Much as I love the folks at Strong Towns and all my other friends and inspirations in urban and environmental spaces, this is not ‘stupidity’ or ‘trolling’ – though there might be tiny percentage of trolling in there – these are real human, family, and community concerns we must address.
Francis Heylighen2007, Complexity, science and society179 Views21 Pages1 File ▾Show more ▾Abstract: The science of complexity is based on a new way of thinking that stands in sharp contrast to the philosophy underlying Newtonian science, which is based on reductionism, determinism, and objective knowledge. This paper reviews the historical development of this new world view, focusing on its philosophical foundations. Determinism was challenged by quantum mechanics and chaos theory. Systems theory replaced reductionism by a scientifically based holism. Cybernetics and postmodern social science showed that …
… the fast, reliable path to Living Business Models
Everyone talks about “Business Models”, but most popular frameworks are little more than abstract descriptions!
https://platform.thinkific.com/videoproxy/v1/play/btrk8r6je35bt9cgshog?autoplay=trueWe need models that work, doing what is actually happening in the real-world, and showing how the future may play out. Then we can test how our plans might improve things.
Dynamic, “living” business models simulate reality.
They can transform the performance of any enterprise, or function, and enable you to tackle challenges with much more confidence. And because everyone can see why everything is changing, you get the “joined-up thinking” we all want.
If you are an analyst, consultant, business-student or teacher, then you should know how to build and use these models.
What will I learn?
Quite simply, how to specify, build and use working, quantified models of any business challenge or plan you choose!
“Getting-Started”… a free extract from the full Core course. “Follow me” demonstrations to build a complete working model in an afternoon.
Core concepts(Classes 1-4) … create working models of any enterprise, department or issue, following our ‘AgileSD’ process. With demo models and templates to help you start on your challenges.
Extensions(classes 5-10) … more powerful frameworks – tackling competitors; developing staff, products, customers; handling intangibles and more. Each is awesome on its own, or add them to your business model.
… watch screen-show videos explaining key principles and demonstrating the steps to build a model
… copy the models yourself
… adapt the models to your own needs
You work to your own schedule. Use the course discussion forum to answer questions – or contact us.
Our master-class courses guide you through this same process, but with scheduled webinars and personal guidance. You can also gain Certification by submitting assessed work.
Teachers … you can adopt the course materials to deliver yourself. Being student-led, the learning-per-contact-hour is very high, and much more engaging than other types of learning. Contact us for more information.
“Can I do this?” … YES, you can!
If you can build spreadsheets, you can build dynamic business models!
You simply start from the performance outcomes you want to improve and keep asking “What causes this?” The answer sometimes includes items you already found, so you end up capturing the real world system that drives those outcomes.
It is easier, faster and more reliable to build dynamic business models.
But although the principles are simple enough, you cannot build dynamic business models with spreadsheets! They just cannot handle the many interdependencies, the feedback and the threshold effects that pervade real-world situations. And the Sheetless software enables anyone to build models that match the system’s structure and mimic its behaviour with uncanny realism.
Fig. A1. The relation between abduction, deduction and induction. Several alternative terms encountered in literature are given. Each has its own weakness (see text) (from Kleinhans et al., 2010).
Source publication
Fig. A1. The relation between abduction, deduction and induction. Several alternative terms encountered in literature are given. Each has its own weakness (see text) (from Kleinhans et al., 2010). Source publication
Progressing methods with a dualistic approach: (i) the scholarly team, on theoretical grounds, and (ii) the field team, on pragmatic grounds
About this Event
In October, members of the Systems Changes Learning Circle have been leading workshops at RSD9 (Oct. 14) and Global Change Days Beacon Events (Oct. 22). We are collectively evolving a core knowledge set under Creative Commons licensing, being deployed in different styles for different audiences.
Methods development has progressed with two interacting teams with contrasting emphases:
the scholarly team, focused on correctness, validating on theoretical grounds; and
the field team, focused on understandability, validating on pragmatic grounds.
For this Systems Thinking Ontario meeting, David Ing will review the introductory framing on which the circle has converged, and outline the sequence of activities expected ahead.
Open-minded novices and learners are always welcomed. We’ll try to keep the conversations understandable by the layman, and entertain questions for clarification.
To be notified of future sessions, please join the Google Group: http://bit.ly/st-on
Theoretical Grounds, Pragmatic Grounds: Methods for Reordering our Priorities through Systems Changes Learning
In October, members of the Systems Changes Learning Circle have been leading workshops at RSD9 (Oct. 14) and Global Change Days Beacon Events (Oct. 22). We are collectively evolving a core knowledge set under Creative Commons licensing, being deployed in different styles for different audiences.
