Maitland Hyslop – författare

Resilience is an increasingly important concept and quality in today’s world. It is particularly important in the area of Critical Infrastructures. It is crucial in the area of Critical Information Infrastructure. This is because, since the year 2000, man has been dependent on information and telecommunications systems for survival, particularly in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, and because all other Critical Inf- structures depend upon, to a greater or lesser extent, Critical Information 1,2 Infrastructure. Until, probably, the late 1980s it would be fair to say that the defense of individual nation states depended upon a mixture of political will and armed might. The fall of the Berlin Wall may have effectively ended the Cold War, and with it a bipolar world, but it brought globalization and a multipolar digital world in its wake. Simply put, a number of power vacuums were created and these have yet to be fully filled and settled. In this “New World” many changes were afoot. These changes include the increasing irrelevance of nation states in federated structures and the export of democracy on the back of globalization. One of the biggest changes, though, is the use of digital technolo gy by the OECD countries. This is on such a scale that these countries have become both dependent upon information technology and as individual 3 states largely irrelevant to the new “global” electronic economy. 1 This adaptation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is attributed to KPMG.

In Obstructive Marketing, Maitland Hyslop deals with a very negative kind of activity which embraces activities, legal or otherwise, designed to prevent or restrict the distribution of a product or service, temporarily or permanently, against the wishes of the product manufacturer, service provider or customer. When the author defined this phenomenon as Obstructive Marketing and started to research it more than a decade ago, it was seen as a valid concept that was perhaps ahead of its time. The World has moved on and in the era of globalization a study of this negative aspect of marketing is now required. Obstructive Marketing is now seen as the business equivalent of asymmetric warfare, which is increasingly understood because the rise of the South and East at the expense of the North and West has brought some Obstructive Marketing stratagems into sharp focus. Using the author’s own research, this book explains what Obstructive Marketing is and why it is not called Anti-Marketing. The author explains who practises Obstructive Marketing, where, when and how; and why businesses are particularly vulnerable when entering new markets and engaging in change and innovation. Intriguing concepts such as cultural risk are illuminated along with formal links between Obstructive Marketing, asymmetric warfare and terrorism. This all leads to identification of the need for a strong Government/Business partnership to counter the effects of this darkest kind of marketing.

Resilience is an increasingly important concept and quality in today’s world. It is particularly important in the area of Critical Infrastructures. It is crucial in the area of Critical Information Infrastructure. This is because, since the year 2000, man has been dependent on information and telecommunications systems for survival, particularly in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, and because all other Critical Inf- structures depend upon, to a greater or lesser extent, Critical Information 1,2 Infrastructure. Until, probably, the late 1980s it would be fair to say that the defense of individual nation states depended upon a mixture of political will and armed might. The fall of the Berlin Wall may have effectively ended the Cold War, and with it a bipolar world, but it brought globalization and a multipolar digital world in its wake. Simply put, a number of power vacuums were created and these have yet to be fully filled and settled. In this “New World” many changes were afoot. These changes include the increasing irrelevance of nation states in federated structures and the export of democracy on the back of globalization. One of the biggest changes, though, is the use of digital technolo gy by the OECD countries. This is on such a scale that these countries have become both dependent upon information technology and as individual 3 states largely irrelevant to the new “global” electronic economy. 1 This adaptation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is attributed to KPMG.

In Obstructive Marketing, Maitland Hyslop deals with a very negative kind of activity which embraces activities, legal or otherwise, designed to prevent or restrict the distribution of a product or service, temporarily or permanently, against the wishes of the product manufacturer, service provider or customer. When the author defined this phenomenon as Obstructive Marketing and started to research it more than a decade ago, it was seen as a valid concept that was perhaps ahead of its time. The World has moved on and in the era of globalization a study of this negative aspect of marketing is now required. Obstructive Marketing is now seen as the business equivalent of asymmetric warfare, which is increasingly understood because the rise of the South and East at the expense of the North and West has brought some Obstructive Marketing stratagems into sharp focus. Using the author’s own research, this book explains what Obstructive Marketing is and why it is not called Anti-Marketing. The author explains who practises Obstructive Marketing, where, when and how; and why businesses are particularly vulnerable when entering new markets and engaging in change and innovation. Intriguing concepts such as cultural risk are illuminated along with formal links between Obstructive Marketing, asymmetric warfare and terrorism. This all leads to identification of the need for a strong Government/Business partnership to counter the effects of this darkest kind of marketing.