Another enthusiastic systems learner, August has a few projects set out below – and, in particular, another nascent community, the Project [+] Community Learning Discover server: https://discord.gg/9EN8TQU

Check out our initiatives and sites here: https://LinkTr.ee/AugustJames Let

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/brain_swap + https://twitter.com/augustjamesd

Share your idea here! https://brainswap.weebly.com/contact or visit directly: https://forms.gle/oBwUeZVhPPMQSJdT6

https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/bus/public/ADG_showcase/manage_change/content/sigmoid_curve.htm

According to Handy, the best time to start a new ‘curve’ is before you reach the peak of your existing one! That way, you will be starting something new when you still have the resources, and the spirit, to take it to new heights. In contrast, most people think of doing something new only when they have reached the bottom of what they are presently involved in.

Background to the sigmoid curve:

Successful industries are constantly re-inventing themselves, even when things are going well. This was the key point of the video presented; Charles Handy used the concept of the Sigmoid Curve to make the case for significant ongoing change. The sigmoid, or S-shaped, curve charts the trajectory of every successful human system. There is always a first period of experimentation and learning which is followed by a time of growth and development. Ultimately, however, every curve turns downward. The only thing that varies is the length and duration of each part of the curve.

Reference: Chapter Three in Charles Handy (1995) The Empty Raincoat – Making Sense of the Future Random House Australia ISBN 0 09 930125 3

Today, the speed of every curve seems to be increasing. To keep on growing, the successful industry, organisation and individual, must develop a second curve out of the first. The new curve, however, must start before the first one peaks, at Point A, when all the evidence is that there is no need for change.

Most organisations do not change until they get frightened, at Point B. This is often too late. By then the leaders have lost credibility, resources are depleted and the energy for creative thinking is low. Forty per cent of the Fortune 500 companies of seven years ago no longer exist as independent entities.

Change at Point A, however, results in a period of great confusion, represented by the shaded area in the drawing. At this time there are two contrasting and often competing cultures. The old ways, products and people must continue their efforts to maintain the first curve’s momentum.

At the same time, however, the industry must experiment with new ways and new ideas; and not all of them work. The challenge of the second curve is to find a way to start that curve while still building upon the success, learning and maturity gained from the first curve. When standing at Point A, one is presented with two confusing and opposing vistas. When one looks back along the sigmoid curve, they see success, growth and satisfaction. But at Point A, one can also look the other direction and see over the horizon of the curve and see the fall towards Point B. The opportunity is to openly look at what Point B tells you, to see the trends that can lead from A to B, but then to use this information to design a pathway from the current Point A, to the Point A on the next sigmoid curve – a pathway of uninterrupted success.

https://www.academia.edu/36268563/Gregory_Batesons_cybernetic_methodology_The_ecosystem_approach_in_empirical_research?email_work_card=title

Gregory Bateson’s cybernetic methodology: The ecosystem approach in empirical research

Slawomir Pasikowski

Published 2017220 

Pasikowski S. (2017). Gregory Bateson’s cybernetic methodology: The ecosystem approach in empirical research.

In N. Bateson, M. Jaworska-Witkowska (Eds.), Towards an ecology of mind: Batesonian legacy continued (63-84). Dąbrowa Górnicza: Scientific Publishing University of Dąbrowa Górnicza.

Page Numbers: 63-84

Publication Date: 2017

source: https://www.ismtool.org/

A practical tool for designing effective policy interventions

 ISM

There are many different theories which help us understand behaviour and change, drawn from many different disciplines. But there are fewer practical tools which allow practitioners to mobilise that theory, and apply it in developing and delivering behaviour change interventions on the ground.

ISM (standing for ‘Individual, Social, Material’) has been described as the most comprehensive of the available tools.

ISM is a multi-disciplinary tool for designing effective policy interventions, originally developed in the context of sustainability challenges. It was created by Andrew Darnton with colleagues at the University of Manchester, and launched by the Scottish Government in 2013.

ISM brings together into a single figure the main factors from the three disciplines most concerned with understanding behaviour: behavioural economics, social psychology, and sociology. The factors are arranged into three contexts, symbolised by a head (the Individual) in a circle (the Social) in a square (the Material). Evidence from reviews of international behaviour change interventions suggests that lasting change requires action in all three contexts (Southerton et al, 2011).