Methods development has progressed with two interacting teams with contrasting emphases:
the scholarly team, focused on correctness, validating on theoretical grounds; and
the field team, focused on understandability, validating on pragmatic grounds.
For this Systems Thinking Ontario meeting, David Ing will review the introductory framing on which the circle has converged, and outline the sequence of activities expected ahead.
Here’s a description of the abstract for the RSD9 workshop:
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The idea of “systems change” has risen in popularity over the past few years. To make this more than just another buzzword, how might we approach it? In what ways does “systems change” mean more than just “change”? Does “systems change” build on the large legacy of “systems thinking”?
The Systems Changes Learning Circle is now in year 2 of 10 year journey. Our aim is to reify systems changes as a first-class concept. This extends prior published research on social and organizational change, based in the systems sciences. At RSD8, the Khan and Ing (2019) presentation reflected the early explorations coming from the core group. For 2020, at RSD9, we propose a workshop to share some methods in early stages of development for initiating deeper deliberations into systems changes.
Systems changes may involve:
shifting adaptively;
shifting behaviorally; and/or
shifting ecologically.
Living systems may respond through:
systematic changes;
systemic changes; and/or
timescape-landscape changes.
Degrees of systems changes may be judged as:
unfolding nature;
fixing problems; or
history making.
The multi-day, iterative workshop still under development takes a multi-paradigm approach based on learnings grounded in five philosophies:
(i) learning which, as phenomenology;
(ii) learning what, as ontology;
(iii) learning why, as epistemology;
(iv) learning whom+when+where, as phronesis; and
(v) learning how, as techne.
To convene working groups in advance of iterations on the five learnings, we now propose a Question Zero conversation for orientation, on Reordering Priorities. This workshop on Reordering Priorities can be conducted within 90 minutes, in-person or online, with parallel breakout groups.
The workshop will be structured as multiple steps:
Step 0: Participants will introduce themselves briefly. To encourage discussion, participants will be encouraged to cluster into small groups with others whom they do not know well.
Step 1: As individuals, participants will each quickly jot down three top three systems changes in which they are interested. These systems changes may be ones that they would like to come faster, or ones they would like to not happen.
Step 2: A two-dimensional map will be presented. Individuals will be asked to place their top three systems changes with axes along:
urgent to important; and
local to distant (Pepper, 1934; Tolman and Brunswik, 1935).
Step 3: In groups, each individual will be asked to show their mappings, and provide background for having prioritized those interests.
Step 4: Authentic systems thinking orders synthesis (putting thing together) before analysis (taking things apart). Each group will be encouraged to attempt to synthesize its priorities across its participants.
Step 5: One reporter from each group will reflect on their collective experience on reordering priorities.
Artifacts and comments from the group reports will be collected for summarization, possibly for publication in the proceedings. This knowledge-creating exercise will be used to refine methods for groups engaging in action learning.
The Systems Changes Learning Circle (founded 2019) is a group convening at the Centre for Social Innovation (Toronto) emerging from Systems Thinking Ontario (founded 2012). We include postgraduates and instructors from the Strategic Foresight and Innovation Program at OCADU in Toronto. Our content at licensed as Creative Commons at http://systemschanges.com . We cooperate with the Open Learning Commons at http://openlearning.cc , and the Digital Life Collective at http://diglife.com .
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The scholarly team has been David Ing and Zaid Khan. The field team is Dan Eng, Kelly Okamura and Zemina Meghji.
Pre-reading is not required. A list of references includes:
Emery, Fred E., and Eric L. Trist. 1965. “The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments.” Human Relations 18 (1): 21–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872676501800103.
Ing, David. 2013. “Rethinking Systems Thinking: Learning and Coevolving with the World.” Systems Research and Behavioral Science 30 (5): 527–47. https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2229.
Ing, David. 2017. Open Innovation Learning: Theory Building on Open Sourcing While Private Sourcing. Toronto, Canada: Coevolving Innovations Inc. https://doi.org/10.20850/9781775167211.
Khan, Zaid, and David Ing. 2019. “Paying Attention to Where Attention Is Placed in the Rise of System(s) Change(s).” In Proceedings of the RSD8 Symposium. IIT – Institute of Design, Chicago, Illinois: Systems Design Association. https://systemic-design.net/rsd-symposia/rsd8-2019/systems-change/.
