antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 7:27 am on September 14, 2019

Health matters: whole systems approach to obesity – GOV.UK

Public Health England’s (PHE’s) Whole systems approach to obesity: a guide to support local approaches to promoting a healthy weight is a professional resource that is designed to support local action to address obesity. The guide describes a ‘how to’ process, which can enable local authorities, and their partners, to start creating their own local whole systems approaches to reducing obesity and promoting a healthy weight. It can also support local areas who have already started this journey.

Source: Health matters: whole systems approach to obesity – GOV.UK

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 10:55 am on September 13, 2019

SCiO Open Meeting (All Welcome)- Autumn 2019, Manchester Tickets, Mon 14 Oct 2019 09:30-16:30

Source: SCiO Open Meeting – Autumn 2019, Manchester (All Welcome) Tickets, Mon 14 Oct 2019 at 09:30 | Eventbrite

OCT 14

SCiO Open Meeting – Autumn 2019, Manchester (All Welcome)

by SCiO – Systems and Complexity in Organisation £20

Open Meeting (open to all), a series of presentations of general interest to Systems & Complexity in Organisation’s members and others.

SCiO organises Open Meetings to provide opportunities for practitioners to learn and develop new practice, to build relationships, networks hear about skills, tools, practice and experiences. The programme for 14th October is as follows:

9:30 – 10:00 Introduction to Viable System Model

10:00 – 10:30 SCiO notices and community exercise

10:30 – 11:30 To be confirmed

11:30 – 11:45 Break

11:45 – 12:45 Dynamic Intelligence and measure of self-awareness (Darren Stevens)

12:45 – 13:45 Lunch Break

13:45 – 15:45 Behavioural axioms for a successful co-operative system (John Carlisle)

15:45 – 16:00 Break

16:00 – 17:00 Systems thinking and organisational training programme defectiveness (Bryan Hopkins)

Does Dynamic Intelligence exist as a conceptual measure of self-awareness in the moment?

The theory of Constructed Development (as per Stevens’ 2019 PhD thesis) is a measure of a person’s awareness of their constructed intentions in the moment; this measure is time and context-specific and determines how much of their thinking is at choice. This choice leads to a number of possible responses in the moment. The individual’s capacity to choose their response in the moment informs personality and thus behaviour. When applying this theory to systems thinking, consider the people in the room, their capacity to construct meaning and the differences in results from different layers of the same organisation using the same systems theory. How does a mid-level manager construct their thinking and are they aware of this construction? Compare that to a CEO and the way s/he constructs themselves in a larger organisational environment, with the many facets informing their construction.

The Constructed Development Theory bridges the gap between Elliott Jaques’ work on organisational complexity and individual complexity. The more habituated aspects of personality are due to limited awareness of this construction of intention, and thus a more flexible response is indicative of a more adaptive personality. An output of the research was the creation of a scale for self-awareness, called the Thinking Quotient (TQ). To create the Thinking Quotient, Stevens used fifty Cognitive Intentions (CIs), re-purposed heuristics to deconstruct an individual’s thinking style. The relationship between these CIs is key to an individual’s self-awareness.

We will look at a number of these in the talk. This research also demonstrated that different combinations of CIs create differing Thinking Styles, and each style can be aligned with a level of adult development. Using the CIs, it is hypothesised that an individual’s Intention, Awareness, Choice and Response informs their Dynamic Intelligence which leads to predictable behaviours in context. From a systems practitioner perspective, it could be useful to be able to predict thinking and behavioural outcomes as you interact with your clients.

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About Darren Stevens

Darren Stevens is a leadership and change consultant and a cognitive developmental coach, working specifically with senior executive teams in enabling more effective strategy execution, change management, leadership and talent development. Darren’s powerful approach strengthens leaders’ and organisational capabilities through transformational learning and meta-systemic thinking. He presents new ways for executives, managers, and consultants to reflect on who they are as leaders, how they relate to and impact others, and how to challenge their organisation to reach new levels of excellence.

