emergent strategy
This nugget from a long lost post by Guy Kawasaki resonated from down a rabbit hole into 2006.
He his offering some advice for entrepreneurial types in the development of business plans however it's appropriate for the conundrum facing communications planning.
While we would love to present agile strategies as default this is often hard for clients to buy into.
Test and learn talk makes us feel fuzzy in the agency but the average CMO doesn't entertain fail-fast.
Perhaps there's a middle way, as GK describes.
'Write deliberate, act emergent.
When you write your plan, you act as if you know exactly what you're going to do.
You are deliberate.
You're probably wrong, but you take your best shot.
However, writing deliberate doesn't mean that you adhere to the plan in the face of new information and new opportunities.
As you execute the plan, you act emergent - that is, you are flexible and fast moving: changing as you learn more and more about the market.
The plan, after all, should not take on a life of its own.'
