For more than 25 years, Inferential Focus has provided early detection of economic, social, political and technological change for decision makers in corporations, investment firms and government agencies who are looking to better inform their decisions and favorably impact profit and/or risk management. Unlike forecasters, industry experts or traditional consultants, Inferential Focus uses an intelligence-gathering discipline that employs the technique of Inference Reading™ to objectively uncover significant change and identify its implications. We work with our clients to apply this intelligence, enabling them to capitalize early on new opportunities and avoid the risks of unforeseen change.

The founding of Inferential Focus in 1980 reflected an emerging marketplace need to integrate the analytic and quantitative research used by companies with the non-linear, intuitive and creative aspects of decision-making. Co-founder Bennett Goodspeed ran a research service for Wall Street clients that did detective work on company financials to see beyond the numbers. His partner, Charlie Hess had developed a service for investors that relied on "Inference Reading" to look for events and anomalies that suggested imminent change for companies and markets. Together, they created a service designed to employ disciplined intelligence gathering and intuitive insights in the detection of change.

Incorporating the research of Nobel Prize winner Roger Sperry about the two hemispheres of the brain with their Inference Reading discipline, Goodspeed and Hess pursued Wall Street with what they referred to as their "whole-brain" service. The approach, melding the creative and intuitive qualities of the right hemisphere with the analytic abilities of the left hemisphere to discover anomalies and detect change, was a success with the Wall Street institutional investment companies. Some of Inferential Focus’s early clients included J.P. Morgan, Fidelity Funds, Chase Investments, and Soros Funds.

In 1983, inspired by the Chinese Taoist philosophies of Lao Tsu, Bennett Goodspeed wrote The Tao Jones Averages. The book, a guide to the connection between the bicameral mind and investing, further established credibility for Inferential Focus’s application of a disciplined intelligence and inference process. As the company entered an era of dynamic growth, they added to their client list Fortune 500 companies and political organizations, including AT&T, PepsiCo, Philip Morris and the White House.

Over the years, the Inferential Focus approach to intelligence has detected major turning points and significant change early and with uncanny accuracy. Today, with a client list of major institutional investors and consumer services companies, we continue to enable our clients to anticipate change and apply our business intelligence as an effective competitive tool.