Observe, orient, decide, act. These are the four elements of the OODA Loop developed by a USAF pilot, Colonel John Boyd. Known as “Forty Second Boyd”, he had a standing bet as an instructor pilot that from a point of disadvantage, he could defeat any opposing pilot in forty seconds or less. He ultimately saved the F-15 project and helped produce some of the world’s greatest fighter jets.
Boyd was a passionate advocate for the idea that winning was a matter of making decisions faster than your opponent. He believed that decision making occurs in these structured loops and he also believed that corporations, governments and militaries possess a hierarchy of OODA Loops at increasing levels of the organization.
Was he right? He was credited with the First Gulf War’s “left hook” design that was remarkably effective. He designed fight jets.
Complex event processing
The concept of dogfighting was far more intense and complicated (and risky) than business at the time Boyd developed his theories in the 50′s. But today’s Big Data world is quickly catching up with the information streaming through the cockpit in air combat. We have enormous amounts of data available for us to understand, anticipate and act ahead of our competitors.
As Boyd said, we can win by making decisions so quickly that our opponent is making decisions on information that has already changed. Sound familiar?
Complex event processing (CEP) is the core solution for Big Data and makes the all difference in today’s business world. It is today’s OODA Loop. We can’t possibly make decisions faster than our opponents without a system in place that allows for faster capture, understanding, anticipation and action.
This is what it increasingly takes to be competitive in today’s world.
If you want to understand more, here are a few resources on CEP:
Solve for Interesting
Seth Godin Blog
Jeremiah Owyang
IT Redux
HBR Blog
Clay Shirky Blog
SocialMedia Today
Chris Dixon
Brian Solis
Chris Brogan
The TIBCO Blog
Venture Beat
Engadget
Wired
Lifehacker
Mashable
The Verge
GigaOM
TechCrunch
Great blog Chris – the use of true history really works.
Acting faster than your opponent is certainly an important type of event processing application, but not all event processing applications are of the same type,
see:http://epthinking.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/acting-faster-than-speed-of-thinking.html
Reblogged this on Sykes' Blog.