Ep36: Wholehearted work Is Crucial To Your Business. Learn Why! Benjamin Taylor – CX RedQuadrant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFfgoQroTcM
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Cognadev | Blog | Models of Work Complexity: A Comparison of the SST, VSM and IPM
I thought I had shared this before (maybe on model.report?) and I’m not exactly sure of the validity of the comparison; the core table itself shows that the other two models are talking about levels of thinking capability, and Beer is not (Beer is talking about different meta-languages) – but, interesting.
Models of Work Complexity: A Comparison of the SST, VSM and IPM
Cognadev | Blog | Models of Work Complexity: A Comparison of the SST, VSM and IPM
April 4, 2019 | By Maretha Prinsloo
Understanding Society: How are institutions sustained, reproduced, and changed?
Understanding Society Daniel Little
Saturday, November 6, 2021
How are institutions sustained, reproduced, and changed? Institutions are “supra-individual”, in the sense that they establish a context of identity and mental-framework formation for all individuals, and they create the environment of choice for the current actions of individuals. Further, they exercise an influence that is beyond the control of any particular individual or group of individuals. But at the same time, institutions are constituted at a given time by individuals and their mental frameworks, actions, and interactions with other individuals. This is the thrust of the idea of ontological individualism. This raises an important question for sociological theory: what are the chief mechanisms through which institutions preserve their properties over time and personnel change, and what mechanisms lead to change in institutions over time?
Understanding Society: How are institutions sustained, reproduced, and changed?
Cybernetics Expert Advocates for Systems-Led Thought Process and Balancing Risk with Innovation – Urban Land Magazine
Cybernetics Expert Advocates for Systems-Led Thought Process and Balancing Risk with Innovation By Mark Cooper November 4, 2021
Cybernetics Expert Advocates for Systems-Led Thought Process and Balancing Risk with Innovation – Urban Land Magazine
Cybernetics Expert Advocates for Systems-Led Thought Process and Balancing Risk with Innovation
By Mark Cooper
November 4, 2021
Technology, cybernetics, and the importance of innovation were at the heart of the final day of ULI Asia Pacific’s REImagine virtual conference.
Keynote speaker Dr. Catherine Ball, a scientific futurist, spoke about the important of using systems-led thinking in order to build better cities and spaces. She introduced the audience to the concept of cybernetics, which she defined as “the triangle of humans, technology, and the environment.” She noted that many ULI members, especially architects and engineers, might realize they have been working inside cybernetics but had never really thought of it like that. A building in a city or a city’s streets can be seen as cybernetic systems.
Ball also spoke about the importance of innovation. “I recently presented to some [corporate] directors in New Zealand,” she said, “and asked them if they had a risk committee. Of course, 100 percent did. However, far fewer had an innovation committee.” Yet innovation and risk are two sides of the same coin, she argued.
Scientific Futurist, Dr Catherine Ball demystifies how a cybernetic approach that considers how people, technology, and environment intersects, can be a powerful tool to anticipate and prepare for disruptions in the built environment at #ULIREImagine.https://t.co/iFNsKBA3eJ pic.twitter.com/ELGOoD0XkA
— ULI Asia Pacific (@ULIAsiaPacific) November 3, 2021
One of the key human skills is problem-solving, however we need to be better at identifying problems in order to apply solutions, which may already exist, she said. Systematic thinking is required to apply technology to problem-solving. Cybernetics can be an active way of looking at problem identification and problem solving, thinking about a project in terms of technology, humans, and the environment.
She asked people involved in development projects to consider the phrase converge, diverge, emerge. Developers and planners should look at how the technologies they use are converging and how they help build a better city. Divergence refers to the separation of technologies, which might include leaving it out, for example leaving green space apart in cities rather than trying to integrate green space into buildings. Finally, emerging technologies need to be considered because they “are changing everything about how we’re going to live, work and play in the next few years.”
Ball is one of the world’s leading experts on the applications of drone technology and postulated a future in which drone charging stations might become a feature of all major buildings in the future, as gargoyles were on medieval buildings in Europe.
Another way to think systematically about projects or problems is to consider what is possible, what is probably, and what is preferable, she said. “If you can think about the possible, probable, and the preferable, it will give you a futurist point of view on how we try and think about the future and how it’s coming.”
The second part of the program looked at how ULI member firms in Asia Pacific are innovating and integrating technology into their businesses. Sven Sylvester, corporate innovation lead at Taronga Ventures, presented the results of a joint survey with ULI Asia Pacific, to understand was how different real estate organizations are structured to deliver innovation.
