Shostack + Friends Blog Archive

 

Boyd Video: Patterns of Conflict

John Boyd’s ideas have had a deep impact on the world. He created the concept of the OODA Loop, and talked about the importance of speed (“getting inside your opponent’s loop”) and orientation, and how we determine what’s important.

A lot of people who know about the work of John Boyd also know that he rarely took the time to write. His work was constantly evolving, and for many years, the work existed as scanned photocopies of acetate presentation slides.

In 2005, Robert Coram published a book (which I reviewed here and in that review, I said:

His writings are there to support a presentation; many of them don’t stand well on their own. Other writers present his ideas better than he did. But they don’t think with the intensity, creativity, or rigor that he brought to his work.

I wasn’t aware that there was video of him presenting, but Jasonmbro has uploaded approximately 5 hours of Boyd presenting his Patterns of Conflict briefing. The audio is not great, but it’s not unusable. There’s an easy to read version of that slide collection here [link to http://www.dnipogo.org/boyd/patterns_ppt.pdf no longer works]. (Those slides are a little later than the video, and so may not line up perfectly.)