Case Studies & PSYOP

The beginning of a New Year is always a time to think about new perspectives.

One of the staples of business education is the case study. Sometimes referred to (at least in the olden days when I went to school as the Harvard Case Method (see: https://hbr.org/store/case-studies?cm_mmc=cpc-_-google-_-domestic-_-cases&referral=02276&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=dom_cases&gclid=CPKZo4iokcoCFUhcfgodY4QCBQ)

The students received a mini-booklet that described a company. By design it included financial statements, marketing information and panoply of other stuff. Your job as the student was to figure out what was wrong with the company and offer your recommendations on how to fix the company.

I had one entrepreneurial professor during my MBA program at Babson College who gave us an assignment on a case study with a different slant. Our job was not to solve the company’s problems, but to get the consulting contract wherein the company would pay us to solve their problems.

This assignment required a whole different set of skills and, in retrospect, formed some of the basis for my starting and running my own successful consulting business.

One of my sources directed me to a LinkedIn piece which in turn directed me to an article: “Russian Propaganda, Disinformation And Estonia’s Experience – Analysis (see: http://www.eurasiareview.com/04102015-russian-propaganda-disinformation-and-estonias-experience-analysis/, which is also the photo source).

The content of the article is pretty good – but I am referencing it as a potential tool for PSYOP/MISO education. Given the range of current and potential adversaries and AOs, it is incumbent on us to develop the processing of thinking for PSYOPers.

I would point to regionally-oriented on-line sources as a way to do this. The site referenced above seems to be a good one and I’m sure that there are others as well. In particular I feel we should be leveraging this type of exercise to stimulate the student thought process and to learn about other parts of the world notably Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Reader input encourage and the best and brightest of New Year’s to all y’all!