Saturday, February 28, 2015

The Problem of the Day: Are You Able To Perform Scenario Planning (or Scenaro Modeling) with Sunzi Strategic Principles?


"Regardless which Sunzi's The Art of War translation that you are utilizing, the conceptual "end question" is near-always the same: would you be in a superior strategic positioning than your competition?  ..."

If your competitor has the superior strategic positioning, what are your first three moves that you would use to reverse the overwhelming odds?

Clue
Possessing the following qualities (the correct Sunzi's translation, tangible strategic experience, the strategic skill to see the Big Tangible Picture and to think geometrically while under the pressure of time) gives the competing strategist a better chance to understand the tectonic level behind the Big Tangible Picture.

We will elaborate more on this unique subject matter in a future post.

IPTV Trends For Feb. 2015


The top IPTV trends for this past month: 

Video on demand market worth $61.40 billion by 2019
WhaTech
Video on demand (VoD) Market categorizes the global vod market by solution as Pay TV, OTT, IPTV, by delivery as TVOD, SVOD, NVOD, by application as ...

Mobile advertising market is expected to become a 1 trillion won ...
Whowired Korea
The market for IPTV registered a whopping 67% growth in 2014. Meanwhile, the market for fixed-line internet advertising shrank by 6.8% to 1.86 trillion won as a ...


Global IPTV Market to Grow at 20.32% CAGR by 2019 Says a New ...
Virtual-Strategy Magazine (press release)
Global IPTV Market 2015-2019 is a new research report added to ReportsnReports.com store. An increasing demand for IPTV-based converged services is the ...


informitv Multiscreen Index: Netflix continues to outpace pay-TV
IPTV News
The latest informitv Multiscreen Index shows that Netflix gained another 1.43 million paid members in the US over Q4 2014. Meanwhile, the ten leading ...


Six Mobile Data Trends that Will Influence Mobile Operators ...
PCC Mobile Broadband
(read more: OTT TV and IPTV: Dual Opportunities for Operators in the Fast Growing Video Services Market). 3. Wearables will Fuel 18-fold Growth in Mobile ...


Mobile advertising market is expected to become a 1 trillion won ...
Whowired Korea
The market for IPTV registered a whopping 67% growth in 2014. Meanwhile, the market for fixed-line internet advertising shrank by 6.8% to 1.86 trillion won as a ...


Asia Pacific drives global IPTV growth
Rapid tv news
IPTV adoption in the Asia Pacific region has helped propel the growth in the global IPTV market, to a projected regional CAGR of more than 20% for the five ...

Video on demand market worth $61.40 billion by 2019
WhaTech
Video on demand (VoD) Market categorizes the global vod market by solution as Pay TV, OTT, IPTV, by delivery as TVOD, SVOD, NVOD, by application as ...


Screen size matters – the unstoppable rise of the phablet   
IPTV News
Arguably the explosion of mobile video consumption can only have one effect on the average smartphone screen size – it's going to increase. Indeed, according ...


Best of times, worst of times as pay-TV fends off OTT, cord-cutting in ...
Rapid tv news
... the lowest ever figure in the time that the firm has been making such calculation, and it also found that telco TV/IPTV was up 9.9%. Though impressive, in real ...

New report explores the Global internet protocol television market ...
WhaTech
Internet protocol television (IPTV) is a system through which TV services are delivered by a private network to end-users via the internet. The IPTV services are ...

Week in Review: Telcos aiming to be the hub of our digital lives
Digital News Asia
Quad play is industry lingo to describe an operator offering voice, broadband, IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) and mobile services. As an existing TM ...


Vod market (video on demand) to show 19.4% growth rate to 2019
WhaTech
“Video on Demand (VOD) Market by Solution (Pay TV, OTT, IPTV), by Delivery (TVOD, SVOD, NVOD), by Application (Entertainment, Education and Training, ...

