A friend on facebook wrote:

A very smart friend of mine once co-wrote a paper simulating various things to do with petrol shortages and looking at policy options and an interesting thing they came up with was the idea of having a MINIMUM ration – eg if you have to take at least £30 of petrol in one go then it stops the “topping off” behaviour which can lead to queues at forecourts. Basically a fuel panic transfers fuel stocks from garage tanks to the tanks of “lucky” motorists and there is a huge national capacity in fuel tanks which aren’t normally filled. This leads to problems downstream when many people are using up the stock in their car and so there is a dip in demand at the filling stations and delivery schedules get disrupted.

Pdf: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org.sci-hub.se/document/6746154?fbclid=IwAR3ZKBUyR6mcfi0NLOHGQW8MPUilpe5WGF12hzO8P6BJdg0lEpHDFYm90tA

Fuel Panics: Insights From Spatial Agent-Based Simulation Publisher: IEEE Cite This PDF Eben Upton; William James Nuttall All Authors 6 Paper Citations 517 Full Text Views Abstract Document Sections I. Introduction II. Fuel Panics: The U.K. Experience III. Agent-Based Simulation Authors Figures References Citations Keywords Metrics Footnotes Abstract: The United Kingdom has twice suffered major disruptions as a result of fuel panics, first in September 2000, coincident with a wave of fuel protests, and, more recently, in March 2012, following political warnings of a possible future supply chain disruption. In each case, the disruption and economic consequences were serious. In this paper, we demonstrate that agent-based techniques offer a powerful framework for simulation of supply chains and consumers under conditions of transient demand. In the case of fuel panic crisis, we show that even a highly abstract model can reproduce a range of transient phenomena seen in the real world and present a set of practical recommendations for policymakers faced with panic buying. Published in: IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems ( Volume: 15, Issue: 4, Aug. 2014)

Fuel Panics: Insights From Spatial Agent-Based Simulation | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore

Fuel Panics: Insights From Spatial Agent-Based Simulation

Publisher: IEEECite This

PDF

Eben Upton; William James Nuttall

AbstractDocument Sections

• I.Introduction
• II.Fuel Panics: The U.K. Experience
• III.Agent-Based Simulation

AuthorsFiguresReferencesCitationsKeywordsMetricsFootnotesAbstract:The United Kingdom has twice suffered major disruptions as a result of fuel panics, first in September 2000, coincident with a wave of fuel protests, and, more recently, in March 2012, following political warnings of a possible future supply chain disruption. In each case, the disruption and economic consequences were serious. In this paper, we demonstrate that agent-based techniques offer a powerful framework for simulation of supply chains and consumers under conditions of transient demand. In the case of fuel panic crisis, we show that even a highly abstract model can reproduce a range of transient phenomena seen in the real world and present a set of practical recommendations for policymakers faced with panic buying.Published in: IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems ( Volume: 15, Issue: 4, Aug. 2014)

Building community health – through systems convening and supporting staff self-awareness (5pm London time) Learn about the role of Systems Convening in a pioneering community health project in Yorkshire – which used Mindfulness and more to support changes in behaviour and awareness. Get Involved Communities of Practice Leadership Development Programme Q Visits Q Exchange Network Weaving: learning series Journals and Learning Resources QI Connect WebEx series Upcoming events Past events Your events Add your event Live streaming and webinar tools Resources Your resources Add your resource Report: The role of improvement during the response to COVID-19 Supporting local learning 14 Oct 2021 17:00 – 18:00 London Zoom Sharethis content Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Following on from the book launch of ‘Systems Convening – a crucial form of leadership for the 21st century‘ (free download here), we’re bringing to Q a series of follow-up Zooms delving deeper into the case studies featured in the book. ** Register here to receive your personal Zoom login ** This first one features Q member Esther Hall, who will share her work on a Sport England-funded community health development programme in Withernsea, Yorkshire, that used a Mindfulness/adult development programme to help staff be more self-aware, hold more complex views of the world, hear past their own agendas, especially in a community setting. All the things that one would associate with waking up to our later stages of adult development. (Is this the ‘inner journey’ of systems convener?). Esther ran a programme developed by University of Aberystwyth Mindfulness researcher Dr Rachel Lilley to help with this inner shift. She will share details about the real impact it created, and the interesting dynamics that emerged. Esther will also highlight the role of ‘Systems Convening’ in the project – and we hope to be able to briefly compare her experience with the ‘Systems Convening’ efforts in another Sport England-funded pilot project in the same series (in Greater Manchester). This one hour Zoom will explore: 1) Why we brought adult development into this community development project 2) Participant discussion: an opportunity to discuss our experience around building staff self-awareness 3) Dr Lilley’s programme and and the effects it generated in participants 4) Changes to the project resulting from Covid Esther is the convener of the Q group Closing the gap: developing improvers for a complex world.