ISM was developed as a practical approach for intervening in complex systems, grounded in a deep understanding of behaviour. ISM offers a shortcut to the task of drawing on multiple models and theories, resulting in a tool which policymakers, analysts and practitioners of all stripes can pick up and run with – including in self-facilitated sessions. Used in this way, ISM supports approaches to policy development based on co-design and co-production, which in turn are vital for effective action in complex systems like obesity, biodiversity, or social inclusion, where no one organisation or actor holds all the levers over a given behaviour.

The process of using ISM is as important in producing results as the content of the model itself.

source: https://www.ismtool.org/

source: https://medium.com/school-of-system-change/covid-19-and-systems-change-some-reflections-from-the-field-3aab2849f6af

Covid-19 and systems change: some reflections from the field

Laura Winn

May 21 · 9 min read

This extraordinary global situation that we’re in right now calls for us to be able to appreciate and work with the world in a way that is complex and systemic. David Nabarro, a high-level advocate of living systems leadership and current Special Envoy of World Health Organization Director-General on Covid-19, has summed up the extent to which this crisis — and therefore how we must address it — is deeply systemic, in one of his recent Coronavirus narratives:

The anticipation [in response to Covid-19] goes beyond public health and hospital systems to the functioning of different settlements, arrangement for residential care, the resilience of systems for producing and distributing food as well as for ensuring people’s access to nutrition, employment, travel, trade. It involves all of society’s systems: for ensuring access to education, law and order, food and nutrition, employment, social protection and much more.

As I read ever more articles from distinguished and accomplished system change practitioners from different places in the world, I have been reflecting and sense-making through the lense of a framework that we use at the School of System Change.

source: https://medium.com/school-of-system-change/covid-19-and-systems-change-some-reflections-from-the-field-3aab2849f6af

Book at source: https://www.academyforchange.org/2020/05/01/webinar-5-key-design-principles-new-normal-work-donella-meadows/Systems Leader’s Fieldbook

Webinar: 5 Key Design Principles for a New Normal from the Work of Donella Meadows

Webinar: 5 Key Design Principles for a New Normal from the Work of Donella Meadows

June 30, 2020
11:00 am – 12:30pm PDT
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm EDT
Register here

At a time so deeply painful for many, what design principles might we draw from to shape a positive new normal?

We are excited to partner with our friends at CoCreative for a June webinar offering focusing on the work and teachings of Donella Meadows. The webinar will explore some of the practical ideas that made Donella (Dana) Meadows so beloved by people interested in making a world that works for all.

If you are interested in Dana’s work and looking for a place to start, we recommend the following resources; each one is full of the deep thinking and deep caring that made Dana the exceptional leader and communicator that she was.

1. Envisioning a Sustainable World—a powerful video of Dana’s speech on the crucial role that visioning plays in bringing about the world we want
2. Tools for the Transition to Sustainability—in this chapter, Dana discusses the importance of visioning, networking, truth-telling, learning, and loving in the quest for sustainability
3. Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System—probably Dana’s most famous article, this piece illuminates Dana’s deep wisdom about how systems work and how we can manipulate them to create the most change
4. Dancing with Systems—another powerful piece about how people can work with systems once they lose the illusion of control over them
5. The Limits to Growth—the groundbreaking 1972 study that launched Donella Meadows onto the global stage as a leading climate thinker and writer

Click here to register for this webinar

source: https://www.berggruen.org/the-worldpost/articles/weekend-roundup-cybernetics-of-the-plague/

Source: https://sciencehouse.wordpress.com/2020/04/22/exponential-growth/#comments

Exponential growth

April 22, 2020Carson ChowCovid-19, Mathematics, Pedagogy, Statistics

The spread of covid-19 and epidemics in general is all about exponential growth. Although, I deal with exponential growth in my work daily, I don’t have an immediate intuitive grasp for what it means in life until I actually think about it. To me I write down functions with the form and treat them as some abstract quantity. In fact, I often just look at differential equations of the form..

Source: https://sciencehouse.wordpress.com/2020/04/22/exponential-growth/#comments

source: http://thinksid.org/

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TOWARDS NEW FUTURES

Symbiosis in Development (SiD) is a practical framework for integrated sustainable development, based on systems- and design thinking. SiD guides you and and your team in a step by step process towards long term sustainable organizations, cities, products, and industry. SiD unravels the complexity of sustainability, realizing short term results, and long term positive impacts for the issues of our time.