Friday, February 20, 2015

The Dao of Viewing the Big Tangible Picture (of Life)


"Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life."  ~ Wu-men ~


Other than 28 days away from the first day of Spring and another 39+ days away from the opening day of Major League Baseball, is it possible for any one of us can to stay focused on our own target objectives while being mindful of the Big Tangible Picture?

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Happy Year of the Ram


Wishing you and your family a very Happy Year of the Ram.





-  Compass 360 Consulting Group




Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Succeeding in the Info. Economy with Sunzi's Six Principles and the Bill Walsh's Starter Script

(updated on 02.20.15)

Mark McNeilly, who is a very smart marketing strategist, an insightful military historian and an adjunct professor at University of North Carolina, wrote a pair of books on applying the strategic concepts and principles from Sunzi's Art of War to the business realm and to modern warfare.

The essence of his two books are based on six meta-principles, that summarized the 200+ principles of Sunzi.

Following is the list of those six principles:

1. Win all without fighting: Achieving the objective without destroying it

2. Avoid  Strength, Attack Weakness: Striking where the enemy is most vulnerable


3. Deception and Foreknowledge: Winning the Information War


4. Speed and Preparation: Moving Swiftly to Overcome Resistance


5. Shaping the Enemy: Preparing the Battlefield


6. Character-Based Leadership: Leading by Example


- SunTzu and The Art of Modern Warfare


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His first book demonstrates how his six principles were successfully used in various business situations.   ...  It is a good book for those who are strategically-minded. We highly recommended his books on Sunzi (Sun Tzu) and George Washington. These books are great reading especially during a long weekend.

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Our Compass Project 
In terms of planning a field operational strategy, we concluded that McNeilly's six principles are quite indispensable when or if one possesses relevant strategic experience and ultra-class strategic assessment skills.

During our research, we have carefully looked at it and transformed those six principles to a macro set of meta-principles by connecting it to other principles from other arcane Chinese classics.  Then we connected it to the famous Bill Walsh's Starter's Script and other unique but strategic models.



The Six Strategic Principles of Compass A/E  Process Model 



1.  Ready. Aim. Fire
To achieve the path of least resistance, one focuses their resources and their efforts toward the origin of the competitor's inefficiency while deciding on when to exploit it with zero to minimal impact to one's own team's. This step can be achieved when one knows the configuration of their Big Tangible Picture (BTP).

2. Focus. Focus. Hocus Pocus 
Focusing one's strengths toward onto the weaknesses of the competition with the tactical "pretext" option while avoiding the influence of the competition.

3. Know Early. Act Now
Knowing the strategic reality of the competition in each tactical situation and capitalizing on their inefficiency.

4.  Be Quick. Don't Hurry 
The strategically prepared, urgency-driven team accelerates forward to the target especially in an up-tempo no huddle mode especially when the comprehension of the technical weaknesses behind their opponent's inefficiency is fully recognized. 

5.  Stage and Shape the Competition 
Implement a sequence of tactics that influences the competition to behave in an absolute mode in a specific game situation before the "game-changer" tactic is ever implemented.

6. Lead by Deed 
By successfully following the PACE guidelines of the script and implementing the scripted tactical plays, the team starts to execute properly. The incremental momentum gain becomes possible when the team believes in their own execution, their teammates, the strategy (the motive and the methods) behind the script, the field strategist and the backroom strategists.

When the execution of the script works, the entire team becomes confident in the wisdom, the credibility, the benevolence, the courage and the discipline of the principals behind the script development.

Psychologically, the continuity of this momentum gain creates wins. Conclusively, the continuity of this positive practice generates more streaks of positive wins.

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Strong and smart leadership and the mastery of this well-devised scheme-based tool usually play a significant role in a winning culture.

copyright 2013-2015: Compass360 Consulting Group, All Rights Reserved.


Some More Notes on the Compass Book Project
Our book integrates the basics of Bill Walsh's Starter Script and the principles from Sunzi, Jiang Tai Gong, and other successful strategists and demonstrates how to utilize it in a chaotic strategic situation while being mindful of when and how the competition adjusts to the implementer's script.

