No Way Out Bad Boyd, Good Receipts: Inside Snowmobiles & Grand Ideals with Ian Brown
Oct 8, 2025
Ian Brown, a senior researcher and expert on John Boyd's work, joins the discussion to shed light on Boyd's innovative ideas through his latest publication. They dive into the fascinating process of transcribing Boyd's presentations, highlighting how context enhances understanding. The conversation reveals Boyd's emphasis on implicit guidance and the importance of orientation over speed. With humor and engaging anecdotes, they explore how Boyd's principles apply to modern media and team dynamics, peeling back layers of folklore to expose his groundbreaking insights.
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Primary Sources Change The Story
- Ian Brown produced verbatim transcripts from archival audio so readers can engage Boyd in his own words.
- The transcripts reveal which slides Boyd emphasized and how Q&A shaped his ideas.
Read Slides With The Spoken Layer
- Listen to the Q&A and oral asides, not just slides, to grasp Boyd's priorities and examples.
- Use those verbal cues to weight which concepts Boyd actually emphasized in practice.
Sports Make Tempo Tangible
- Boyd used sports analogies to explain implicit trust, tempo, and dynamic reallocation in teams.
- These analogies connect military tempo ideas to flow states and team science.
