Something I'll be coming back to ...

I'm just finishing my latest research and I thought I'd share a graph with you as I'm going to be using it from time to time.

The graph is a comparison of a reasonable sample of companies across two axis - the level of strategic play vs the use of open as a means of competing against, outmanoeuvring others.

The bubbles size represent the % of two populations - those that consider themselves Traditional and those that consider themselves more Web 2.0.

Basically, companies break down into four groups :-

• Players : companies which think strategically about IT and are willing to use open as a means of competing. (STRATEGY + ACTION)

• Thinkers : companies which think strategically about IT but don't tend to use open as a means of competing. (STRATEGY + DECISION NOT TO ACT)

• Believers : companies which don't think strategically about IT but do use open as a means of competing. (NO STRATEGY + ACTION)

• Chancers : companies which neither think strategically about IT nor tend to use open as a means of competing. (NO STRATEGY + NO ACTION)

There's a whole underlying model (all to do with evolution) of why these groups exist and the impact of them, their success etc. However, I'm not going to go through this now.

I just wanted to say that being in the Chancers or the Believers group doesn't seem to be very healthy. Which is why I've recently been posting about "What's my IT Strategy" and "Open by Default ... No Thanks"

You see, there is method in my madness and there are reasons why I raise these questions.