The essence of information based human creativity (and how Robert Scoble´s Techmeme game is related to John Boyd´s military strategy)
Our understanding of the core aspect of information based human creativity that can be for example sometimes (and not often enough) found in
- blogging,
- mails,
- reports/presentations and
- innovative software products and services
is expressed in this slightly modified quote of Colonel John Boyd:
Live the instinctive see-saw of analysis and synthesis across a variety of domains, or across competing/independent channels of information,
in order to spontaneously generate and share new mental images or impressions that match-up with an unfolding world of uncertainty and change.Source: “The Strategic Game of ? and ?”, Slide 58, (words in bold indicate our modifications )
Boyd defined Strategy in this way:
“The Strategic Game is one of Interaction and Isolation. A game in which we must be able to diminish adversary’s ability to communicate or interact with his environment while sustaining or improving ours.”
In this sense a specific type of Blogging can be easily understood as an instance of the war for attention. Herbert Simon identified already in 1971 attention as the scarce resource of the information age:
“…in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it”
Source: Simon, H. A. (1971), “Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World” from here
One of the blogger’s who participated intensively and with success in this war for attention is Robert Scoble. He called this activity himself recently the “Techmeme Game”:
“See, if you want to earn links and attention in this world you’ve got to be first, or at least among the first articles to go out. I’ve seen this time and time again. I call it the Techmeme game.”
Source:http://scobleizer.com/2008/07/30/cuil-why-im-trying-to-get-off-of-the-pr-bandwagon/
In the picture Boyd`s well known OODA Loop is applied to Scoble´s Techmeme game:
Competitive advantage comes from quickness over the entire “loop,” not only the single direction O–>O–>D–>A sequence. Those who publish quicker and know how to get the attention of the Internet (via sites like Techmeme and other methods) can interrupt the OODA loop of their Blogging competitors and win the bigger share of attention.
It is your choice if you would like to be like the old Scoble or to focus less on competition and your ego and more on generating, contributing and sharing new mental images or impressions that match-up with an unfolding world of uncertainty and change. But whatever your choice is we would recommend strongly to study John Boyd’s work. It will enable you to make a more informed decision:
- Great collection of Colonel John Boyd’s work:
http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/strategy-and-force-employment/boyd-and-military-strategy/ - Access Frans P.B. Osingas thesis about the strategic theory of John Boyd as pdf: http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/5555.html
- Video (also) touching on Boyd´s ideas:
http://spookyaction.blogspot.com/2008/06/whats-going-on-in-there.html
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August 31st, 2008 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Interesting Links, Issues explained. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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