The survey found that 60 percent of companies had established a technology team and that just over half (53 percent) of these said their innovation strategy met or exceeded their expectations. Meanwhile 36 percent of respondents said their firm has established an innovation team, but a much higher proportion (89 percent) of these said their innovation strategy met or exceeded their expectations, suggesting a dedicated innovation strategy was advisable. However, only 20 percent of firms had appointed a chief innovation officer.
The survey found that 62 percent of firms are already partnering with tech companies, 42 percent were developing new tech products internally, and 35 percent were directly investing in tech companies. The key areas for innovation for respondents were data analytics, cited by 63 percent, project management (62 percent), and transaction management (61 percent). However only 27 percent were innovating to source capital, which Sylvester suggested showed an opportunity for the industry.
Perhaps understandably, the biggest obstacle to innovation was resistance to change, cited by 53 percent of respondents, as well as “business-as-usual conflicts,” i.e., innovation having to compete with everyone’s day job. Lack of resources for innovation was only cited by 28 percent, however.
A panel of real estate professionals discussed the findings of the report and agreed that education and communication was crucial to creating an innovative company as was having KPIs which encouraged innovative behavior. The education process also needs to be collaborative across the value chain of real estate, said Jean de Castro, CEO of ESCA, a Philippines-based engineering consultancy.
Ivan Ko, CEO, Hong Kong and China at Kailong Group, said the disruptive effects of the pandemic had made people more interested in innovation and keener to engage, while Herbin Koh, director and growth equity lead at Gaw Capital Partners, said experimentation at a smaller scale helped his firm boost innovation overall.
How do you change complex systems? Center for Humane Technology
A FRAMEWORK FOR CHANGING COMPLEX SYSTEMS
How do you change complex systems?
| In this newsletter, we offer a preliminary framework for how to intervene in complex systems, provide our highlights from Frances Haugen’s UK testimony last week, and share a new resource for educators wanting to bring The Social Dilemma into the classroom. |
| A FRAMEWORK FOR CHANGING COMPLEX SYSTEMS |
| As we learned from the Facebook Files, social media’s operating model is having disastrous effects on our global society. We’re 15 years into a mass experiment where our attention is mined for profit, and we’re seeing escalating distraction, addiction, outrage, and polarization in ways that are degrading our mental health, social cohesion, and democratic institutions. Where do we go from here? Actionable change requires elevating the discussion beyond harms and towards a systems perspective. Inspired by Donella Meadows’ 12 Leverage Points to Intervene in a System, we developed a simplified framework of leverage points for how to intervene in the extractive tech ecosystem. |
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APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK The Leverage Points Framework shows that change happens at multiple levels with different degrees of impact. Importantly, it demonstrates why pushes for immediate design tweaks at major platforms must be paired with longer-term systemic reform, like changing the fundamental business models. Generally, leverage increases from left to right on the framework. However, so does the difficulty of implementing changes. Because of this, multiple efforts at multiple points of leverage are important. As follows are working definitions and examples for each lever: |
| 1. Platform Changes: Platform changes are adjustments that platforms themselves make in the design (visual, interactive, etc.) of their platforms. For example, platforms can choose to prompt users via a notification to read an article before sharing it. While these design changes can have material impact (e.g., an action like changing the Share button as #OneClickSafer proposes), they don’t address root cause issues stemming from the operating model.2. Internal Governance: Internal governance changes are implemented by decision-makers within platforms to shift how internal systems and structures operate. Examples could include having The Facebook Oversight Board oversee unsafe design features (not simply whether a piece of content is bad or good) or changing employee bonuses to pay out for increasing people’s safety and well-being (not for increasing user engagement).3. External Regulation: External regulation occurs when outside forces, such as legislators or regulators, pass laws that set common platform safety requirements, limit age-appropriate design features, force interoperability with competing platforms, or create liabilities for unsafe business practices or harms. While these changes take