Darren’s developmental approach takes a ‘whole-person-in-role’ approach to leadership development using the Constructed Development Framework as a guide for senior executives to become deeper thinkers and experience transformational change on a personal as well as professional level.

http://stevensdevelopment.co.uk/

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Defeat from the jaws of victory or, why we need a collaborative strategy

In this highly interactive session, participants will get to experience the five behavioural axioms for a successful co-operative system. The method is that of heuristic learning as the exercise comprises 10 rounds of decision-making in small teams. The decisions made by any team affect every team and the levels of trust. The experience will illustrate the five axioms below are necessary:

1. Be clear, on the nature of the relationship you expect

2. Openness

3. Be provocable

4. Be forgiving

5. Be consistent

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About John Carlisle

John Carlisle is the past chair of the Deming Alliance, former Professor at Sheffield Business School and business owner of JCP. He has spent over 30 years studying organisations after having completed a major change programme in the copper mines in Zambia. Came to the UK in 1970s and taught negotiation to purchases worldwide and them moved into organisational consultancy where he met Dr. Deming. His main area of study is about negotiation and upstream (supply) organisations. He has co-authored a seminal book, Beyond Negotiation, which was the first to identify the productivity of a collaborative procurement strategy. John has introduced this strategy into blue chip companies internationally and over 200 major projects through his company JCP.

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Using systems thinking approaches to evaluate organisational training programmes.

Training is an investment, much like introducing new technologies or processes, that organisations make in order to improve their performance. However, it is harder to evaluate the success of training than of ‘hard’ changes like technology or process. Since the 1970s the training profession has largely drawn on variants of the so-called ‘Kirkpatrick framework’ to evaluate training, even though there is a general agreement in the profession that it does not really produce reliable or even particularly useful data.

Debate about training evaluation largely takes place within a boundary which limits discussion to ways of implementing Kirkpatrick. Although the original idea with my Ph.D. research was to see how systems thinking tools such as Viable System Model and Critical System Heuristics might work in this context, my emergent interest is in changing the boundaries for debate, and I am currently reviewing such issues as the lack of systemic thinking used in the whole training design process which makes evaluation problematic, boundary decisions about what constitutes a measure of training effectiveness and what role training plays in broader organisational learning.

I am hoping that my presentation will provoke ideas and discussion that will help me to further expand the boundaries of my thinking.

===============================================================

About Bryan Hopkins

Bryan Hopkins has worked in education and training since 1977, both internationally with governmental and inter-governmental agencies and NGOs, and in the United Kingdom private sector. He has worked with a number of United Nations agencies, including UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, ILO and UNAIDS amongst others, and for three years was Senior Learning Solutions Officer at the then newly-established UNHCR Global Learning Centre in Budapest, being responsible for internal development in training skills and monitoring the quality of training designed and delivered.

He specialises in identifying and training needs, designing and delivering bespoke training programmes and evaluating training initiatives. He has written a number of books about different aspects of training and learning, the two most recent looking at cultural aspects affecting workplace performance and using systems thinking approaches to identifying training needs and evaluate training.

Bryan has Master’s degrees in development studies and systems thinking, and is currently working towards a PhD with the Open University, looking at using systems thinking approaches to the evaluation of organisational training programmes.

www.bryanhopkins.co.uk

Book in source: SCiO Open Meeting – Autumn 2019, Manchester (All Welcome) Tickets, Mon 14 Oct 2019 at 09:30 | Eventbrite

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 11:34 pm on September 10, 2019

WPI Systems Thinking Colloquium, Perspectives on Systems Thinking, 8:30am-6:00pm East Time (reception to follow), October 2, 2019, Worcester Massachusetts, US (or online)

Source: WPI Systems Thinking Colloquium

Register for WPI’s Systems Thinking Colloquium:

Perspectives on Systems Thinking

Wednesday, October 2, 2019
8:30 am to 6:00 pm (reception to follow)
WPI Campus, Gateway I

Space is limited. Registrations will be accepted on a first come, first serve basis.

Currently, there is no clear consensus on the definition of “Systems Thinking.” The colloquium objective is to clearly articulate the various different perspectives on Systems Thinking and facilitate a discussion among Systems Thinking experts about their perspectives.

Know someone who might be interested in this event? Share this page with them!

