Course Syllabus and Schedule
CLIENT
Playmaker Academy
A Professional Certification Course in Influence Strategy
Instructors:
Alan Kelly, Adjunct Professor and Instructor
John Koval, Assistant Instructor
Telephone:
301-654-6500 (Kelly)
301-654-6500 (Koval)
E-mail:
akelly@playmakersystems.com (Kelly)
jkoval@playmakersystems.com (Koval)
Office Hours:
Available via e-mail or phone: Mondays-Fridays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST
Course Description
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Playmaker Academy is a frontier professional certification course that will change the way you look at the
world and manage within it. Designed for professionals in public affairs, political management, military
information operations, political science, public relations, communications, journalism, and marketing, it is a
first-of-a-kind professional accreditation class adapted from graduate courses taught at The George
Washington University and The University of Southern California. Based on The Playmaker Influence Decision
System (version 2.0), a groundbreaking framework and ontology of the emerging discipline of influence
strategy, Playmaker Academy presents an academically-vetted and industry-tested system for managing
influence, strategy, message, competitors, collaborators and reputation of companies, advocacy issues,
commercial products and initiatives alike. Visit www.playmakersystems.com to view some of this course’s
supporting online resources and educational web tools.
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The class is taught by visionary strategist and author Alan Kelly, an award-winning Silicon Valley PR agency CEO
and currently CEO of Playmaker Systems, a Bethesda, MD-based management consulting firm.
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Class sessions, assignments and examinations will be based on Mr. Kelly’s book, The Elements of Influence
(Dutton 2006), and its framework of 24 strategies, called The Standard Table of Influence.
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Influence Plays, to use the game-based lexicon of Mr. Kelly, are the essential strategies that practitioners of
management, public affairs, politics, media and law use to defend, enhance or advance their agenda and
messages in busy marketplaces, whether by way of careful and quiet collaboration or pitched public battles.
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Coursework will emphasize the ethical application of plays in professional life and seek to significantly improve
students’ awareness and mastery of research-based strategies in all forums, from public affairs to commercial
marketing to sales to social outlets. Working professionals will develop insights into how organizations drive
agendas, re-position and de-position competitive advances, manage reputations and how strategy can be
depicted, simulated, and anticipated.
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Course Outcomes

Completes a student’s understanding and mastery of Influence Strategy, the emerging counterpart to the
disciplines of business and operational strategy. Explains how intangible assets – such as reputation,
credibility and trust – are managed for competitive and collaborative advantage.

Gives students a professionally-portable method and reference framework for analyzing and describing how
players (i.e., organizations and individuals in business, politics and pop culture) use actions, messages and
symbols to develop, assert, defend or salvage their positions or agendas in advocated, media-saturated
marketplaces.

Accelerates a student’s understanding of the basic stratagems that underlie the building of a policy, defense of
an initiative, creation of a program, and management of media (both mainstream and social outlets).
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Adds to a student’s professional tool box a practical and industry-tested lexicon for influencing, strategic
planning, coalition building, brand building, reputation management, media relations and spin de-coding.
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Develops a student’s essential skills in the speed-chess style of today’s marketplaces – to rapidly assess and
execute against the threats and opportunities of professional or governmental landscapes, be they attacks by
activists or breakthrough innovations.
Required Course Readings

Principle Text: Alan Kelly, The Elements of Influence: The New Essential System for Managing Competition,
Reputation, Brand, and Buzz (New York: Dutton, 2006 for hardcover or New York: Plume, 2007 for paperback).

Michael E. Porter, Essay, “What is Strategy?” (Harvard Business Review, 1996.) [link to download]

David Bach and David Allen, “What Every CEO Needs to Know About Nonmarket Strategy”, Spring 2010,
Reprint 51301, Volume 51, Number 3, pages 41-48, 8 pages (MIT Sloan Management Review) [link to
download]

Alan D. Kelly, “On Influence Strategy and Ethics.” Essay [Handout]

Students will be expected to read major daily newspapers and/or news websites (i.e., Washington Post,
Politico.com, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist), stay current with general interest and business news,
and watch (or listen to via Podcast) the Sunday-morning political programs (i.e., Meet The Press, Face the
Nation, 60 Minutes).
Course Requirements

Class shall be taught by Alan Kelly.

Class registrants will benefit from prior work experience and/or upper-level coursework in marketing,
communications, public affairs, political communications, journalism, and military information operations.

