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I love to bash hypercompetitive organizations, same way the political left loves to go after Bill O'Reilly and the right enjoys lefty-baiting. It's the activist in me. So how do you know when your healthy competitive instincts are morphing into something less productive? If you find yourself diving into a competitor's dumpster someday, OK, perhaps you've crossed the line. But there are healthier tactics for keeping tabs on your competition and you should use them with a vengeance.

Info that's already public is your friend. What's amazing is how much there is and how much it can reveal. The caveat is that it works both ways: your competition can legally keep tabs on you, simply by accessing the public record. Draw your own conclusions as to what the implications might be for you, and exactly how much about yourself you want to make public beyond your legal obligations.

To avoid competitive surprises, you must appraise your competitor in three dimensions: their financial condition, their people, and their strategy. Then you have to connect the dots. Then ask if there is a patttern emerging here.

Financially speaking: If they're a public company, read their financial reports cover to cover, including research reports by the analysts who follow them. Where is their revenue coming from? What are the trends? What's their cost structure? Margins? Are they involved in any kind of litigation? What's their R&D investment? If they're private, do a credit check on them. Are they borrowing money? What for? Tradeshows, conferences, and professional courses that involve competitor executives represent great sources of intelligence that you overlook or discount at your peril. And never let an investment conference that includes an competitor CEO or CFO pass without sending a representative to listen in.

People: Press releases, as self-serving and innocuous as they are, can inadvertently signal changes in strategy, pending mergers or partnerships that even hotshot analysts have been known to miss. When a competitor executive joins a board of directors of a non-related company, what is it actually revealing? Or, when someone's taking an investment position, what do you read between the lines? All official statements can signify less than meets the eye -- or, much, much more. Especially changes in personnel.

Strategically speaking: Visa International uses plain, old S.E.C. reports to craft its responses (read: ad spending) to the promotional tactics of its rivals. Can you afford to do anything less? Follow the money your competitors spend: are they pumping up R&D? Sales? Manufacturing? Marketing? Do a patent search. What are they up to? No need for dumpster diving here. It's all public.