SiD is open source and free to use, supported by the Except Integrated Sustainability foundation, the open source community, and a global network of partners.data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==

source: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/sej/advancing-study-complexity-social-innovation-and-entrepreneurship-studies

Advancing the study of complexity in social innovation and entrepreneurship studies

Call for papers for: Social Enterprise Journal

The submission portal for this special issue will open August 1, 2020.

Guest Editors:
Max French, University of Northumbria, UK
Sharon Zivkovic, University of South Australia, Australia
Mary Lee Rhodes, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Katherine McGowan, Mount Royal University, Canada

Social innovation and social entrepreneurship have a strong conceptual affinity with the complexity sciences. Authors have noted the social problems which motivate social innovators and entrepreneurs are often highly complex (Nicholls and Murdock 2012; Zivkovic 2018; French et al. 2020). Others have argued that social innovation and social entrepreneurship themselves should themselves be understood as complex processes, since they often involve multiple actors operating in dynamic and emergent contexts (e.g. Goldstein et al. 2008; 2010; Rhodes and Donnelly-Cox 2008; Swanson and Zhang 2011).

Theories, concepts, and research methods drawing from the complexity sciences therefore seem well placed to advance our understanding of social innovation and social entrepreneurship, and to inform related fields like social enterprise and social finance. However, as has occurred in other disciplines (e.g. Pollitt 2009), scholarship adopting complexity can lack consistency in application, lack relevance by adopting poorly-defined and insular language, and lack clear direction for practice. In addition, complexity theory is far more often adopted to describe social phenomena or criticise existing practice, than used to theorise new and better-performing approaches.

In this special issue, we invite empirical and conceptual papers which explain where and how the integration of complexity-informed ideas can advance theory and practice in social innovation and social entrepreneurship, and related fields like social enterprise and social finance. Below, we outline some key (though not exhaustive) research areas which can advance this research agenda.

• The social innovation and social entrepreneurship literature has drawn upon a range of concepts from the complexity sciences like emergence (Wheatley and Frieze 2009), self-organisation (Tapsell and Woods 2010), performance landscapes (Rhodes and Donnelly-Cox 2008), attractor states (Goldstein et al. 2008). Which concepts from the complexity sciences can most effectively advance theory? How can these studies ensure theoretical consistency and avoid a ‘pick and mix’ approach to the application of concepts from complexity theory? How does a complexity-informed understanding of social innovation and social entrepreneurship differ from other theoretical approaches?
• Complex systems are dynamic and unstable, making the linkage between cause and effect highly non-linear. What does complexity imply for how we understand social innovations to emerge, embed, spread and scale? How does a complexity-informed view of the innovation ‘life-cycle’ differ from other accounts in the literature, and what does it add to these? What can complexity theory tell us about how social innovation and social entrepreneurship are enacted within partnership structures or ecosystems?
• Complexity is attached to a range of research methods and approaches, spanning situated and action-oriented methods like action research and developmental evaluation, dynamic forms of network analysis, case-based methods like Qualitative Comparative Analysis, and computational methods like agent-based modelling. Which complexity-informed research methods are best placed to advance social innovation and social entrepreneurship theories, and what are their methodological implications for scholarship? Can complexity help us to value and validate traditional knowledge and better understand Indigenous social innovation and social entrepreneurship?
• Complexity makes a long-documented challenge to scientific objectivist evaluation methods (Plsek and Greenhalgh 2001). This is particularly significant given the requirements for objectivity and accountability in social financing mechanisms like Social Impact Bonds or Impact Investing. How can complexity inform how we measure SE and SI, promote these processes or evaluate their social impact? What alternative approaches are available or might be developed to inform a complexity-appropriate model of social finance or social investment?

Enquiries should be directed to the special issue editors: Dr Max French (max.french@northumbria.ac.uk), Dr. Sharon Zivkovic (sharon.zivkovic@unisa.edu.au), Dr. Mary-Lee Rhodes (rhodesml@tcd.ie), and Dr. Katherine McGowan (kmcgowan@mtroyal.ca).