Teaching is case-based with considerable time for discussion and Q&A, requiring substantial participation of
the student.
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About the Instructor
Alan Kelly is a visionary strategist, author, professor, political analyst, and award-winning Silicon Valley
entrepreneur. Today he is the Founder and CEO of Playmaker Systems, LLC, a Washington D.C. area
management consulting firm that specializes in competitive strategy and whose services and products are
based on a breakthrough decision system for influence professionals. The firm’s clients and partners include
Abbott, Booz Allen Hamilton, Dell, HP, Intel, Royal Dutch Shell, SAP, the U.S. Department of Defense, and
VMware.
Kelly’s work is driven by a simple idea: That influence – like chemistry, biology, language and even music– is
underlain by a single system of irreducibly unique elements. In this regard, he envisions a modern lingua
franca for managers of reputations, brands and other intangible assets, applicable across industries,
governments and cultures.
Kelly’s development of a breakthrough periodic table of influence in 2004 is testament to his vision for a
comprehensive standard in the industries of influence – notably management, strategy, marketing, sales,
advertising, public relations, public affairs, and information warfare. It is a system that names, describes and
prescribes the work of playmakers everywhere, exhaustively catalogued in his landmark book, The Elements of
Influence: The New Essential System for Managing Competition, Reputation, Brand, and Buzz (Penguin Books
2006).
Kelly is an Adjunct Professor of Political Management at The George Washington University where he teaches
a frontier graduate course entitled, Elements of Influence. He was earlier an Adjunct Professor at the USC
Annenberg School of Communication. Kelly is a regular contributor on Sirius XM satellite radio, P.O.T.U.S. 124,
in the weekly segment Plays for the Presidency, a feature he co-created in 2008. He maintains a blog by the
same name.
In technology and marketing, Kelly is known for his founding and leadership of Applied Communications
Group, a San Francisco-based public relations and research firm that earned distinction for its quantitative
grounding and unique philosophy of competitive communications. From its formation in 1992 to the sale of
its assets in 2003, the firm garnered numerous best-in-class recognitions for its work with Oracle, Hewlett–
Packard, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Genentech, VeriSign, PayPal, Veritas Software, BEA Systems, TechNet and
Informatica, among others.
Kelly, 54, holds a Master’s Degree in Communication Research from Stanford University and a Bachelor’s
Degree in Public Relations from the University of Southern California. He is a member of the Arthur W. Page
Society and a Senior Fellow at the Society for New Communications Research. Kelly lives with his wife and two
children in Maryland and enjoys racing his Etchells one-design sailboat, Playmaker.
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Course Schedule
All readings and speakers are subject to revision and rescheduling as news or special opportunities arise.
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Session 1: Evolution of Strategy: Embracing the Intangibles | The Standard Table of Influence – Low
Engagement Plays
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Lecture:
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Syllabus review: Discuss course outcomes, readings, assignments, and expectations.
Discuss pre-class readings: Compare and contrast past and present perspectives on strategy.
Establish conceptual and practical need for strategy.
Present influence strategy as a counterpart to business and operational strategy to manage
intangible assets.
Detailed review of System 2.0 classes, sub-classes and low-engagement influence strategies TB,
PG, PS, DF, RD, LB and SN
Homework and preparation for this session:
 Michael E. Porter, Essay, “What is Strategy?” (Harvard Business Review, 1996.)
 David Bach and David Allen, “What Every CEO Needs to Know About Nonmarket Strategy” (MIT
Sloan Management Review)
 Online review of low-engagement influence strategies TB, PG, PS, DF, RD, LB and SN.
 Reading: pp. 1-79, 111, 127-143, 299-302, The Elements of Influence.
Session 2: The Standard Table of Influence – Moderate Engagement Plays
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Lecture:
 Discuss homework readings.
 Discuss Facebook Plays of the Week
 Detailed review of System 2.0 moderate-engagement influence strategies RC, FL, LN, DX, MI, BG,
JM, FT, CH, CW and DR
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Homework and preparation for this session:
 Online review of moderate-engagement influence strategies RC, FL, LN, DX, MI, BG, JM, FT, CH,
CW and DR
 Reading: pp. 112-126, 144-190, 199-212, 236-242, The Elements of Influence.
 Facebook Play of the Week. Go to Playmaker Systems Facebook page
(www.facebook.com/PlaymakerSystems) or search Playmaker Systems in the Facebook search
bar. You may be required to “Like” the page first. Post a link to the Playmaker’s Wall. Describe
in a couple of sentences in the “What’s On Your Mind” window how a recent news development
relates to the play you’ve chosen. The news item is your choice to make. For example, you
might write, “General Electric’s maneuver as described in this article [link] is likely a Draft play.”
You should then describe how and why it’s a Draft. Along with posting your own link to The
Playmaker’s Facebook Wall, you must comment on at least two (2) other stories that your fellow
classmates have posted. In posting your comments, think about and describe how a certain
constituency, pressure group, rival business/leader might counter (or accelerate) that play, etc.
Be creative and leverage The Standard Table for ideas. Submissions are due by 5 p.m. the day
before the next session.
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Session 3: The Standard Table of Influence Strategies – High Engagement Plays, Surrogates | Game Play
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Lecture:
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Discuss homework readings
Discuss Facebook Plays of the Week
Review/update activity of final session influence wargame case
Detailed review of high-engagement influence strategies
Strategy Game: Exercise and topic TBA by professor during class. Divide into four equal teams
(red, blue, white, green)
Homework and preparation for this session:
 Reading: pp. 243-251, 229-235, 213-219, 220-228, 192-197, 252-267,The Elements of Influence.
 Online review of high-engagement influence strategies CZ, TR (formerly Preempt), PK, CT, BT and
surrogates.
 Facebook Play of the Week. Repeat instructions from Session 2.
Session 4: Ethics and Values in Influence Strategy | Supporting Principles of Influence Strategy | Game Play
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Lecture:
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Discuss homework readings
Review/update activity of final session influence wargame case
Detailed review of ethics, values and propaganda vis-a-vis influence strategy
Strategy Game: Exercise and topic TBA by professor during class. Divide into four equal teams
(red, blue, white, green)
Detailed review of Standard Cycles of Influence (formerly The Playmaker’s Process), a
methodology for integrating research and deploying influence strategies proactively and as a
defense to competition.
Detailed review of Standard Factors of Influence (formerly Factors at Play), a supporting
classification of influence strategy variables
Detailed review of the principle of “Fit & Friction;” differentiating “Alpha” and “Beta” stratagems;
blended or “Harmonic” stratagems
Detailed review of “Targeting and Scope” (not in text).
Group exercise: Analysis and deconstruction of selected corporate influence campaigns
Homework and preparation for this session:
 Reading: Essay, Alan Kelly, “On Influence Strategy and Ethics.”
 Reading: pp. 268-295, The Elements of Influence.
 Online review of The Standard Cycle of Influence and Standard Factors of Influence
 Facebook Play of the Week. Repeat instructions from Session 2.
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