longer to enact, they are more enduring with higher impact potential. Recent examples include the GDPR, COPPA, and the proposed KIDS Act.4. Business Model: Business model changes shift the fundamental operations and profit structures of a firm. An example would include a social media platform that moves to a subscription model with a sliding scale to ensure broad access. Business model changes may arise from internal or external regulation, supply and demand changes (e.g., a lawsuit that makes the current “viral engagement” business models unaffordable, therefore changing what venture capitalists deem profitable), or operating system changes (e.g., Apple changing iOS to limit user tracking and reducing the profitability of surveillance business models.)5. Economic Goal: Economic goal changes are when the orientation of the system itself transforms through regulation, investor behavior, new financial models, or new market entrants. An example would be if Facebook was accountable to metrics that reflect a healthier society (instead of optimizing for quarterly profits) or was turned into a public benefit corporation based on a stakeholder model as opposed to a shareholder model.6. Operating Paradigm: Paradigm changes are the highest leverage point and most difficult to shift. They occur when there is widespread change in our core beliefs, values, behaviors, and operating norms. Examples include:A mass shift in consumer sentiment, as with Big Tobacco and cigarettes, which over several decades went from being “cool” to dangerous and lethal. Similarly, this could happen in public attitudes towards “viral engagement” social media with people shifting to seeing it as dangerous. A change in the cultural beliefs of technologists, who shift to seeing attention-harvesting, “race to the bottom of the brain stem” addictive platforms as unethical and dangerous to society. As a society, changing the North Star of what we’re seeking. This could be done by asking ourselves, is our ultimate goal to have “30% less toxic social media” than we do now? Or is it to build humane technology that enables thriving 21st-century digital societies? |
| This is a preliminary framework. We’d value your feedback on how to improve it. Please drop us a note at hello@humanetech.com with your thoughts. |
Systems Thinking FishBowl | Systems At Play – Thursday November 25, 2021 7am UK time
Thursday, November 25, 2021 Systems Thinking FishBowl
Systems Thinking FishBowl | Meetup
Thursday, November 25, 2021
Systems Thinking FishBowl
David WitneyHosted by
David Witney and 2 othersSystems At PlayPrivate group?Thursday, November 25, 2021
7:00 AM to 8:00 AM GMT
Add to calendar
Online event
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82813350349?pwd=c3VYMDhEakp1RVptcWlLUUdaTDdmdz09Report this event
Details
Hi Systems Thinkers,
This time last year we kicked off the community with our first meetup event and every alternate month since then thanks to our speakers we have had a session to share their wisdom on all things systems thinking.
To mark our first year as a Systems Thinking Community and as the last event for 2021, we have invited our past speakers to be a part of a panel discussion using the “fishbowl” technique.
If you have not heard about the concept of a FishBowl, it has an inner circle of speakers and an outer circle of listeners, and a spare chair is present in the inner circle for the outer circle to join the inner circle – but one at a time. We will give you more info on the FishBowl approach at the start of the session.
The speakers we have confirmed for this event are:
– Joan Lurie: CEO of Orgonomix, Organisational Ecologist
– Pauline Roberts: Entrepreneur, Lecturer, & Systems Practitioner
– Bryan Hopkins: Sustainability learning and development consultant
– Luke Craven: Strategic designer, researcher and systems change practitioner
– You: Systems At Play Community Members
Please visit our YouTube channel to watch the recorded talks and appreciate if you can subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo3t9w3qN0JNOCoIQIEyFnw
We sincerely thank all our speakers for the gifts they brought to our community this year – we are truly awed by their wisdom and thankful for their contributions.
It has been a privilege for us, the Organizers, to be able to bring these talks to you, our community, and thanks to your participation we have reached over 230 systems thinking enthusiasts.
*Our ask of you*:
We would love to hear from you on what you think might be good topics to talk through.
We have also chosen to support the Waters Centre and we ask you to make a small or big donation to their cause so they can offer more free resources connected to their systems thinking outreach.
They are an official US 502(c)(3) charitable organization, serving people from all around the world by offering online learning modules, facilitation guides, and resources.
The money raised will go towards supporting the creation of digital flip cards of the Habits of a Systems Thinking in other languages.