It also utilizes our Assess, Position and Influence model that is a conceptual superset of Colonel John Boyd's Observation, Orientation, Decision and Action (OODA) strategic methodology.

More to Come

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Sunday, February 8, 2015

IPTV Trends For Jan 2015



Global IPTV Forecasts: 2014 Report
PR Newswire UK (press release)
Covering 138 countries, the number of homes paying for IPTV will rocket to 191 million by end-2020; more than double the 90 million recorded at end-2013 and ...

Pricey watches and cheap phones: tech predictions for 2015

CanadianBusiness.com
Over-the-top internet-based video—Netflix, Google Play, iTunes and the lot—are expected to “blow past” cable and IPTV to 9.5 million clients in Canada.


Wearable shipments to reach 168 million in 2019
IPTV News
According to a new report from the research firm Berg Insight, shipments of connected wearables reached 19.0 million in 2014, up from 5.9 million devices in the ...

Two in five Brits take time off for catch-up TV
IPTV News
What does the future hold for IPTV? (Lessons learned from Aereo). ABN & the future of African broadcasting. Vimeo & the search to reinvent video. TV's future ...


French TV households decline and diversify audiovisual reception
DigitalTVEurope.net
The number of French households with TVs declined in the year to June, while the number of homes receiving TV only via DTT or only IPTV fell slightly over the ...


Most Finns still prefer to watch TV on a traditional set
Telecompaper (subscription)
According to the market data collected by Ficora, there were nearly 1.5 million cable television subscriptions and 350,000 IPTV subscriptions in Finland in June ...


67% prefer to stream favourite TV shows
IPTV News
67% prefer to stream their favourite TV shows on-demand, rather than watch them live, according to a new report from CDN specialists Akamai. The report, State ...


Video Platforms, Players and Processing Tech 2006 - 2014: Exit ...
PR Newswire (press release)
High CAGR video platforms average 3.33x revenue, while consumer-facing solutions targeting the IPTV/OTT, entertainment and media content verticals have ...


4K demand to grow at 72% CAGR until 2018
IPTV News   
The worldwide television market is forecast to grow to 234 million units in 2014, representing a 3% growth from 2013, according to the latest research from ...

Short-form vid revenue to approach $13b by 2019
IPTV News
The revenue potential for short-form video is expected to approach US$13 billion by 2019, carrying a 6 year CAGR of 18.5%, according to ABI Research's

HD TV channels set to grow by 25pc in Mena
Trade Arabia
... region by at least over 25 per cent over the next three years, while content companies will likely start offering 4K video content over IPTV soon, a report said.

Pay-TV market expanded 6.1% to RUB57bn in 2014, report says
TeleGeography
Market leader Rostelecom is continuing to increase the number of IPTV subscribers on the back of its GPON network build-out. The pay-TV market in Russia is ...


Market Report, "Telecom Service Assurance Market - Global ...
ClickPress (press release)
With the growing number of technological advancement in 3G, 4G, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), and Video on Demand (VOD) among others, the need of ...

Montenegro TV connections drop 0.8% in Q4
Telecompaper (subscription)
In terms of market share, among the non-terrestrial platforms, IPTV had a 41.63 percent share, followed by DTH with 33.27 percent, MMDS with 12.97 percent, ...

US online ad spend to grow 13% in 2015
IPTV News
Driven by digital, advertising spend in the US is predicted to grow 3.2% in 2015 to $186.6 billion. According to the latest advertising forecast by Strategy ...

ASUS DSL-AC68U review: A future-proof ADSL router for SOHO users
Deccan Chronicle
If your DSL service provider also supplies IPTV services, you can use the same router and allocate one or two Ethernet ports for IPTV use only, making it even ...

How Netflix, Stan and Presto will compete in Australia's winner-takes ...
BRW
“What we are seeing internationally as the pay-TV market changes are these extraordinary new supplementary services (such as IPTV and SVOD) and people ...


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The Dao of Strategic Assessment: Thinking Geometrically



Most people have a tendency of losing sight of the forest for the trees.

