Commercial awareness tends to mean keeping up to date with the latest developments in politics, economics, etc. We exercise our ability to filter newsworthy info, look ahead with a bit of imagination, and anticipate both problems and solutions. (This is another way of describing that idea of "vision" which has been central to modern business culture since it was appropriated from nineteenth-century Romanticism. I was an economic and cultural historian - don't get me started on all that!)
...absorbing the latest info to see what's on the horizon. That kind of commercial awareness is absolutely valid, of course. But I've been thinking about it in an other way, too.
One of the most valuable lessons in "commercial awareness" I ever had was reading "Poor Charlie's Almanack", a book by Charlie Munger, partner at Berkshire Hathaway who died a few years ago. It's not academic, and often not very well-written, but Munger goes back to the lessons and rhetoric of Benjamin Franklin to explain how he grew a multi-billion business with Warren Buffett. He condenses over 80 years of philosophical and psychological learning, aiming to provide readers with a toolkit to help them build (what we are calling, in this context) "commercial awareness". Take his lessons with a pinch of salt, but he arrives at some very astute (and often disarmingly simple) explanations as to why certain businesses thrive, beyond what their markets might lead you to expect. He was an early investor in Coca Cola. Say no more.
Basically, I would defend the idea that commercial awareness can be built by looking backwards as well as forwards. Reading classic texts in business, economics and leadership are just as valid as Watson's Daily, for example.