This is a trust based contribution and we hope you make a donation to this charity if you have registered for the free event:
https://thinkingtoolsstudio.waterscenterst.org/donate
The Joker in the Box or The Theory Form of the System | Baecker (2002)
The Joker in the Box or The Theory Form of the System Dirk Baecker
(53) (PDF) The Joker in the Box or The Theory Form of the System | Dirk Baecker – Academia.edu
The Joker in the Box or The Theory Form of the System
Dirk Baeckerin: Cybernetics and Human Knowing 9 (2002), pp. 39-62
ABSTRACT:
Compared with traditional theories, systems theory presents a deviation. It re-places causal explanation by functional explanation. This paper shows what scandalon is in-herent in this substitution and elucidates some models (self-organization, dance, non-triviality, structural coupling) which put the explanatory principle to work. The paper con-cludes by showing how systems theory aims at a general concept of communication that notonly means a passing on of knowledge but above all the tracing of ignorance. Overall, sys-tems theory is presented as a joker dealing with the paradox that the system is never identicalto itself as soon as it is considered as a function of itself and its environment. The system hasto withdraw into the function it is a function of in order to enfold this paradox
Aphanipoiesis – Nora Bateson
https://norabateson.wordpress.com/2021/11/04/aphanipoiesis/
The Systemic Concept of Contextual Truth
Andrzej Bielecki
Foundations of Science volume26,pages807–824 (2021)
In this paper the truth is studied in the frame of autonomous systems theory. The method of the truth verification is worked out in its functional aspect. The verification is based on comparison of the predicted inner state of the autonomous agent, that is the cognitive subject, to the achieved inner state of the agent. The state is achieved as the result of performing the action in the real world—the agent’s environment. The action design is created on the basis of the agent’s model of the world. The truth is defined as the adequacy of the model of the real world in the context of the goal that is assumed to be reached as the effect of the performed action. The concepts of the cognitive subject, the truth bearings and the knowledge are redefined. The classical problems of aletheiology and epistemology are discussed…
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New documentary captures power of complexity to safeguard humanity’s future | Santa Fe Institute
New documentary captures power of complexity to safeguard humanity’s future | Santa Fe Institute
New documentary captures power of complexity to safeguard humanity’s future
OCTOBER 28, 2021
Will the 21st century be humanity’s greatest, or our worst? According to the award-winning new documentary “Solutions,” which was filmed on-location at the Santa Fe Institute, the answer depends on the decisions we make in the next couple of decades, and on our ability to work across disciplines and continents to find revolutionary solutions.
Making its U.S. debut at this year’s United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF) in Palo Alto, CA on October 31, “Solutions” captures a gathering of some of the world’s leading thinkers at SFI. Over 10 days, 20 visionary scientists and innovators examined the growing gap between physical technologies like automation and AI, and social institutions like governments and healthcare systems. Warning that “When society is detached from reality, bad things happen,” the film serves as an urgent call to action.
New documentary captures power of complexity to safeguard humanity’s future
New documentary captures power of complexity to safeguard humanity’s future | Santa Fe Institute
Jobs: Applied Complexity Fellowship in Scaling Theory for Social Systems | Santa Fe Institute
https://www.santafe.edu/about/jobs/Applied-Complexity-Fellowship-in-Scaling-Theory-fo
Winter Workshop on Complex Systems 2022, Jan 24-28, ‘in the East of France’
Winter Workshop on Complex Systems 2022 The Winter Workshop on Complex Systems is a one-week workshop where young researchers from all over the world gather together for discussing complex systems. The primary focus of the workshop is for participants to engage into novel research projects. This is the 7th edition of the WWCS and it will be held in East of France from January 24th to January 28th 2022. Previously it was held in Brussels, Madrid, Petnica, Utrecht, Zakopane, and Charmey.
Winter Workshop on Complex Systems 2022
Combining Historical and Philosophical Approaches to Understand the Concept of Information in Animal Behaviour Research – YouTube
Combining Historical and Philosophical Approaches to Understand the Concept of Information in Animal
Combining Historical and Philosophical Approaches to Understand the Concept of Information in Animal – YouTube
Santa Fe Institute
Talk by Kelle Dhein, University of Kentucky.