When viewing a situation, they are focused on their immediate situation without ever considering the after-effects regardless of the timeline.  If it takes more than two moments longer to perform that task-objective, they occasionally refused to do it.  


To those who are following the Cult of The Art of War, one cannot "get to the destination under a complex setting without losing excessive resources ", especially if he/she cannot properly assess the situation. 


Think about that point!

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The Abstraction Method of Problem Solving
by Art Markman
Everyone has heard the phrase, “losing sight of the forest for the trees.” The idea behind this metaphor is that when you are too close to something, you can get mired in the details and have difficulty focusing on the way those details fit together into a big picture.

During the past 10 years, psychologists Yaacov Trope, Nira Liberman, and their colleagues have provided a lot of evidence for what they call “construal level theory:” The closer you are to an object or event, the more specifically you think about it. While the more distant you are to that object or event, the more abstractly you think about it. This idea has important implications for your creativity.

Every object or event in the world can be thought of in many ways. Take the four-legged beast you see walking down the street on a leash, it could be thought of as:


  • Fluffy the poodle who lives next door (very specific)
  • a French poodle (slightly less specific)
  • a dog (a bit more abstract)
  • an animal (more abstract)
  • a thing (very abstract)
This ability to think of things at different levels of specificity applies to events and goals as well. If you pick up the phone to call a client to try to make a sale, you could think of this very abstractly (engaging in a relationship), less abstractly (working on a sales call) or even quite specifically (holding the phone to your ear and talking).

The second half of construal level theory is that your tendency to think of something either abstractly or specifically depends on your distance from it. Distance can refer to physical distance, social distance, or even distance in time. For example, the classic New Yorker magazine cover of the New Yorker’s view of the world reflects this concept. In this cover, the island of Manhattan is shown in great detail, then there is a strip labeled New Jersey, and the rest of the country occupies about as much space as New Jersey does. That is, the more physically distance there is to an item, the fewer details you use to think about it.

Getting Distance
A similar thing happens with other kinds of distance. When you think about an event happening to yourself, you tend to focus on all of the details. The actions you have to take, the interactions you have with other people, the time it takes to make something happen. When you think about the same event happening to someone else, you focus more broadly on the outcomes without thinking about how it happened.

That is one reason why we believe so strongly that people’s abilities are the results of their talent. A great musician puts on a wonderful performance on stage. You focus on their clear ability to play their instrument, but you do not think about all of the years of practice that musician has put in to develop the skill displayed on stage. You ignore all of this work, because of the social distance between you and the musician on stage.

You focus on their clear ability to play their instrument, but you do not think about all of the years of practice that musician has put in to develop the skill displayed on stage.
Distance in time works the same way. When an event is far away in time, you focus on general characteristics like how much fun the event will be, or the reasons why you want to attend that event. As the event gets closer, though, you begin to think about all of the ways that event will interfere with your daily life. That is why you often agree to do things far in advance, and then regret agreeing to them in the moment.

If you are in a situation in which you need to display some creativity, you can use this relationship between distance and abstractness to your advantage:

CD Players, iPods, Abstraction
Often, it is hard to come up with creative solutions to problems, because you get mired in the details of the problem you are solving. Those details will often lead you to think about solutions to the specific problems that arise, rather than rethinking the problem altogether. In the 1990s, for example, many companies created portable CD players people could carry with them as an evolution of the portable cassette tape players that preceded them. The difficulty with CD-players is that they would skip whenever the player got jostled.

Early on, people treated CD players as if they were like cassette players or record players, because those were the specific precursors to the portable CD player. Consequently, most of the early solutions to the problem of skipping CDs involved adding more shock absorption into the portable player. That would prevent the laser from losing its place on the disc. By thinking more abstractly about CD-players, though, people began to treat them as computer media rather than like cassettes or records. That shifted the solution to the problem of skipping from creating shock absorbers to reading ahead in the computer file and buffering the music. That is, thinking about the problem more abstractly changed the nature of the solutions to that problem.

