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This is incredible. " After a while you realize that this image could be used anywhere in any paper or presentation and make perfect sense. This is a graphic t

This is incredible. " After a while you realize that this image could be used anywhere in any paper or presentation and make perfect sense. This is a graphic that defines a way of describing anything that has ever existed and everything that has ever happened, in any situation."

wayoutthere 5y ago
Except it’s not novel and it came from strategy consulting decades ago (the Zachman framework in particular, which was popular at IBM in the 80s). In fact it’s one of the main methods of describing an architecture framework, and a methodology I use daily doing EA / strategy consulting. Consultants are everywhere in the military. Especially the business / strategy / org behavior types. Anything the military does will have been done a hundred times before in industry — the military just needs it at goliath scale.
- shoto_io 5y ago
  Yes. Many of these graphs reminded me of stuff I was producing as a strategy consultant. In some cases you wonder if organizations that have too much money spend it purely on philosophical questions, unrelated to any business reality.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    I think it's more of a "We're acting on some philosophy, even if it's just our own personal one." And if you're making million+ dollar bets on the basis of that philosophy, wouldn't it seem reasonable to pay six figures for a set of alternative philosophies to consider? Or, in concrete terms, the CEO who is successful once because they were lucky vs the CEO who has decades of success in wildly different environments, because they learned alternatives and chose the most apt at any time.
philwelch 5y ago
I'm going to dramatically oversimplify things and just blame John Boyd for this. John Boyd was an Air Force officer who came up with the OODA loop theory. Basically, a pilot in air combat loops through the stages of Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act, and if a pilot is capable of iterating through this loop faster than their opponent, they win. Some people realized this same theory could actually explain combat more generally (particularly maneuver warfare) as well as business and everyday life. John Boyd's magnum opus was a slide presentation of several hundred slides, which took several hours to present, which he never allowed to be abridged or summarized in any way. John Boyd was influential and I don't even think he was a complete crackpot, but the military's tendency to overuse PowerPoint and develop vague theories-of-everything as their operational doctrines reminds me of him. I don't think they pull it off as well as he did.
- otoburb 5y ago
  >>John Boyd's magnum opus was a slide presentation of several hundred slides, which took several hours to present, which he never allowed to be abridged or summarized in any way. I think you're referring to Patterns of Conflict[1] which is/was 187 slides plus around 9 slides of sources. The funny thing is that Patterns is mostly comprised of dense text, not diagrams or pictures. It was a lot of fun trying to absorb Boyd's ideas if one can find the presentations online. They are quite a contrast to (publicly available) military briefings and papers these days given the lower text-to-visuals ratio. Chuck Spinney and Chet Richards worked with Boyd, as did Ginger Richards, on various major briefings. To your point, most of them are 40+ pages/slides each. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_of_Conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_of_Conflict
  - vageli 5y ago
    It seems to be available online [0] (found a link in the linked wiki page). [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210414195621/http://www.ausairpower.net/JRB/poc.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20210414195621/http://www.ausair...
  - aspenmayer 5y ago
    Remastered audio combined version, no captions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TpFQuBY8E0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TpFQuBY8E0 Nearly 5.5 hours! Standalone modern slides, almost 200 pages: http://www.projectwhitehorse.com/pdfs/boyd/patterns%20of%20conflict.pdf http://www.projectwhitehorse.com/pdfs/boyd/patterns%20of%20c... Alternate modern slides with PiP presentation of same presentation as above, but in separate parts, but best audio IMO, with auto-generated captions, typos included: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4pmLxkc7CTcukIlpD0UThT7Y_K09oxXe https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4pmLxkc7CTcukIlpD0UThT7Y... The story behind the original uploader getting the source videos which were uploaded in separate parts, which have been remastered and combined since: https://medium.com/@jasonmbro/uploading-john-boyd-4264b82d73ed https://medium.com/@jasonmbro/uploading-john-boyd-4264b82d73... Original slides: https://geekboss.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/patterns-of-conflict.pdf https://geekboss.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/patterns-of-... via https://geekboss.com/boyd-patterns-of-conflict/ https://geekboss.com/boyd-patterns-of-conflict/ Which seems to link to an alternate version of the talk in four parts, but which is not exhaustive or complete as above versions.
formerly_proven 5y ago
While this is a 4D framework of description, it fails to account for non-local action and seems to assume absolute simultaneity, so this is still thinking inside the box.

