Matthew Milan The Information Architect and the Fighter Pilot

Friday was a Howard Hughes kind of day

Warning! No Wireframes No Clear Answers No Happy Ending

“ We are survival machines” Richard Dawkins

“ He who can handle the quickest rate of change survives” John Boyd

The purpose of this talk: To explore how the work of John Boyd can help us to think about the practice and discipline of Information Architecture

1.John Boyd 2.Learning from Boyd 3.Plating the Bird

John Boyd 1

Themes

conflict

conflict emergence

conflict emergence destruction

conflict emergence destruction synthesis

conflict emergence destruction synthesis agility

conflict emergence destruction synthesis agility adaptation

conflict emergence destruction synthesis agility adaptation novelty

The Evolution of Boyd The Evolution of Boyd

1. The Fighter Pilot 2. The Fighter Mafia 3. Genghis John

John Boyd Fighter Pilot

40 Second Boyd

Plating the Bird

Aerial Attack Study

Seeing Patterns

John Boyd Fighter Mafia

Fast Transients

EM Theory

The Father of F-16

Practice from Theory

John Boyd Genghis John

Slumming at the Pentagon

Changing the Game

Synthesis

The Snowmobile

Blitzkrieg

Maneuver Warfare

conflict emergence destruction synthesis agility adaptation novelty

Boyd’s Theory Boyd’s Theory

Destruction and Creation Patterns of Conflict Organic Design for Command and Control The Strategic Game of ? & ? Revelation A Discourse on Winning and Losing The Conceptual Spiral The Essence of Winning and Losing

Destruction and Creation Patterns of Conflict Organic Design for Command and Control The Strategic Game of ? & ? Revelation A Discourse on Winning and Losing The Conceptual Spiral The Essence of Winning and Losing

Observe Orient Decide Act

Observe Orient Decide Act

How the loop is often seen:

Observe Orient Act Decide

How Boyd saw the loop:

More than just fast looping A way of thinking about survival and success

Destruction and Creation

Destruction and Creation

Chi/Cheng

Cheng: Orthodox Expected

Chi: Unorthodox Unexpected

Novelty

Understanding Novelty allows us to create Novelty

Novelty produces change

Boyd left his theory deliberately incomplete

Boyd and Briefing Boyd and Briefing

A discourse to make the audience think

The snowmobile again

A loser is someone who cannot build snowmobiles when facing uncertainty and unpredictable change A winner is someone who can build snowmobiles and employ them in an appropriate fashion when facing uncertainty and unpredictable change

A discourse to make the audience think

A discourse to make the audience think

Learning from Boyd 2

un Designing Experiences

organic design emergence

destruction creation

adaptation fast transients

novelty change

Cheng Chi

Postmodern Strategist John Boyd

Godel Heisenberg Popper Kuhn Polanyi Dawkins Sun Tzu Liddell-Hart Clausewitz Napoleon

Proliferate discourses without trying to fit them into a permanent grid

Postmodern IA Postmodern IA

Is IA a postmodernist discipline?

complexity

contradiction

ambiguity

diversity

interconnectedness

Proliferate discourses without trying to fit them into a permanent grid

January 22 2002

Are we closer to Boyd then we think?

Plating the Bird 3

“ He who can handle the quickest rate of change survives”

Avro Arrow Avro Arrow

What killed the Avro Arrow?

Capability, but no adaptation in a changing environment

2018

What killed information architecture?

Capability, but no adaptation in a changing environment RISK

1/2 Information Architecture is a discipline

We overthink the damn thing.

Creation

Destruction

In IA terms:

Structure

Unstructure

We’re too passive about unstructuring things

We can’t adapt if we aren’t living in the loop

And we can’t live in the loop until we’re able to deconstruct.

The Conceptual Spiral Our Conceptual Spiral

a Exploration Thinking Learning Comprehending Discovering Doing Unlearning Shaping Innovating Achieving Relearning Adapting

a Exploration Thinking Learning Comprehending Discovering Doing Unlearning Shaping Innovating Achieving Relearning Adapting

Which Generates Insight Imagination Initiative

A paradigm for survival and growth

We need our own conceptual spiral

We need to get inside the loop

We need to get inside the loop

We need to focus more on the discourse

We need to focus more on the discourse

We need to brief more

We need to brief more

We need to get better at breaking things

We need to get better at breaking things

We need to embrace novelty

We need to Chi as well as Cheng

Boyd left his theory deliberately incomplete

So should we

This presentation is deliberately incomplete [email_address] [email_address]

[email_address] [email_address]