Speakers include:

Gene Bellinger

Gene has been a passionate Systems Thinker for almost four decades. He is highly respected member of the systems thinking community, the author of several hundred articles, and over 700 videos on relationship and their implications, and a member of the System Dynamics Society. In 2013 Gene coauthored Beyond Connecting the Dots: Modeling for Meaningful Results with Scott Fortmann-Roe, the developer of Insight Maker. Gene shepherded the Systems Thinking World discussion group on LinkedIn to over 20,000 members focused on developing a better understanding of, and employing systems thinking principles. Gene is also the developer of the Systems-Thinking website. Presently Gene is actively engaged in developing learning threads on various aspects of relationships and their implications, conducting weekly internet sessions, and participating in various discussion groups on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Derek Cabrera

Derek Cabrera is a systems scientist, inventor, and social entrepreneur and is internationally known for his work in systems thinking, systems leadership, and systems modeling. He is currently visiting faculty at Cornell University where he teaches systems thinking and organizational leadership and design. He is senior scientist at Cabrera Research Lab, and Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of Plectica. He is author of eight books including, Systems Thinking Made Simple: New Hope for Solving Wicked Problems (winner of the 2017 AECT outstanding book award), Thinking at Every Desk: Four Simple Skills to Transform Your Classroom, and Flock Not Clock: Design, Align, and Lead to Achieve Your Vision. Credited with discovering the underlying rules of systems thinking, Cabrera is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Systems Thinking. His work in public schools was documented in the full-length documentary film, RE:Thinking. He was Research Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) for the Study of Complex Systems and National Science Foundation IGERT Fellow in Nonlinear Systems in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at Cornell University. He serves on the United States Military Academy at West Point’s Systems Engineering Advisory Board. His contributions to the field of systems thinking have been integrated into NSF, NIH, and USDA-NIFA programs, K-12, higher education, NGOs, federal agencies, corporations, and business schools. His systems models are used by many of Silicon Valley’s most innovative companies. Systems Thinking Made Simple is used as an introductory text for undergraduate and graduate students in numerous colleges and universities including Cornell University and West Point Military Academy. Cabrera has developed and patented a suite of systems thinking tools for use in academia, business, and beyond.

Bob Cavana

Associate Professor Bob Cavana is a Reader in Systems & Sustainability in the School of Management, Victoria Business School, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Bob is a past President of the NZ Operational Research Society, a past Vice-President for the International System Dynamics Society and a former Managing Editor of System Dynamics Review (2005-12). He has published in a wide range of international journals, and he is a co-author of Systems Thinking, System Dynamics: Managing Change and Complexity 2nd ed (Pearson Education, Auckland, 2007) and Introduction to Systems Thinking. Pearson Education NZ (Prentice Hall): Auckland, 2009.

Joe Kasser

Joseph Kasser has been a practicing systems engineer and engineering manager since 1970 in the USA, Israel, and Australia. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and an INCOSE Fellow. He is the author of “A Framework for Understanding Systems Engineering” and “Holistic Thinking: Creating innovative solutions to complex problems (Solution Engineering)” and many INCOSE symposia papers.
He gave up his positions as a Deputy Director and DSTO Associate Research Professor at the Systems Engineering and Evaluation Centre at the University of South Australia in early 2007 to move back to the UK to develop the world’s first immersion course in systems engineering as a Visiting Professor at Cranfield University. He is an INCOSE Ambassador and also served as the initial president of INCOSE Australia and as a Region VI Representative to the INCOSE Member Board. He is currently a principal at the Right Requirement Ltd. in the UK and a Visiting Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore.

Mike Radzicki

Professor Radzicki is an economist, creator of WPI’s program in system dynamics, and co-creator of WPI’s program in trading and investment system development. Professor Radzicki’s research focuses on predictive analytics, simulation science, and the application of techniques from these areas to problems in economics, finance, and management. He has been invited to speak around the world in venues such as the White House, the Royal Society, the New York Stock Exchange, the United States Departments of Energy, Transportation, and Homeland Security, and Sandia National Laboratories. He has also served on the editorial board of several professional journals and as a consultant to numerous Fortune 500 corporations. In 2006 he served as president of the System Dynamics Society.

Donna Rhodes

Donna Rhodes is a principal research scientist in MIT’s Sociotechnical Systems Research Center. She is the director of the Systems Engineering Advancement Research Initiative (SEAri), a research group focused on advancing theories, methods, and practices for the engineering of complex sociotechnical systems. She is a Past President and Fellow of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), and associate editor of the journal Systems Engineering. She has over 150 publications and is co-author of the book Architecting the Future Enterprise, published by MIT Press in 2015. Her contributions in the systems field have been recognized by numerous publication awards, IBM Outstanding Innovation Award, Lockheed Martin NOVA Award and INCOSE Founders Award.

