It's the most compelling, powerful and suspenseful show on television. Anyway, that's the way I see (and watch) it. The show I am speaking of is 24 -- the path-breaking series starring Kiefer Sutherland as intelligence agent Jack Bauer. One reason the show is so gripping is that it all takes place in real-time, hour-by-hour.

While "reality television" is all the rage on today's airwaves, I am pleased to see 24 continue to thrive. Unlike Survivor and The Apprentice, this show is real, reality television. That's especially true if you look ten years into the future based on today's trajectories.

This season -- the show's third -- finds Bauer attempting to thwart the evil actions of a former British intelligence officer who is threatening to release a weaponized virus on the major cities of the US. The show dramatically goes where television almost never does. It depicts mass murder in stunning detail (and bloody, agonizing gore) as the virus is released into the ventilation system of a Los Angeles hotel.

What's so hard to believe about this scenario? I think it's eminently believable, particularly as murderous technologies become more accessible.

So why am I going on about this here? Because this show is the most vivid portayal of the interplay between an intelligence organization ("CTU") and its field officers in the intelligence-driven war on terror. While it's hard to imagine a real-life scenario playing out quite as, well, dramatically, the horrors that are dramatized in the show seem plausible enough.

And here's where it gets interesting. Expect to see an increasing amount of overlap between the intelligence-based innovations that drive customer value and those that are developed to fight the war on terror. Big-name, customer data and technology companies such as Acxiom and SAS already are being actively drawn into the loop of intelligence-related, domestic terror agencies. Why? Because there is a great deal of consistency between the strategies, skill-sets and technologies necessary to profile a customer -- and those necessary to profile a suspected terrorist.

You might be creeped out by that fact (I am), but that's where things are headed. Jack Bauer's team simply demonstrates how all these innovative capabilities might be applied. And as fans of 24 (and folks who regularly read a newspaper) know quite well, the survival of many now depends on accurate and actionable intelligence.