Building community health – through systems convening and supporting staff self-awareness (5pm London time) | Q Community

To the Systems Convening mailing group, Matthew Mezey of the Q Community said:

Next month: all welcome to join the Q Community’s ‘Systems Convening’ Zoom on Oct 14th – building community health

Esther Hall, who is featured in the book, will also share her research on the ‘inner journey’ of Systems Conveners.

More info/to register: https://q.health.org.uk/event/building-community-health-through-systems-convening-and-supporting-staff-self-awareness-5pm-london-time/

Snippet from the event page:
This first one features Q member Esther Hall, who will share her work on a Sport England-funded community health development programme in Withernsea, Yorkshire, that used a Mindfulness/adult development programme to help staff be more self-aware, hold more complex views of the world, hear past their own agendas, especially in a community setting. All the things that one would associate with waking up to our later stages of adult development. (Is this the ‘inner journey’ of systems convener?).

Esther ran a programme developed by University of Aberystwyth Mindfulness researcher Dr Rachel Lilley to help with this inner shift. She will share details about the real impact it created, and the interesting dynamics that emerged.

Esther will also highlight the role of ‘Systems Convening’ in the project – and we hope to be able to briefly compare her experience with the ‘Systems Convening’ efforts in another Sport England-funded pilot project in the same series (in Greater Manchester).

Human Learning Systems: The Role of National Government in Systems Innovation

Human Learning Systems: The Role of National Government in Systems Innovation | Si Network

Human Learning Systems is a complexity-inspired approach to public services. It is an alternative approach to public management which embraces the complexity of the real world, and enables us to work effectively in that complexity.

This approach offers an alternative to the “Markets, Managers and Metrics” approach of New Public Management. It outlines a way of making social action and public service more responsive to the bespoke needs of each person that it serves, and creates an environment in which performance improvement is driven by continuous learning and adaptation. It fosters in leaders a sense of responsibility for looking after the health of the systems, and it is these systems which create positive outcomes in people’s lives.

In this event we will be talking with Toby Lowe – Visiting Prof of Public Management at the Centre for Public Impact – we will explore how the Human Learning Systems offers an alternative paradigm for public management which enables national government to support and enable local systems innovation. 

Anneli Rautiainen and Paula Tyrväinen will also join to speak on their experience implementing such an approach with the Innovation Centre of the Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI).

This event will be run by Si London hub and hosted by Mark McCoy and John Mortimer

How partners mediate platform power: Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem Fernando N van der Vlist, Anne HelmondFirst Published June 14, 2021 Research Article https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211025061

How partners mediate platform power: Mapping business and data partnerships in the social media ecosystem – Fernando N van der Vlist, Anne Helmond, 2021

A mind-boggling bit of network mapping work

See also (on adtech):

https://warzel.substack.com/p/the-internets-original-sin

Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: Practical Examples

Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: Practical Examples | Meetup

Alidad Hamidi says:

In the next Systems At Play Community Meetup, we will hear from Luke Craven,  a Canberra-based systems consultant and researcher with over a decade of experience in Australian public sector who is also known for developing the System Effects methodology.

*** The Topic ***
There is growing excitement in the power and possibility of systems thinking as a tool to drive real, transformative change in the public sector and beyond.

But do the results live up to the hype?

In this talk, Luke will reflect on his experiences as a systems thinking practitioner to argue that despite our best intentions, most organisations still apply the concept of “systems” as a loose metaphor—a systems gloss—that adopts the language but not the fundamental logic or principles of systems thinking.

With case studies and war stories, Luke will share a number of practical examples of how he has responded to his challenge to position systems thinking as a tool that can make a difference.

Linguistic relativity From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis /səˌpɪər ˈwɔːrf/, the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers’ worldview or cognition, and thus people’s perceptions are relative to their spoken language.

Linguistic relativity – Wikipedia

Was looking for a nice intro/overview piece to ‘phenomenological ontology’ but ran out of time.

