Strategy

( My reviews are aimed at helping you decide whether you should read something, rather than assuming your meaning of “good” or “bad” is anything like mine. ) The Internet, and more traditional bookshelves, are full of advice on when to start something, how to start something, and how to beat procrastination or self-limiting beliefs or imposter syndrome or whatever the author thinks is stopping you from reaching your full potential. But there’s much less content on when you should quit, on why you should consider not spending time on a project at the expense of other projects, and how to sensibly work through those decisions. With that opportunity cost being one of the few concepts I’ve kept from my O’level economics, I was particularly interested in Seth Godin’s The Dip - with its subtitle of “The extraordinary benefits of knowing when to quit ( and when to stick ).” ...

( My reviews are strictly aimed at helping you decide whether you should read something, rather than assuming your meaning of “good” or “bad” is anything like mine. ) As per my last 'weeknotes' I finished reading Rory Sutherland’s “Alchemy” recently. The overall point of the work, for me, is that economics and marketing ( in general, so with exceptions ) have failed to understand human nature and desire, and therefore their models are incorrect. These points are well made, well illustrated, well supported; I do like Sutherland’s use of “psycho-logical” to describe the approach he advocates for. The only place where it gets a bit wobbly in places is where he argues that free markets are good for most effectively indicating what people want - which is fair - but those neo-liberal capitalists have ruined it by being more profitable. But extrapolating the benefits of certain strategies within a market regardless of their overall effect is a conversation for another time. ...

By Nick Drage, a cybersecurity strategist, and Indy Neogy, a coach who specialises in how we deal with the future. This is a “personal blog” version, where I’ve added a couple of pictures. Indy’s publication on LinkedIn can be found here. Comments welcome anywhere. Cybersecurity Strategy in the New Era The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been shocking. As a hot conflict it inevitably makes us focus on physical threats. However, it has also necessitated discussions that produced a lot of useful articles about how to improve personal and organisational cybersecurity - in particular how to improve them in response to a raised level of cybercrime and cyberattack activity. ...

Edited highlights of week 1 of January 2022 Putting together more thoughts around a series of impasse-breaking strategy cards, to prompt people on stratagems to deal when they’re stuck. I’m probably going to use tarot as inspiration for the format and layout of the cards, while being very conscious of all the negative connotations that comes with. I’m inspired to do this by attending Cardstock and especially working with Indy Neogy on some ideas. I believe Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies is one of the OG decks on inspirational cards, along with the work of Marshall McLuhan A particularly interesting discussion on helping another company write a paper and presentation, and maybe some game design too. I would say a “failed” catching up, but I’m slowly working through a backlog of people to contact and things to read and ideas to get down… I don’t think I’m winning yet, but no longer feel like I’m losing. Some concentrated thinking around a planning game, where between five and ten players are given a role in a fantasy context, with a set of resources and aims, and given a short deadline for a plan to conquer the Dark Lord’s forces. I think these kind of games can be really engaging and revelatory; but convincing stakeholders before the event, and participants during the event, to take away abstract lessons from a fantasy scenario can be a challenge. I lost a few more times at Tharsis. I’m wary of games that make me feel stupid, especially with my increasingly personal emphasis on strategic decision making and problem solving, and I find Tharsis exasperating. We’ll see, hopefully there will be a victory screenshot on here at some point soon… In space no-one can hear you sigh disappointedly at your dice roll This presentation from Eva Summerfield of Unusual Systems was an interesting watch - mainly for me because someone considerably different to me, in age and cyber security industry experience, had come to roughly the same conclusions on issues with the industry in a much shorter space of time. In particular this presentation is worth your time, as is are BSides rookie tracks in general… and also check out this presentation by my occasional co-conspirator James Bore on future threats from bio-engineering. Through various means I watched A Time To Die, Fast and Furious 9, and Matrix 4 in the same week… more or less. As very short reviews I’d describe them as “involving but perplexing”, “fun but undemanding”, and “better than expected, and thought provoking” respectively… and also it’s useful to think of if and when I’d rewatch a film, which is “rainy bank holiday, as is traditional for Bond films”, “channel hopping when I should have gone to bed”, and “yes” probably applies. Sometimes you just lean back in your seat, stop thinking too much, and enjoy the ride...