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STRATFOR

INTERN REFERENCE MATERIAL

January 2010

Contents

i. Welcome

ii. Company Breakdown

iii. Website & STRATFOR Products

iv. Intern Daily Responsibilities

v. Intern World Watch Introduction

vi. Monitoring Sources – First by AORs

vii. Guide Zimbra & Spark

viii. Intern Resources

WELCOME TO STRATFOR

This binder is a compilation of various training materials you'll receive as an intern. Your task will be divided between Open source monitoring/collection and research.

Front Section AOR breakdown

Contact List

Stratfor Websites/ Product List of websites

Situation Reports (composed by the writers)

Stratfor Email Email Lists

Email Headers

Research Tools Research Document – 200+ sources on Clearspace

Sites with Passwords

New links by AOR

Logistics Suspicious Package Procedure

Office Expense Reports

STRATFOR Who we are:

• Analysts (Geopolitical and Tactical)

• Osint Team (Watchofficers and Monitors)

• Researchers

• Writers

• Graphics

COMPANY BREAKDOWN BY AOR

Director of Global Analysis – Peter Zeihan (Austin)

Director of Tactical Analysts - Scott (Stick) Stewart (offsite)

EAST ASIA

Rodger Baker (Austin)

Matt Gertken (Austin)

Jennifer Richmond (China/Austin) – Country Director

Zhixing Zhang (Austin)

MESA

Kamran Bokhari (offsite)

Reva Bhalla (DC)

EURASIA

Lauren Goodrich (Austin)

Marko Papic (Austin)

Eugene Chausovsky (Austin)

LATAM

Karen Hooper (DC)

AFRICA

Mark Schroeder (Austin)

Bayless Parsley (Austin)

MILITARY

Nate Hughes (DC)

SECURITY

Fred Burton (Austin)

Ben West (Austin)

RESEARCHERS

Kevin Stech (Austin)

Antonia Colibasanu (Offsite)

WATCH OFFICERS

Mike Wilson (Austin)

Chris Farnham (China)

Antonia Colibasanu (Offsite)

STRATFOR WEBSITES



Our main company site. You'll be looking at this every day.

Clearspace.

STRATFOR’s online work space

Core. (Zimbra)

An online version of your Inbox

Mailman Archive Lists - -Searchable Archive of past emails (good resource for research)

Use your username (or email)/password provided by IT for all the above sites.

STRATFOR Publication Products:

• Situation Reports (Sitreps) – 175 words or less intended to convey relevant, factual information of breaking, geopolitically significant events

• Analyses – STRATFOR doesn’t simply report on what is happening; STRATFOR analyses tell you why it matters

• Geopolitical Diary – The most geopolitically significant event of the day

• Weekly-Like the Diary, but by the Week (Geopolitical and Security)

• Forecasts – Quarterly, Annual, Decade forecasts

• Monographs-A discussion of the core Geopolitical imperatives for the country throughout history.

Intern Daily Responsibilities:

These include, but are not limited to:

• Research support

• World Watch

• AOR specific news sweeps

• Database Maintenance

Communication and Oversight:

It is imperative to efficient operations that interns maintain stringent levels of communication at all times with research, monitoring and intern coordinators.

Communication:

E-mail – Zimbra (core.), Mozilla Thunderbird,

Instant Messenger - Spark

Intern World Watch Introduction:

Global awareness is a core component that enables Stratfor to provide its clients and readers with our unique intelligence products.

To maintain constant awareness of the global situation and ensure that everyone from our analysts to our clients are continually up-to-date on the events all over the world, Stratfor has devised an integrated system of monitoring and disseminating information from online news media sources.

As we have people working for Stratfor all across the globe, like many other things at this company, our monitoring system functions around e-mail and the Internet.

How we monitor news:

-         News sweeps of open source media are performed by interns and monitors.

-         News articles from these sweeps are posted by interns/monitors to the OS (Open Source) List.

-         Our Watch Officers keep constant vigil over the OS, sending all geopolitically significant items to the Alerts list.

-         Items sent to the Alerts lists are tagged by the Watch Officer.

♣         G = Geopolitical

♣         S = Security

♣         B = Business

♣         Priority Level 1 - 4

-        All items sent to the Alerts list are received by the writers and posted to Stratfor’s website as sitreps unless otherwise noted.

 

 

World Watch & The OS list – Our Open Source News Catch All:

            One of the most important functions of World Watch is to “cast a big net” on all of the major international, regional and national news media sources. (These major news sources are contained in the Monitoring Guide Excel Spreadsheet.) When on World Watch, your job is to go through these websites and retrieve news items. WW shifts are 3 hours long.

 

What to do with news items while on WW:

            When you come across a relevant news article, you post the article to the OS list – the Open Source List.

 

How to Post to the OS List:

1. Highlight and copy the article.

2. Paste the entire article into the body of an email – In Thunderbird, when you right click there is the option to “Paste without Formatting”; always choose “Paste without Formatting”.

3. Copy paste the link to the article above the text of the article.

4. Make sure the date is included.

5. The Format should be Title (bolded) followed by date; then a space; then the URL link; then a space, then the article

6. Include appropriate tags and the headline of the article in the subject line of your email.

For example – if the article is something about the most recent development in the diplomatic spat between Brazil and Paraguay over electricity from the Itaipu dam, the subject line would look something like this:

BRAZIL/PARAGUAY/ENERGY – Stupid South Americans still fighting about a damn dam

6. Send to os@

 

Important Tips:

• It is better to over-post articles even if you are unsure of its importance while on WW than to under-post articles and miss something really important.

• Don’t double-post articles that have already been posted.

-         The easiest way to make sure of this is to do this is to search the Alerts and OS lists before posting each item.

-         To do this, click on your Alerts folder. Type in the country referenced in the news article, then use the search function to cull all the articles with that country’s tag that have been posted to Alerts.

-        Check all articles that have been posted in the last 24 hours.

- You can also search the OS list the same way to see if it has been sent in

- Don’t post articles that are more than 24 hours old.

• Do not send items directly to the Watch Officer.

• Never send items directly to alerts.

• If you think you see an extremely significant breaking news item while on WW that needs to be repped urgently, notify the analyst of the respective AOR and he/she will alert the Watch Officer or ping (send an instant message to) the Watch Officer.

•

How do you know what’s important:

-         Pay attention – to what is being discussed on the analysts list and what we are writing pieces about.

-         Read the Intelligence Guidance we publish once a week. This is the reason we do it.

-         If you are unsure and need guidance, ask an analyst, the Watch Officer or Kristen Cooper.

-         If you are screwing up on WW, the Watch Officer will let you know. So, if you don’t hear anything, keep doing what you’re doing.

 

 

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