Good discussion starting here on the framework for web strategy, and over here at Jonathans site.  A set of related posts going on here from JP at Confused.

Web Strategy: The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (and the skills required)

The Web Strategist must understand (by using a variety of techniques and tactics) what users want. This is commonly known as User Experience Research which will create and craft a ‘mental model’. In addition, the strategist will need to be in tune with the community in which their website is part of, this is greater than just users, as it will include competitors, partners, and prospects.

My thought is that the community/ fourth element aspect needs more work.  Here is my comment on Jeremiahs site.

I would suggest a modification to the community view, and to
Jonathans 4th element. More and more its becoming evident to me that
the old term customer centric might hold clues to how to think about
people beyond the UI aspects of your site.

People interact with their own sites through their own unique ways;
call it the peoples general web lifestyle (GWL). What becomes vital is
to understand how your site will fit into their GWL. A traditional UI
view is the opposite of that, and trying to slot the person into your
firms web lifestyle.

The GWL includes web, social networks, portals, RSS, email, mobile
etc. Understanding how that works and how people want it to work,
facilitates a more people process oriented view that can be engineered,
and included in the UI design of your site.

I keep coming back to something that Bill Gates spoke of exactly 10 years ago, and included in the tagline of this blog – the Web Lifestyle.

“Within
a decade, the majority of North
Americans will be living a Web Lifestyle.”
– Bill Gates, chairman, Microsoft, 1997

I accidentally gave it an acronym now – General Web Lifestyle (GWL).  To expand on GWL, everyone interacts with the web slightly differently, and those interactions are not exclusive to the web.  The fact that the prediction included the word web was probably an error, but it doesn’t matter now.  The GWL is here, and evolving in new ways as we speak.  We have evolved from standalone sites, to portals, to social networks, and now to application ready social networks;  more to come.

That overused and misunderstood term, ‘user centric’ is a clue as to where to begin. Broadly speaking people are finding more and better ways to use the web, but the undercurrent is about control;  gaining control over their time, and their information.

Everyone is inundated with too much information, and filters are important.  Of course not everyone thinks specifically in those terms, but its one way to characterise how people make choices, and how they determine the best ways for themselves to interact with people and services.  

Once we begin to think in terms of the evolution of peoples interactions, then we can begin to see how our own site(s) will fit into that interaction.  To me, this is the future of marketing, and it has no room for ‘interruption marketing’.  Lots more to come.