Solving Problems
To help yourself think about a problem you are solving more abstractly, it is useful to give yourself some distance from that problem. There are several ways to create that distance. Imagine that you are solving the problem for someone else rather than for yourself. Think about what the solution to the problem will look like 5 years in the future rather than right now. Think about how people 1000 miles away might be conceptualizing the problem. Each of these methods helps to create some distance, and that can help you focus on the more abstract parts of the situation.

After you re-think the problem, though, it is important to focus on the details again. So, once you have an insight that changes the way you think about the problem, focus on it close up again. In that way, you can ensure that the solution you develop will also address the little things that can make the difference between success and failure.

How about you?
Have you ever solved a tough problem by getting some distance? What happened?

http://99u.com/articles/15170/the-abstraction-method-of-problem-solving

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Sunday, February 1, 2015

Assessing the Game Factors for the Super Bowl Game Before Playing the Risk Game

(minor update: 19:18 hrs)

If you are pondering on wagering on the game, read the following post. Then reflect on it before acting on your decision.

“These are the ways that successful strategists are victorious. They cannot be spoken or transmitted in advance. ... Before the game, they resolve in their conference room that they will be victorious, have determined that the majority of factors are in their favor. Before the game they resolve in their conference room that they will not be victorious, have determined a few factors are in their favor.

If those who find that the majority of factors favor them, will be victorious while those who have found few factors favor them will be defeated, what about someone who finds no factors in their favor?

When observing from this viewpoint, victory and defeat will be apparent.”
- Art of War 1 



source: NY Daily News

By using this season statistics, the football fanatics center on the possible factors on why each team  (The Patriots or The Seahawks) could win this game, before wagering on the game.

While watching some of their previous season games, we were focused on the various categories of match ups and whether each team is able to adjust to the psychological pressure of a high-performance game situation. In our case, we did it while sipping a cup of Dragon Well tea.

New England Offense vs. Seattle's Defense
New England's has a efficient offense with a diverse set of talented players. They possessed a super quarterback (QB), a wide arrays of running back (RB's), a future hall of fame tight ends (TE's) and a group of slightly "above-average" receivers corp. The effectiveness of their passing game is usually focused on the first fifteen yardages from the line of scrimmage. 

The New England's running game is consisted of many talented game changers that Seattle has to spend an abundance of time concluding which running back will get the majority of runs and how they will handle New England's up tempo, no huddle approach. (There is nothing more lethal than a 250 lb tailback who runs angry.)

Seattle usually runs a simple defensive "bend but don't break" scheme that rushes four linemen at the opposing quarterback. Beside base zone coverage, it also includes a Cover-3 formation that is designed to prevent the opposing offense from utilizing a long vertical pass play. 

We expected the Seattle's cornerbacks to physically contain and cover the New England's wide receivers within the first 10 to 15 yards of space  

If the Seattle's strong safety (SS)  plays tight to the box (the first ten yards of space from the defensive side of the line of scrimmage) , the viewers should expect the New England Patriots TE to run a medium pass pattern. In most cases, we do not expect the Seattle's linebackers to properly cover him due to his explosive speed and his range. Simultaneously we believed that the Seattle's defense backs would not be able to contain him from catching the ball because of his size.

Expect the Seattle defense to attempt to strip the ball from the ball carrier while utilizing certain containment and coverage plays to remove New England's game changers during gametime.

In the red zone, New England's offense will consider the mismatch of TE  vs. the under-sized safety. 

  
Seattle Seahawks Offense vs. New England Defense
The strength of Seattle's offense is running the ball up the middle with different tactical variations.   Using that set of plays to stage the read option or vice-versa.  

The Seattle team has also successfully mastered the read option quite well that it has become a near-automatic yard-gainer . 

However, we expected that the New England Patriots defense to have already mastered the keys to neutralizing that specific approach. Expect the defensive ends and outside linebackers to punish the Seattle quarterback each time he decides to run the ball.  Do not be surprised if Seattle changes their offensive keys for the purpose of misdirecting the defensive play callers.