Pepper, Stephen C. 1934. “The Conceptual Framework of Tolman’s Purposive Behaviorism.” Psychological Review 41 (2): 108–33. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0075220.
Ramírez, Rafael, John W Selsky, and Kees van der Heijden. 2008. “Conceptual and Historical Overview.” In Business Planning for Turbulent Times: New Methods for Applying Scenarios, edited by Rafael Ramírez, John W. Selsky, and Kees van der Heijden, 17–30. Earthscan. http://doi.org/10.4324/9781849774703.
Tolman, Edward C., and Egon Brunswik. 1935. “The Organism and the Causal Texture of the Environment.” Psychological Review 42 (1): 43. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0062156.
The devastating impact of the COVID-19 crisis has underlined the fact that we face a decade of discontinuity and uncertainty, with further shocks and systemic disruption ahead. Moments of radical disruption like this one force us to revisit what we value and to explore how we might reimagine the future.
Join us for an immersive event marking the launch of our 2020 Future of Sustainability report, which has identified five key dynamic system shifters and tipping points set to influence the decade ahead, and a set of possible trajectories forward from the system shock created by the COVID-19 crisis.
Moderated by journalist Jo Confino the events will feature a number of visionary voices on how we can reimagine our world and drive the deep transformation needed to create a truly just, resilient and sustainable future.
These interactive sessions will have opportunities to interact with our panelists and contribute your own thinking as we reflect on the role each of us will need to play to create the urgent transformation needed.
An experiential workshop that illustrates how to harness the power of difference & create inclusive cultures where everyone can contribute.
About this Event
Are you encountering any of the following:
Tough cultural issues around diversity and inclusion?
Teams that have fallen into a silo mentality impacting efficiency and effectiveness?
Challenges of effective collaboration between different functions and the business, resulting in lost synergy and poor decision-making?
Mergers, acquisitions and restructures which have failed to realise their promise value?
A common thread underlying these challenges is how skilfully we can facilitate and lead the meeting of cultures and whether we can harness the power of difference. This is the focus of our workshop.
Culture is the most powerful force in organisations. It creates the boundary for who belongs, who is us and who is other. And yet the way culture forms and influences us is subtle and largely happens outside of our conscious awareness. These are deep waters, and they can feel dangerous, not least because issues of power, identity and belonging are intertwined with culture. And yet these issues are core to who we are as human beings and leaders need to feel confident in safely navigating these conversations.
How will it work?
You’ll be immersed in a live simulation where you’ll work together on a collaborative task designed to elicit the everyday dynamics of working within and across cultures. Following this you’ll make sense of your individual and shared experience, using this data alongside systems theory to inform how you address your specific organisational culture challenges.
Who is this workshop for?
D&I, HR and OD professionals: those leading and influencing organisational change, responsible for creating inclusive cultures, improving employee and client engagement or developing talent and leadership capability.
Leaders committed to creating inclusive, high-performing collaborative teams, especially those leading multicultural, multigenerational and multidisciplinary teams.
Leaders and consultants working with teams and organisations undergoing significant change e.g. restructuring or merger and acquisitions.
Leaders committed to developing their self-awareness, understanding and ability to influence the evolution of organisational culture.
Workshop Outcomes
Participants will:
Sharpen awareness of how context shapes perception, feelings and behaviour.
Understand how culture, power, identity and belonging impact patterns of inclusion and exclusion, contribution and performance in groups and teams.
Take away practical actions to create a culture of inclusion in their workplace or team
Learn with a global network of peers, build connections and understanding of different professional and organisational challenges.
When?
Wednesday 18 November
London 0900-1300 GMT
Copenhagen 1000-1400 CET
Lagos 1000-1400 WAT
Johannesburg 1100-1500 SAST
Dubai 1300-1700 GST
Singapore 1700-2100 SGT
Where?
Online on Zoom
How much?
£250 including VAT.
Bursaries are available for small charities – please contact us.
Systemic design is an emerging field of practice within social innovation.•
Using a systems lens, we identify systemic design principles in expert practice.•
Systemic perspective-taking and problem exploration are practice-related principles.•
Principles in design rationales include influencing both human relations and mental models.•
We promote mutual learning between social innovation frontrunners and academia.