Khalid Saeed

Khalid Saeed is a professor of economics and system dynamics at WPI. Widely recognized for his work on computer modeling and experimental analysis of developmental, organizational, and governance-related issues, he has written two books and numerous articles and book chapters on a variety of developmental and management agendas, including sustainable economic development, infrastructure planning, political economy, supply chain management, and system dynamics modeling. He has worked as a consultant with UN-ESCAP, UNDP, Asian Development Bank, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Booz Alan Hamilton, US Veterans Administration, U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, and McKinsey Company, among other organizations. At WPI, Saeed served as department head of Social Science and Policy Studies from 1997 to 2007. During this period, he developed new major programs in economic science, psychological science, and system dynamics, as well as initiated graduate studies in the department.

David Peter Stroh

David Peter Stroh is a founding partner of Bridgeway Partners and a founding director of appliedsystemsthinking.com. He was also one of the founders of Innovation Associates, the consulting firm whose pioneering work in the area of organizational learning formed the basis for fellow co-founder Peter Senge’s management classic The Fifth Discipline. David is the author of the best-selling book Systems Thinking for Social Change: A Practical Guide for Solving Complex Problems, Avoiding Unintended Consequences, and Achieving Lasting Results (Chelsea Green, 2015) and of over 30 articles and book chapters including many in “The Systems Thinker”. David is internationally recognized for his work in enabling leaders to apply systems thinking to achieve breakthroughs around chronic, complex problems and to develop strategies which improve system-wide performance over time. David is committed to helping organizations and communities apply systems thinking to social change. Together with his wife Marilyn Paul, he has also written and consulted on how to reduce managerial and organizational overload, as well as authored an article on ‘The Learning Family’. David is a charter member of the Society for Organizational Learning.

Ricardo Valerdi

Ricardo Valerdi is a Professor in the Systems & Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Arizona. Previously he was a Research Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Valerdi is a recipient of the Best Article of the Year Awards in the Systems Engineering Journal and Defense Acquisition Journal, and Best Paper Awards at the Conference on Systems Engineering Research, International Society of Parametric Analysts, and Conference on Predictive Models in Software Engineering. He teaches courses in cost estimation, systems engineering, decision analysis, sports analytics, and the science of baseball. Dr. Valerdi is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cost Analysis and Parametrics and from 2009-2014 was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Enterprise Transformation. He served on the Board of Directors of the International Council on Systems Engineering, and is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Between 1999 and 2002, he worked as a systems engineer at Motorola and has been affiliated with the Aerospace Corporation’s Economic and Market Analysis Center. He is also founder and Chief Scientist of the Science of Sport and a consultant to the Arizona Diamondbacks, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, San Diego Padres, Colorado Rockies, Washington Nationals, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, Oakland Athletics, Los Angeles Dodgers, LA Galaxy, Seattle Sounders, Dallas Mavericks, Orlando Magic., Sugar Bowl, and College Football Playoff Foundation. His work has been featured on ESPN, Fox Sports Arizona, and LA Times. In collaboration with faculty in the UA College of Medicine he developed the first-ever concussion simulator for football for the NCAA.

Source: WPI Systems Thinking Colloquium

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 1:40 pm on September 10, 2019

2019 International Conference on Information, Cybernetics, and Computational Social Systems – IEEE SMC, September 27-30, 2019, Chongqing, China

Source: 2019 International Conference on Information, Cybernetics, and Computational Social Systems – IEEE SMC

SMC Related Conferences

2019 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INFORMATION, CYBERNETICS, AND COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SYSTEMS

Date: September 27, 2019 – September 30, 2019

Location: Chongqing, China

http://ieee-iccss.org/

Categories: Technically Sponsored Conferences

Source: 2019 International Conference on Information, Cybernetics, and Computational Social Systems – IEEE SMC

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 11:36 am on September 10, 2019

Professor Raul Espejo – ‘Enabling local people and groups to support global organisational development’, 2 October 2-3pm, University of Portsmouth, UK

Professor Raul Espejo – ‘Enabling local people and groups to support global organisational development’

Wednesday 2nd October 2020, 2pm – 3pm
Richmond Lecture Theatre 2, University of Portsmouth, PO1 3HE
(organised by the Systems and Information Systems Research Group, School of Computing)