The deadline for full paper submissions is 30th November 2020. Submitted papers should follow SEJ submission guidelines and be written in good English to be fully considered. The submitted papers will go through the usual double blind review process as per the guidelines of the Journal. Submissions to this special issue must be made through the Social Enterprise Journal’s ScholarOne submission system. When submitting your paper, please ensure that the correct Special Issue is selected from the dropdown menu on page 4 of the submission process.

The special issue editors will also be running a special track on Social Innovation & Complexity at the 12th International Social Innovation Research Conference 1st-3rd September 2020, Sheffield, UK. Those submitting to the special issue are encouraged to also submit to this session, although this is not compulsory.

References
French, M., Lowe, T., Wilson, R., Rhodes, M. L. and Hawkins, T. (2020), “Managing the complexity of outcomes: a new approach to performance measurement and management”, in Blackman, D., Buick, F., Gardner, K., Johnson, S., O’Donnell, M., and Olney, S. (Eds.), Handbook on Performance Management in the Public Sector, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.

Goldstein, J. A., Hazy, J. K. and Silberstang, J. (2008), “Complexity and social entrepreneurship: A fortuitous meeting”, Emergence: Complexity and Organization, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 9.

Goldstein, J., Hazy, J. K. and Silberstang, J. (2010), “A complexity science model of social innovation in social enterprise”, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp.101-125.

Nicholls, A. and Murdock, A. (2012), “The nature of social innovation”, in Nicholls, A., and Murdock, A. (Eds.), Social Innovation: Blurring Boundaries to Reconfigure Markets, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp. 1-30.

Plsek, P. E. and Greenhalgh, T. (2001), “The challenge of complexity in health care”, Bmj, Vol. 323 No. 7313, pp. 625-628.

Pollitt, C. (2009). “Complexity theory and evolutionary public administration: a sceptical afterword”, in  Teisman, G., Van Buuren, A., and Gerrits, L.M. (Eds.), Managing Complex Governance Systems, Routledge, London, pp. 227-244.

Rhodes, M. L. and Donnelly-Cox, G. (2008), “Social entrepreneurship as a performance landscape: The case of ‘Front Line’”, Emergence: Complexity and Organization, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 35.

Swanson, L. A. and Zhang, D. D. (2011), “Complexity theory and the social entrepreneurship zone”, Emergence: Complexity and Organization, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 39.

Tapsell, P. and Woods, C. (2010), “Social entrepreneurship and innovation: Self-organization in an indigenous context”, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Vol. 22 No. 6, pp. 535-556.

Wheatley, M. and Frieze, D. (2009), “Using emergence to take social innovations to scale”, Kettering Rev, Vol. 27, pp. 34–38.

Zivkovic, S. (2018), “Systemic innovation labs: a lab for wicked problems”, Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 348-366.

source: https://www.presencing.org/gaia

UPCOMING SESSIONS

Friday May 22nd, 2020 – inhale sessions 

• 10:00 – 11:30am am EDT English, with Peter Senge SIGN-UP FOR THE ZOOM SESSION  LIVE-STREAM 
• 12:00 – 01:30pm pm EDT English, with Fritjof Capra SIGN-UP FOR THE ZOOM SESSION  LIVE-STREAM 
• 02:00 – 03:30pm pm EDT Spanish, with Humberto Maturana and Ximena Dávila SIGN-UP FOR THE ZOOM SESSION  LIVE-STREAM 

If the session is fully booked, you can watch it on the Presencing Institute YouTube live-stream.

https://www.uu.nl/en/research/complex-systems-studies/news-events/events

newsletter signup https://fd21.formdesk.com/universiteitutrecht/SubscribeCCSS

29 MAY 2020 FROM 15:30 TO 17:00Societal Discussion #8 (Online): Pattern Formation in Seagrasses: Fairy circles under the seaProf. Emilio Hernández-García will offer quantitative models of pattern-forming phenomena for coastal Mediterranean ecosystems.

9 JUNE 2020 FROM 15:00 TO 16:30Science Jam 41 (online): Co-evolution of social networks and infectious diseases (in the time of COVID-19)Leading researcher: Hendrik Nunner, Social and Behavioural Sciences

25 JUNE 2020 FROM 15:00 TO 16:30Science Jam 42 (online): Decomposing earth system models: windows of complex organization and spatiotemporal scalesLeading researcher: Prof. dr. Maarten Kleinhans, River and delta morphodynamics