Abstract
In recent decades, design has expanded from a practice aimed at designing things to one that helps to address complex societal challenges. In this context, a field of practice called systemic design has emerged, which combines elements of systems thinking with elements of design. We use a case study approach to investigate how expert practitioners carry out systemic design work in the context of public and social innovation, and explore what we can learn from their practices and design rationales when we compare them to systems thinking theories and approaches. Based on findings from five case studies, we present five systemic design principles: 1) opening up and acknowledging the interrelatedness of problems; 2) developing empathy with the system; 3) strengthening human relationships to enable creativity and learning; 4) influencing mental models to enable change; and 5) adopting an evolutionary design approach to desired systemic change. One way that scholars can contribute to this field is by continuing to monitor and describe emerging systemic design principles developed and performed at the forefront of the field, strengthening these learnings by building on the body of knowledge about systems thinking and design.
International and transnational historiography has given us vivid glimpses of the development and impact of cybernetics on a national scale in such countries as the Soviet Union, Chile and, of course, in the US and Great Britain where the field initially began to coalesce. Now, Xiao Liu’s Information Fantasies: Precarious Mediation in Postsocialist China (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) makes a massive contribution to the field by opening up a fascinating new vista for scholars of cybernetics, film studies, literature, media studies, science and technology studies, and beyond.
Liu’s meticulously researched and crisply written book takes us from the heady days of China’s “qi gong craze” and notions of the human body as a transparent medium through which “information waves” could pass, through investment and research into “a theory of metasynthetic wisdom” that could lead to a “global human-machine intelligent system,” the evolution of “expert systems” to provide knowledge and guidance in the absence of human experts, the novel deployment of Ross Ashby’s theory of “ultrastability” to describe China’s supposed resistance to modernization, information aesthetics within a new rising tide of advertising and market activity, and much, much more.
All of this combines to a reveal a China after Mao, vigorously employing the theoretical tools of cybernetics to, not only re-configure its socio-political image on a national scale, but to actually craft a new post-socialist subjectivity at the scale of the individual citizen. Illustrating the profound impacts of, and reactions to, these efforts through provocative samplings from Chinese literature, film, and popular culture writ large, Liu manages, in the words of Oxford’s Margaret Hillenbrand to “entirely reconfigure our understanding of the media landscape in 1980’s China.”
‘Seize the benefits that science gives the people in their quest’
Lyric from a Chilean protest song
AFTER QUANTITY
The problem with football is that it is decided by goals; that is to say, decided by a numerical superiority, a quantitative difference. And if it is discernible units of quantity we are valuing highest — units of matter, energy, information, enemy kills, Capital or indeed goals — then game theoretic cybernetics are your ‘go to’ school of applied computation. Select the metrics, collect the data, crunch the numbers, feed them back into the system and just watch those marginal gains role in.
As we shall come to see, football data analysis is a form of cybernetics; the science of communication and control in man and machine — in this particular case, man and the simulated football system. The aim of applied football cybernetics is to increase the probability of, depending on the parameters of competition, maximising points (league) and arriving in the next round (knockout). To do so, emphasis is placed on both the scoring of goals and the not-conceding of goals.
Given the nature of football’s ultimate reliance on a quantitative scoring mechanism there appears to be no exit from this framework of servitude to the twin pillars of ‘scoring’ and ‘not-conceding’ regardless of one’s stylistic preferences or idealistic musings. The new football romantic then awakens to find themselves trapped inside a horrifying hall of mirrors, beset on all sides by the hideously warped reflections of their own naivety and misplaced hope.
At this point resistance to the sovereignty of quantity seems almost entirely futile. The only option appears to be to embrace a kind of nihilistic acceptance of the governing dynamics of football’s rivalrous, zero-sum game theory.
Propelled forth by the absurd accelerationism of late-capitalist-liberal-modernity, football is now, more than ever, a slave to the result and its financial corollary, to the value which has been obtained; the score is the only stat that matters points on the board another year in the top flight six-pointers a top-four finish managers under pressure they need to win a trophy winning when you’re playing badly happy with the point grinding out results a pragmatic approach parking the bus shutting up shop playing the percentages cancelling each other out getting the job done workmanlike performances game in game out game in game out game in game out…
They say the night is darkest just before the dawn but to what glimmer of light does Eduardo Galeano’s ‘beggar for good football’ look to when all seems lost?
What seems necessary to develop here is the idea of a seemingly zero-sum game being conceptualised in a non-zero-sum way; a rebooting of the collective consciousness so the question then becomes — to what power do we secede if not the numerical value of the score? To what end do we apply the wizardry of analytical cybernetics if a number is no longer valid? What, if anything, comes after quantity?
