Go As Business Metaphor
Business writing and speech are loaded with metaphors drawn from sports and games - home runs, gambits, huddles, assists, game plans, and on and on. At the risk of being overly obscure, I'm going to drag in another source: The ancient Asian game of Go.
About twenty years ago I was working at Apple and had a cube in the De Anza 3 building. One of the campus cafés was downstairs, and I soon discovered there was regular lunch time Go playing group. I had learned the rudiments of the game in college, due to a friend working on a very early attempt at a computerized player. So I was drawn in as a kibitzer and soon active player. I never made it past somewhat decent amateur status before I was (inevitably) re'orged and moved to another office. But my period of play overlapped with a time when I was observing and learning(?) a lot about high tech business in general and software and platform competition in particular. Inevitably the two experiences grew together, and provided some metaphors that have proved interesting over the years, and seem appropriate to current issues.
Likely most people have at least seen a go board and stones (if not, try the Wikipedia article). Very generally speaking, the object of the game is to play groups of stones in order to surround as much space as possible. A group of stones without enough space within will die, and one with too much space inside may be vulnerable to the opponent trying to build his own viable group within that space.
Basic business metaphors can be something like this: The whole board is the available market. The stones played down are investment and expense to go after the market. A space surrounded is the net margin achieved by a product or company (the group). Too little space, and you're squeezed out of the market. Too much margin, and you are inviting competition to jump into your space.
So much for the basics, but further metaphors can be derived from tactical situations and styles of play. Of these, the one that keeps coming to mind lately is the issue of light vs. heavy plays (karui vs. omoi). These can refer to attempts to extend a group or jump into new territory. Light plays are probes. If the opponent attacks strongly, a stone or small group can be sacrificed to gain advantage elsewhere. Heavy is playing so large a group that it cannot be sacrificed, or fighting over an initial probe that would be better abandoned. This may let a more flexible opponent gain the net advantage.
Of course, such metaphors must be incomplete. The real board is multi-dimensional, and shifts in size and shape. There are usually multiple players, and people are not white and black stones. The board seldom starts empty. The customers get a vote on the moves. But the comparison can sometimes be instructive:
Given the description of light and heavy above (or found on the links), what style would you say Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are each playing? What type of play is best for a startup?
