NZIIP Conference highlighted the critical need for intelligence to be both understood and trusted by the public. The discussions underscored a shift towards openness and accountability, where the ultimate goal is to serve the community with clarity, integrity, and respect. It’s a challenge the profession must rise to meet.
The final word is one of thanks, to those who made the event possible. A huge amount of work is required to make these things a success and the effort put in by our Committee cannot be understated. Although everyone played a part, two people deserve extra recognition. Donna McQuaid manages all the behind the scenes administration such as the marketing and the ticket sales. Her involvement has been fundamental to improving our business processes and making us a more responsive organisation. She was also responsible for the virtual elements which were well-received by both those in-house and those attending online. The final thanks goes to Major Jack Seabrook, NZ Army, who was not only our Master of Ceremonies but also our Master of Planning. He played a role in every single aspect of the day, including with coming up with the initial concept in the first place. Without him, the day would have looked very different. Thank you everyone.