A cogent response from John McWhorter:

Inspired by this Twitter exchange:

Transactionalism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search Transactionalism is a pragmatic philosophical approach that views social exchange as a fundamental aspect of human existence; all human interactivity is best understood as a set of transactions within a reciprocal and co-constitutive exchange. A transactionalist approach is an “unfractured observation” of human being as an organism who shapes and is shaped by their environment (“organism-environment”), always thinking of themself as embedded within and constituted by their situated-ness in a specific time and place.[1] It is critical, therefore, to keep in mind that “consequences and outcomes”[2] of a human endeavor are affected by three aspects of experience beyond one’s intention — the observer in the situation, the process of observing, and the thing observed — that are all “affected by whatever merits or defects [the situation] may prove to have when it is judged”.[3] A transactionalist holds that all human acts, including learning,[4] are best understood as “entities” within a transactional whole shaped biologically, socio-linguistically, and trans-actionally within and by an ecology within other ecologies. A person is shaped by their body and health as an ecology, their language and its common discourses and ideologies, and by their ability to trans-act to make a satisfactory living given those and other necessary conditions of life.

Transactionalism – Wikipedia

Have you ever heard such bollocks in your life?

Until the 1970s, General Systems Theory wouldn’t have found much substance in Lao’s warnings. If events and processes could be reduced to component parts, they held. Things occurred in linear stages of cause-and-effect. If you turned back the clock, things that happened after would, by necessity, become what happened before. And then complexity came along.

see

Anyway, here’s the newsletter with some good links https://mailchi.mp/rebelwisdom.co.uk/newsletter_7?e=87234fd586

And here’s the event – ‘the state of sensemaking’, though they seem as ‘confused’ about the origins of sensemaking as about the origins of understanding complexity:

https://rebelwisdom.co.uk/state-of-sensemaking

The State of Sensemaking will begin and end at the same time both days – starting at 3pm London time / 10am New York / 7am Los Angeles and ending at 9pm London / 4pm New York / 1pm Los Angeles. 

Sign up above to receive the full schedule and Zoom links, which will be released two days before the event begins. We encourage you to join from start to finish if you can, as the event hs been designed as a narrative journey.

The Experience 

The pandemic has added a level of life and death importance to our existing problems of discerning reliable information. We are lost in echo chambers, manipulated by narrative warfare and the hacking of our attention by the big tech platforms. The problem of sensemaking is right at the core of many of our issues. How can we begin to solve our problems if we can’t agree what they are, and have no shared sense of reality?

We need to learn how to make sense of this complex landscape so that we can have authentic, useful conversations with one another about the issues we’re facing. But making sense isn’t a skill we pick up and then apply – it’s an ongoing, dynamic process. That’s why we’ve designed this event as an immersive, participatory experience. It’s a place to find the others and have authentic conversations. A space to experiment with cutting-edge practices and cognitive tools that help us navigate the weirdness, danger and complexity of 2021.

Learn techniques drawn from the latest cognitive science with John Vervaeke. Zoom out and get a fresh perspective on post-pandemic culture with bestselling author Jamie Wheal. Learn game theory from former poker champion and scientist Liv Boeree. Hone your steelmanning skills with Sara Ness, develop your cultural intelligence with Greg Thomas. Drop into emergent dialogue with Pamela von Sabljar, practice psychedelic sensemaking with Alexander Beiner and get better at making sense of the media with David Fuller. 

The State of Sensemaking will include multiple breakouts and group discussions so you can meet other people from around the world interested in these skills, and tap into your own agency, creativity and mental flexibility to apply what you’re learning to your life.

Barriers and enablers to the repair of electrical equipment: Application of the System Effects methodology – EV0285

Defra, UK – Science Search

Reframing Conflict as a Pre-requisite for Systems Change

Reframing Conflict as a Pre-requisite for Systems Change | by Mikael Seppälä | Systems Change Finland | Sep, 2021 | Medium

Very Bad Wizards

217: Dropping Paradigms (Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”)

July 20, 2021

verybadwizards.com/217

I really believe that many of world’s greatest problems are caused – at least in part – by the fact that we continue to count, measure and value the wrong things in the wrong ways.

(3) Thea Snow on Twitter: “I really believe that many of world’s greatest problems are caused – at least in part – by the fact that we continue to count, measure and value the wrong things in the wrong ways.” / Twitter

John Evans is consistently a challenging presence on twitter in his role as ‘fluffbuster’, and we often more-or-less disagree. These examples (links to engineering youtube videos) are great examples of why he’s such a valuable protagonist, and always has a point.

September 2nd, 2021 | Delivery • Justice • Legitimacy Lila Wolff Communications Lead, Hands Up Mallee Rachel Fyfe Communications Manager, Dusseldorp Forum Thea Snow Director, ANZ Storytelling for Systems Change: Early insights from communities and storytellers

Storytelling for Systems Change: Early insights from communities and storytellers | Centre For Public Impact (CPI)