In software engineering, the laws of software evolution refer to a series of laws that Lehman and Belady formulated starting in 1974 with respect to software evolution.[1][2] The laws describe a balance between forces driving new developments on one hand, and forces that slow down progress on the other hand. Over the past decades the laws have been revised and extended several times.[3]
Observing that most software is subject to change in the course of its existence, the authors set out to determine laws that these changes will typically obey, or must obey in order for the software to survive.[citation needed]
In his 1980 article,[1] Lehman qualified the application of such laws by distinguishing between three categories of software:
An S-program is written according to an exact specification of what that program can do
A P-program is written to implement certain procedures that completely determine what the program can do (the example mentioned is a program to play chess)
An E-program is written to perform some real-world activity; how it should behave is strongly linked to the environment in which it runs, and such a program needs to adapt to varying requirements and circumstances in that environment
The laws are said to apply only to the last category of systems.
(1974) “Continuing Change” — an E-type system must be continually adapted or it becomes progressively less satisfactory.[4]
(1974) “Increasing Complexity” — as an E-type system evolves, its complexity increases unless work is done to maintain or reduce it.[4]
(1974) “Self Regulation” — E-type system evolution processes are self-regulating with the distribution of product and process measures close to normal.[4]
(1978) “Conservation of Organisational Stability (invariant work rate)” — the average effective global activity rate in an evolving E-type system is invariant over the product’s lifetime.[4]
(1978) “Conservation of Familiarity” — as an E-type system evolves, all associated with it, developers, sales personnel and users, for example, must maintain mastery of its content and behaviour to achieve satisfactory evolution. Excessive growth diminishes that mastery. Hence the average incremental growth remains invariant as the system evolves.[4]
(1991) “Continuing Growth” — the functional content of an E-type system must be continually increased to maintain user satisfaction over its lifetime.
(1996) “Declining Quality” — the quality of an E-type system will appear to be declining unless it is rigorously maintained and adapted to operational environment changes.[5]
(1996) “Feedback System” (first stated 1974, formalised as law 1996) — E-type evolution processes constitute multi-level, multi-loop, multi-agent feedback systems and must be treated as such to achieve significant improvement over any reasonable base.
Systems science and systems thinking for public health: a systematic review of the field Gemma Carey,1 Eleanor Malbon,2 Nicole Carey,3 Andrew Joyce,4 Brad Crammond,5 Alan Carey6 To cite: Carey G, Malbon E, Carey N, et al. Systems science and systems thinking for public health: a systematic review of the field. BMJ Open 2015;5:e009002. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2015- 009002 ▸ Prepublication history and additional material is available. To view please visit the journal (http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1136/bmjopen-2015- 009002). Received 6 June 2015 Revised 23 October 2015 Accepted 11 November 2015 1Regulatory Institutions Network Australian National University, Canberra, Australia 2The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, Sax Institute, Sydney, Australia 3Self-organizing Systems Research Group School of engineering and applied sciences Harvard University 4Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 5Centre for Epidemiology and Preventive Health. Monash University, Melbourne, Australia 6Maths Science Institute Australian National University Correspondence to Dr Gemma Carey; Gemma.carey@anu.edu.au
ABSTRACT Objectives: This paper reports on findings from a systematic review designed to investigate the state of systems science research in public health. The objectives were to: (1) explore how systems methodologies are being applied within public health and (2) identify fruitful areas of activity. Design: A systematic review was conducted from existing literature that draws on or uses systems science (in its various forms) and relates to key public health areas of action and concern, including tobacco, alcohol, obesity and the social determinants of health. Data analysis: 117 articles were included in the review. An inductive qualitative content analysis was used for data extraction. The following were systematically extracted from the articles: approach, methodology, transparency, strengths and weaknesses. These were then organised according to theme (ie, commonalities between studies within each category), in order to provide an overview of the state of the field as a whole. The assessment of data quality was intrinsic to the goals of the review itself, and therefore, was carried out as part of the analysis. Results: 4 categories of research were identified from the review, ranging from editorial and commentary pieces to complex system dynamic modelling. Our analysis of each of these categories of research highlighted areas of potential for systems science to strengthen public health efforts, while also revealing a number of limitations in the dynamic systems modelling being carried out in public health. Conclusions: There is a great deal of interest in how the application of systems concepts and approach might aid public health. Our analysis suggests that soft systems modelling techniques are likely to be the most useful addition to public health, and align well with current debate around knowledge transfer and policy. However, the full range of systems methodologies is yet to be engaged with by public health
Systems Community of Inquiry 
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