The present invention relates to a system and method for collecting and analyzing intelligence data regarding events, organizations and other entities, relevant to a specific individual or organizational goal or function. To facilitate analysis of intelligence data by a user, flags that describe a condition are defined, where a condition can be a state or event, or a predictor of a future state or future event. Data items of various types are stored in one or more databases, and can be associated with flags. Data items and flags can be subsequently searched together by users. In one aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of generating flags where the flags include early warning signals used to predict the occurrence of a specified scenario. In another aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of generating flags where the flags include value indicators used to identify value in context objects such as an asset in an industry of interest. The flags can then be employed in an intelligence system that is configured to collect intelligence data, and which provides means for users to analyze the data to help them in achieving a specified strategic goal. The present invention can be applied to any industry of interest.