wayoutthere 5y ago

Except it’s not novel and it came from strategy consulting decades ago (the Zachman framework in particular, which was popular at IBM in the 80s). In fact it’s one of the main methods of describing an architecture framework, and a methodology I use daily doing EA / strategy consulting. Consultants are everywhere in the military. Especially the business / strategy / org behavior types. Anything the military does will have been done a hundred times before in industry — the military just needs it at goliath scale.

shoto_io 5y ago
Yes. Many of these graphs reminded me of stuff I was producing as a strategy consultant. In some cases you wonder if organizations that have too much money spend it purely on philosophical questions, unrelated to any business reality.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I think it's more of a "We're acting on some philosophy, even if it's just our own personal one." And if you're making million+ dollar bets on the basis of that philosophy, wouldn't it seem reasonable to pay six figures for a set of alternative philosophies to consider? Or, in concrete terms, the CEO who is successful once because they were lucky vs the CEO who has decades of success in wildly different environments, because they learned alternatives and chose the most apt at any time.

philwelch 5y ago

I'm going to dramatically oversimplify things and just blame John Boyd for this. John Boyd was an Air Force officer who came up with the OODA loop theory. Basically, a pilot in air combat loops through the stages of Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act, and if a pilot is capable of iterating through this loop faster than their opponent, they win. Some people realized this same theory could actually explain combat more generally (particularly maneuver warfare) as well as business and everyday life. John Boyd's magnum opus was a slide presentation of several hundred slides, which took several hours to present, which he never allowed to be abridged or summarized in any way. John Boyd was influential and I don't even think he was a complete crackpot, but the military's tendency to overuse PowerPoint and develop vague theories-of-everything as their operational doctrines reminds me of him. I don't think they pull it off as well as he did.

otoburb 5y ago
>>John Boyd's magnum opus was a slide presentation of several hundred slides, which took several hours to present, which he never allowed to be abridged or summarized in any way. I think you're referring to Patterns of Conflict[1] which is/was 187 slides plus around 9 slides of sources. The funny thing is that Patterns is mostly comprised of dense text, not diagrams or pictures. It was a lot of fun trying to absorb Boyd's ideas if one can find the presentations online. They are quite a contrast to (publicly available) military briefings and papers these days given the lower text-to-visuals ratio. Chuck Spinney and Chet Richards worked with Boyd, as did Ginger Richards, on various major briefings. To your point, most of them are 40+ pages/slides each. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_of_Conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_of_Conflict
- vageli 5y ago
  It seems to be available online [0] (found a link in the linked wiki page). [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20210414195621/http://www.ausairpower.net/JRB/poc.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20210414195621/http://www.ausair...
- aspenmayer 5y ago
  Remastered audio combined version, no captions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TpFQuBY8E0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TpFQuBY8E0 Nearly 5.5 hours! Standalone modern slides, almost 200 pages: http://www.projectwhitehorse.com/pdfs/boyd/patterns%20of%20conflict.pdf http://www.projectwhitehorse.com/pdfs/boyd/patterns%20of%20c... Alternate modern slides with PiP presentation of same presentation as above, but in separate parts, but best audio IMO, with auto-generated captions, typos included: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4pmLxkc7CTcukIlpD0UThT7Y_K09oxXe https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4pmLxkc7CTcukIlpD0UThT7Y... The story behind the original uploader getting the source videos which were uploaded in separate parts, which have been remastered and combined since: https://medium.com/@jasonmbro/uploading-john-boyd-4264b82d73ed https://medium.com/@jasonmbro/uploading-john-boyd-4264b82d73... Original slides: https://geekboss.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/patterns-of-conflict.pdf https://geekboss.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/patterns-of-... via https://geekboss.com/boyd-patterns-of-conflict/ https://geekboss.com/boyd-patterns-of-conflict/ Which seems to link to an alternate version of the talk in four parts, but which is not exhaustive or complete as above versions.

formerly_proven 5y ago

While this is a 4D framework of description, it fails to account for non-local action and seems to assume absolute simultaneity, so this is still thinking inside the box.