Best (and worst) example of this I recently came across was an FMCG client that wanted us to develop a website for their new 'water' beverage ... when asked 'Why?' (the Objectives) ... she said, 'To be 360'.

The technologies and strategies have evolved, been honed and become more complex. But everyone on the battlefield is using them. This raises the bar for all concerned and makes big results much harder to achieve. No excuse for pursuing glory rather than results. No excuse for not learning from glorious failures. Tom.

Unfortunately, many senior "strategists" get left behind by technology, through lack of knowledge/time or whatever, they pluck out "key words" from some article they have read and push them as strategy without truly understanding the implications for the foot soldiers and consumers. But then again..the world is not perfect, and egos abound in our industry.

Nick unfortunately reveals a sad truth here. Strategists and planners need to be genuine strategists and planners, and "not a few of them" aren't the real thing. If they are only part of a sales operation and don't think about implications, long term objectives and infrastructure, they only succeed by luck and client gullibility. Their days will be numbered. On the other hand, convincing clients to invest in long term data strategies is really challenging because it costs, and needs simplified "painting of pictures" of a rosy future. We still have to sell our best good! I don't care about the gloss, as long as everyone understand that hard work needs to be done to get real results. Everyone also needs to understand that the quant/tech/data side is only part of the story. An integrated story... Tom - sometime "Data Strategist".

Sometimes we are so enamoured by our strategy that we take the outcome for granted – or, God forbid, lose sight of it. Although the outcome is sacrosanct, and therefore to be determined before everything else, sometimes we are unsure if the strategy determines the outcome or the outcome determines which strategy to deploy. I’m reminded of a dialogue between Alice and the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland’: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where…” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.