This is the first installment in a short series on the concept of space in strategy and how it applies to website strategy. Much of what I share I learned as an intelligence officer in the Air Force and student of military strategy.
One of the most rudimentary principles of strategy is taking, occupying, and controlling space.
And by that, I don’t mean simply mean the area beyond our earth’s atmosphere, though military strategy certainly focuses on that ultimate high ground.
I’m talking about space in more general, though still physical terms.
Real estate strategy often centers around “location, location, location”. That’s “space” strategy.
Retail strategy focuses on product placement in a space.
Logistics partially focuses on storage in and movement to an from a space.
And then there is non-physical space:
Business strategy focuses on market space measured in sales.
Education uses space measured by time in class, grade levels, etc.
Some space-based strategy concepts work on the underlying principle that space (physical and otherwise) is limited and therefore some space has more value than others. There’s only so much eye-level, walk-in-the door space in a retail business. The market space can only accommodate so many businesses before over saturation. There is limited space “above the fold” of a newspaper for advertising, headlines and stories. You get the idea.
Understanding how space limitations impact strategy is important to deploying and allocating resources effectively.
What happens in the digital space where there are very few if any physical space constraints? How does that impact your website strategy?
We’ll be delving more into these concepts of space and website strategy in this series.