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Tag Archives: strategy diagram
Pirate Strategy – Hey, it’s a business
DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS After a couple of voyages as a youth, a certain young man took to the sea to seek his fortune in 1674. He shipped out of London, bound for the Caribbean and Jamaica. He ended up making 3 voyages around the world, and in the process became a superstar. His written observations and drawings of Galapagos Islands flora & fauna were reference works that Darwin took with him on the voyage of the Beagle some 150 years later (his materials were used by both Darwin and von Humboldt in the formulation of their theories). … Continue reading
Strategy Types: Critical Operations
LET’S take a quick look at some compelling strategy situations … 1. SURVIVAL By a near miracle, or perhaps an actual miracle, you’ve just survived a night time airplane crash somewhere in the Amazon. The Amazon is a big place and you don’t know where you are. It’s also a formidable place, night or day. You probably wouldn’t last more than several days in this environment before perishing, so you have to quickly make your way to safety. You sense that your chances of finding a village are poor and that perhaps you should try to arrange, instead, for someone else to … Continue reading
Posted in cool strategies, critical operations strategies, general strategy model, strategy elements, strategy recognition, strategy types Tagged Critical Operations, elements, escape, General Strategy Model, mismatch, spec ops, special operations, startup business, startup company, strategy diagram, strategy type, survival, type 1 Comment
Strategy in the News: Lasso and Lascaux
LASSO Well-regarded author Patricia O’Brien had produced 5 novels. But her last one hadn’t sold well, and her Simon & Shuster editor declined to publish her new one, “The Dressmaker”. A dozen more publishers also rejected the efforts of her well-known literary agent, Esther Newberg, to secure a contract for the book. What was going on? Turns out O’Brien’s book was being rejected because her numbers had been lowered in Nielsen BookScan, a book sales tracking service, as a result of the performance of her most recent book. And the publishing house editors were making their publishing decisions based on … Continue reading
Strategy in the News: Fake Review Scams
RISKY RELIANCE Here we are online, looking for a pair of sneakers. We’re at the site of a major online retailer. [sorry – ignore this interruption: BYB6NREXZYJG] So many sneakers to choose from. A dazzling array of makes, models and colors. How to choose? After going down the search tree, we find several candidates that look pretty good. Time to check out their customer reviews. Wow – so many 5-star customer ratings! Funny. As we read along, some reviews emerge as rather odd. Maybe it’s the way the reviewer slipped into “marketing speak” – which we wouldn’t expect a real consumer … Continue reading
Escaping E. Berlin; A Simple Way to Devise Complex Strategies (1)
COLD WAR CHILLS The Wall came down in 1989. Over 20 years ago. It’s easy to forget what it was like for the people living on both sides of it at the time. NATO had a very important role during the time of The Wall, and Germany and America were especially close partners. Did you know that Germany had Air Force facilities in the U.S. (and still does)? During the later part of the Cold War, I had business with the German Air Force, and flew out of a tightly guarded German facility at Dulles Int’l. Airport. High cyclone fences … Continue reading
Posted in cool strategies, general strategy model, strategy design Tagged Achim Weyer, armor, Berlin Wall, car, Cold War, Cologne, complex strategy, crow, East Berlin, elements, General Strategy Model, Germany, how to, Luftwaffe, objectives diagram, opportunity, problem, security, solution, strategy definition, strategy diagram, sub machine guns, sub-objective, sub-strategy, thinking skills 5 Comments