In stock markets, indices are used to measure the State of the Market. The indices measure market activity and stock price, by company and by industry.

Macroknow Intelligence, like stock markets, uses indices to measure the State of the World. The indices measure people's concerns by theme or topic (and by intellectual giant and field of study).

The methodological steps used in Macroknow Intelligence are as follows:

1. Research, identify, and distill the essences of the major Ideas in economics, literature/criticism, military theory, philosophy, science, and theology. The essences (the seeds and the genetic structure) of the major philosophies are collected in the form of essential quotes and text fragments. The Macroknow universe of intellectual giants spans the gamut from Aquinas and Aristotle to John von Neumann and Howard Zinn. It includes widely known intellectuals (philosophers, economists, social critics, prophets, sages, psychoanalysts, historians, and scientists) representing a broad range of political, economic, and philosophical viewpoints.
    
2. Develop a global classification structure for the Ideas and their underlying philosophical essences. The identified topics in the classification structure correspond to the variables of the State of the World:
    
   • Autonomy: Freedom and Slavery
   • Ethics: Good and Evil
   • Logic: Truth and Deceit
   • Justice: Law and Justice
   • Economics/Finance: Bankers, Debt, Capitalism, Free Trade, Money
   • Scie&Tech: Arithmetic (Calculative Thinking), Science, and Technology
   • Theology: Religion
      
3. Build web-enabled knowledge bases that capture the philosophical essences by author and by topic. The knowledge bases contain the essences distilled in Step 1, and are organized using the Macroknow global classification structure developed in Step 2.
    
4. Develop sensitive intellection sensors that measure and track the variables of the State of the World over the Internet. Collect, process, and store the intelligence data in the web-enabled databases.
    
5. Monitor major world events (social, political, and economic) and correlate them with the variables of the State of the World. The index for each topic is updated daily and the index for each giant is updated monthly. The temporal distributions of the derived indices are correlated with major world events. Three categories of psychometric indices are derived:
    
   • Global Topics Indices. These measure people's concerns by topic. Together they define the State of the World.
   • Global Giants Indices. These measure people's interests in the giants' Ideas. From the highest ranked giants, you can determine the major Ideas that are moving the world.
   • Global Uncertainty, Economic Vulnerability, and Terrorism Alert Indices. These are experimental and exploratory measures derived from the Global Topics Indices. The Economic Vulnerability Indices can be used as leading indicators of opportunities for catastrophic terrorism -- as such, they are Terrorism Alert Indices.
      
6. Deliver the indexes for the State of the World directly to the desktop of the information or intelligence consumer. Macroknow delivers intelligence about the State of the World in several forms:
    
   • Electronic publications. These offer vital intellectual intelligence indexes and news that supplement market indexes and news:
     • People's awareness and attention levels
     • People's feelings, emotions, and irrational exuberance or gloom
     • People's thought streams
     • The objects of people's thoughts -- correlated with business, financial, economic and world news, and
     • Security threat assessments.
   • Visualization charts. These give you an integrated picture of the State of the World and its landscape.
   • Databases. These give you the historical indices, their components, and associated correlations, in combination with information and news about world events..
   • Analytical dashboards. These can be used to generate a rich variety of analytical, statistical, and intelligence data for publication.