As long as the ratio of running the ball is greater than the passing the ball, Seattle will prevail. 

Seattle WR's are slightly above average at best. They play well within their offensive scheme while not possessing a long bomb threat.  New England's defense should "shutdown" the Seattle receivers with zero problems. 

The "wild card" factors: the QB being spontaneous in chaotic situations, the TE's and the RBs as the receivers.

New England is superb in term of never showing the same defensive formation or alignment during the game. We would not be surprised if Seattle runs a slow tempo, no huddle approach for the purpose of controlling the ball possession. 

Comments From The Compass Desk 
In most games, a team is always one injury away from losing its initial competitive disposition. (Seattle has a few players that are slightly hurt.) 

Remove the offensive and/or defensive game changer's from each team, their performance immediately drops  

Always attack the position when the starting player being replaced by a reserve player for the obvious reason. It is quite rare that the reserve player has the game experience or the athletic prowess of the starter.

Regardless that Coach Belichick is one of the best coaches in preparing a team to play a highly pressured game. Occasionally, he would implement various unorthodox tactics just to un-nerve the competition. We expected him to run a gadget play or two that might surprise the Seattle's defense.  Most likely, he spent many days ago, studying the Seattle's losses especially against Dallas and San Diego

Seattle utilizes a simple game approach that is focused on out-executing the opponent while New England fluid game approach is centered on out-strategizing and out-executing their competitors.

Subverting the opposing defense to the act of thinking and reacting is what New England's offense based on.  Influencing the decision makers to make poor decisions is the highest form of the competitive strategy game. 

While Seattle's defense executes a "bend and don't break" tactical approach, their linebackers (LBs) and SS will not be able to pass-cover NE's TEs unless they knock him out. The LBs have the difficult job of deciding whether to defend the pass or the run.  If they are stacked 6 or more in the box, The pass play is on. ... If they stacked 5 or less players in the box, The run play is on.  Forcing the linebackers and the SS to play the guessing game could disrupt the psychological continuity of the defense.  

Based on schedules, Seattle has the advantage of playing and prevailing over a higher quality of competition while the New England played in a "soft" division and a moderately less tougher schedule this past season.

It would be interesting if Seattle's implements a successful trick play that "shocks and awes" the New England's defense. (Gadget plays is not the norm of the Seattle's team.  They did surprised Green Bay in the January 2015's NFC championship game) with a fake field goal.

We think that the game is going to be a defensive battle and that both teams are able to play "shut down" defense in the red zone.  Therefore, we expected the kickers on both sides to be busy.

If New England takes the initial lead and wins the game, then the possibility of a high-scoring game would be quite relevant. However, if Seattle takes the initial lead and wins the game, then the possibility of a low-scoring game would be quite relevant. No one really knows.  The game must be played.  

We expected that the game referees to let the players play.  There would be very little penalty calling unless it is obvious and blatant.   ... In some cases, the noise factor might favor the Seattle team.

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After studying the stats and the projected match-ups, we projected the total score for this game to be lower than 47 points.  Click here on the latest spread on this game.


Latest update (19:18 hrs)

New England Patriots  28   Seattle Seahawks 24

In a game of near parity and inches, neutralizing the opponent's strength while capitalizing on their errors is the dao to victory.  

Free Safety Malcolm Butler intercepted the QB pass at the end zone which preserved the victory for the New England  Patriots.

In the field of observation, chance has always favored the mindfully prepared.   ... The successful strategists have always believed that victory loves the prepared.  ... In summary, the "prepared players" factor have always decided the game winner. ... 

Click here for the non-obvious reason why the Patriots won.

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Minor Points  
Retrospectively, the gist behind any victory begins with "the will of the mind (xin-yi)."  


The ranking of the "will" practice (from an ascending order): 
  • the will to be centered;
  • the will to prepare; 
  • the will to perform, to persist and to endure;  
  • the will to win; and 
  • the will to restart the process. 
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