Abstract: Biologists regularly apply the concept of information in their work (e.g. echolocation gives bats information about their surroundings, DNA carries information about how to build an organism), and while their usage makes intuitive sense in context, it is difficult to articulate precisely what they mean when they invoke information. Some argue that Shannon’s technical, mathematically defined notion of information is the proper starting point for understanding informational content in biology. Others have sought to define content-presupposing concepts like information in terms of the historical selection processes that drive evolution. However, it is unclear whether these approaches have produced definitions that capture the way successful researchers in the behavioral sciences use content presupposing concepts like information. In this talk, I emphasize the importance of attending to scientists’ investigative practices and historical context when confronting problems about what scientists mean when they invoke the concept of information. First, I examine a successful, longstanding experimental tradition whose practitioners have consistently ascribed informational content to the neurosensory mechanisms of insects. By analyzing the way scientists design and interpret experiments to justify claims about information, I clarify the norms guiding scientists’ ascriptions of content to produce a pragmatic definition of information. I argue that the norms guiding scientists’ ascriptions of content bear some resemblance to formal information theory, that they rely upon a cybernetic notion of biological function, and that they have practical value for scientists. Second, I adjudicate the cognitive map debate in animal navigation studies. Mammalian navigation researchers have long held the cognitive map hypothesis to be an established fact. However, the cognitive map hypothesis has engendered an ongoing, decades-long debate among insect navigation researchers, especially those referenced in the last paragraph. By attending to the personal histories of the scientists leading the debate and the broader history of animal behavior research, I show how older debates about instinct vs. learning that were supposedly neutralized in the 20th century continue to motivate this debate over how insects process information. Finally, I ask a question that encompasses both problems addressed so far: What ever happened to cybernetics? In the late 1940s, the information age was most clearly heralded by the newly mobilized science of cybernetics, which promised to synthesize human, animal, and machine behavior using recently formalized notions of information, feedback, and control. As the 21st century drew nearer, most academics came to regard cybernetics as a dead movement. Nevertheless, some behavioral scientists continue to see revolutionary potential in the concept of information for synthesizing understandings of behavior, and although researchers continue to grapple with the problem of comparing animal and machine behavior, biologically-inspired advances in artificial intelligence seem to be realizing the cyberneticians’ prophesy. For example, the insect navigation research referenced in the last two paragraphs has been used to design autonomous robots. I conclude by arguing that current attempts to use information to compare human, animal, and machine behavior would benefit from historical and pragmatic contextualizations that reveal how such projects relate to their fore-bearers from the dawn of the information age. Learn more at https://santafe.edu Follow us on social media: https://twitter.com/sfisciencehttps://instagram.com/sfisciencehttps://facebook.com/santafeinstitutehttps://facebook.com/groups/santafein…https://linkedin.com/company/santafei… Subscribe to SFI’s official podcasts: https://complexity.simplecast.comhttps://aliencrashsite.org
The Power to Shift a System – 18 November 2021, 2pm GMT – the Rockwool Foundation
The Power to Shift a System Webinar: November 18th Join us for the first in this free webinar series on November 18th Time: 15:00-16:15 CET / 14:00-15:15 GMT / 9-10:15 EST
Invitation: The Power to Shift a System – 18 November – benjamin.taylor@redquadrant.com – RedQuadrant Mail
email:
 |
| The Power to Shift a System Webinar: November 18th |
Join us for the first in this free webinar series on November 18th Time: 15:00-16:15 CET / 14:00-15:15 GMT / 9-10:15 EST Charles Leadbeater and Jennie Winhall, from the Systems Innovation Initiative at the ROCKWOOL Foundation, outline a new framework to understand how people gain the power to reshape systems, in conversation with:Jeff Cyr, Raven Indigenous Capital Kenneth Bailey, The Design Studio for Social Intervention Afton Halloran, Sustainable Food Systems Transitions Register hereAs systems change becomes more urgent, so does the question of who has the power to shift systems. Does it lie with powerful insiders and institutions, or activists and social movements? Where does the power to initiate change come from and how can hard and soft power be harnessed together to shift a system? In this webinar we will share a new practical framework to help systems innovators identify in practice where power lies in a system, how it can be redirected and where the opportunities are to mobilise power in new forms to meet a new system purpose. The framework is set out in a new essay The Power to Shift Systems. Sign up to the webinar to receive an advance copy by email ahead of the event. Our paper Building Better Systems introduced four keys to unlock system innovation: purpose, power, relationships and resource flows. Through this webinar series over the next few months we will be sharing new frameworks to put these keys to work, and delving deeper into the issues involved with a host of inspiring systems innovation practitioners. When registering for this first event on power you can sign up to receive alerts for the subsequent events on purpose, relationships, resource flows and more. We hope you will join us in what will be the first of many interesting talks and discussions. Can’t make it? Subscribe to our mailing list here for future events and early access to new material. Best wishes, The ROCKWOOL Foundation |
New book from Chris Mowles: Complexity: a key idea for business and society
LinkedIn update:
Feed | LinkedIn
Published at the end of the month: Complexity – a key idea for business and society.
This book interprets insights from the complexity sciences
to explore seven types of complexity better to understand
the predictable unpredictability of social life. Drawing on
the natural and social sciences, it describes how complexity
models are helpful, but insufficient for our understanding
of complex reality. The book will be of interest to
researchers, professionals, academics and students in the
fields of business and management, especially those
interested in how taking the radical insights from complexity seriously can influence the functioning of businesses and organisations and how they manage and lead.
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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