Category Archives: strategy elements

Strategy in the News: Drones, a New Resource

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Bill Carson

DRONING THE FARM Robert Blair’s neighbors have grown accustomed to seeing him launch a small aircraft over his fields in Idaho. It’s a nice-looking little plane about 4 ft. long, with a wingspan of around 8 feet, that systematically flies back and forth over sections of his land. What’s Blair doing with this thing? He runs a good-sized operation – 1,500 acres. It’s hard to know where and how much to be tending the crops on a spread this size. And the cost of tending them has risen dramatically as the costs of fertilizer, fuel and water have increased. So targeting … Continue reading →

Posted in strategy anatomy, strategy design, strategy elements, strategy in the news | Tagged advantage, barrier, creative thinking, critical thinking, drone, elements, exploit, objective, resource, strategy diagram, vulnerability | 2 Comments

The Great Wall; Defensive Strategy

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Bill Carson

The Great Wall – Standing on the Great Wall with friend & colleague Guy after finishing up business in Beijing … You can get a sense for the unending and imposing character of the wall from the picture. The photo was taken just moments before the Great International Cigar Incident occurred. Our private tour guide, Grace, had let us loose at the entrance to the wall stairs at the Mutianyu garrison. She knew what we were in for. We‘d targeted a specific guard tower high up on a hill as our goal. It was a really tough climb up the … Continue reading →

Posted in defensive strategies, strategy elements, strategy types | Tagged attack, balance, barrier, Belgium, Celtic, cheetah, cigar, counter attack, defense, defensive strategy, defensive substrategy, Eben Emael, elements, fencing, fort, France, freedom of action, Germany, hill fort, initiative, Maginot Line, offence, pronghorn, sub-strategy, The Great Wall, walls | 6 Comments

Resources in Strategy; Lye Brook Wilderness

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Bill Carson

BOURN POND Its nice sitting in this tree. The sun has broken through intermittent clouds, switching on the brilliant leaves of my red maple. This is no ordinary tree. It’s a cage. The main trunk is normal for the first two or three feet. Then it splits into 5 sub-trunks that start horizontally for a couple of feet, then go straight up, creating a cage. Once inside it, your visual field is saturated red leaves. Gorgeous. The tree is on the shore of Bourn Pond in the Lye Brook Wilderness in southern Vermont; it’s the only place I’ve seen trees … Continue reading →

Posted in Gray Area, strategy anatomy, strategy design, strategy elements | Tagged Bourn Pond, creative thinking, devising, Gray Area, how to, Lye Brook Wilderness, resource, resourceful, silk, spider, survival, thinking skills, web | 3 Comments

Strategy Types: Critical Operations

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Bill Carson

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

What Strategies Are

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Bill Carson

On the 3rd of May each year, the women of Monsanto, Portugal, walk up a stone path from the town to the top of the mountain. They enter the fortress there and then cast clay jars full of flowers down from its granite walls in commemoration of the villagers’ resistance to the many sieges in the town’s long history. During a stay in the town, I was told a story about the clay jars and what they represent. They represent cows. The story goes like this. Long ago, perhaps in the 1100’s, Monsanto was under siege. The people of the … Continue reading →

Posted in cool strategies, faux strategies, strategy definition, strategy elements | Tagged advantage, barrier, besiegers, cows, exploit, Monsanto, objective, Portugal, resource, strategy definition, thinking skills, vulnerability | 3 Comments

Anatomy of a Strategy

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Bill Carson

Gotta’ have Anatomy Look at the guys in the Rembrandt painting. They’re old doctors getting an anatomy lesson from the one wearing a hat. Troubling. How can you have been a doctor unless you understood the parts of the body and how they work together? But here these puzzled-looking doctors are, finally getting an anatomy lesson. Reminds me of where we are with strategy today. We need a small dose of strategy anatomy. It was quite a lag in time before the Western medical profession adopted what should be considered the most minimal understanding necessary to be a practicing doctor. But in many … Continue reading →

Posted in cool strategies, efficient strategies, strategy definition, strategy elements | Tagged advantage, anatomy, barrier, Egypt, element pairs, elements, exploit, geometry, how to win, mismatch, objective, opportunity, problem, resource, solution, vulnerability | 5 Comments