Abstract
Our organisations emerge from networks of autonomous people engaged in interaction processes (Espejo & Foss, 2018). People, in collectives, use their skills, resources and capabilities to create and produce whatever outcomes they may wish to achieve. Collaboration in these interactions, to a significant degree, depend on processes of self-organization. In general there is no one with authority to tell people what to do and how to interact; they just interact. Often these interactions are inadequate and it is only through learning processes, which depend on cues and signals, that they proceed towards desirable outcomes. To a degree this is the dynamics of organisational development to respond to environmental, social, and economic pressures. Self-organising processes are at the core of their interactions. In today’s world technologies, digital and others, are transforming these interaction processes. New forms of communication and relationships are emerging between people and their environments; these are processes towards the constitution of effective organisational systems (Beer, 1979, 1985), (Espejo & Reyes, 2011). However, these systems are more than the outcome of bottom-up self-organisation; they are also, the outcome of guided self-organisation, which, through policies clarify purposes and help to speed up learning processes by enabling relating fragmented resources. Organisational development and problem solving require of both; bottom-up and top-down interactions. The challenge is working out which interaction strategies are necessary to increase response capacity to make sense of an often overwhelmingly complex surrounding. These are aspects related to Ross Ashby´s law of requisite variety (Ashby, 1964). We learn to manage these interactions often at a high cost to people and organisation; hierarchical structures tend to concentrate responses to environmental challenges at the top of the organisation. On the other hand heterarchical organisations try to distribute response capacity and self-organisation throughout the collective, but often their local response capacity is limited by resources. However, current information and communications technologies are increasing the chances of making this distribution effective.

Biography
Professor Espejo is one of, if not the, most knowledgeable academic/practitioner of the Viable Systems Model [VSM] and its subsequent developments. He played a prominent role in project Cybersyn at the behest of Allende, then President of Chile, who invited Professor Stafford Beer to reconfigure the Chilean economy using VSM. Beer was the Scientific Director and Raul Espejo was the operational Director of the project. This is probably the most important example of VSM in action.

The UKSS Management Team

www.ukss.org.uk

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 9:18 am on September 9, 2019

Problem structuring methods – Wikipedia etc

Problem structuring methods

We haven’t included this at all, nor really anything on Operational Research, have we? Such a big universe!

Source: Problem structuring methods – Wikipedia

What’s the Problem? An Introduction to Problem Structuring Methods
Jonathan Rosenhead, 1996

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247823670_What’s_the_Problem_An_Introduction_to_Problem_Structuring_Methods

The Non-Codified Use of Problem Structuring Methods and the
Need for a Generic Constitutive Definition
Mike Yearworth, Leroy White (pdf)

Click to access 79558699.pdf

OR competences: the demands of problem structuring methods, Richard John Ormerod (2014)

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40070-013-0021-6

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 4:57 am on September 8, 2019

Mark Johnson’s Improvisation Blog: Information Loss and Conservation

Source: Improvisation Blog: Information Loss and Conservation

Saturday, 7 September 2019

Information Loss and Conservation

One of the ironies of any “information system” is that they discard information. Quite simply, anything which processes large amounts of data to produce an “answer”, which is then acted on by humans, is attenuating those large amounts of data in various ways. Often this is done according to some latent biases within either the humans requesting the information, bias within the datasets that are processed, or bias within the algorithms themselves. Bias is also a form of attenuation, and the biases which have recently been exposed around racial prejudice in machine learning highlight the fundamentally dangerous problem of loss of information in organisations and society.

In his book “The human use of human beings” Norbert Wiener worried that our use of technology sat on a knife-edge between it either being used to destroy us, or to save us from ourselves. I want to be more specific about this “knife edge”. It is whether we learn how to conserve information within our society and institutions, and avoid using technology to accelerate the process of information destruction. With the information technologies which we have had for the last 50 years, with their latency (which means all news is old news) and emphasis on databases and information processing, loss of information has appeared inevitable.

Continues in source: Improvisation Blog: Information Loss and Conservation

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 5:06 am on September 6, 2019

Why Highly Diverse Work Teams Are Better at Untangling Complexity

hmm

Source: Why Highly Diverse Work Teams Are Better at Untangling Complexity

How Highly Diverse Teams Can Help Untangle Complexity

Sep 05, 2019

role of feelings in entrepreneurship

Top teams work best — and fastest — when they are based on the right criteria and include a highly diverse group of people from all levels across an organization, including outside stakeholders, write David Komlos and David Benjamin in this opinion piece. They are co-authors of Cracking Complexity: The Breakthrough Formula for Solving Just About Anything Fast. Komlos is the CEO and Benjamin is the chief architect of Syntegrity.

Leaders have been hearing for years that diverse teams are key to tackling big problems, to innovating better, and to overall performance. In practice, few leaders know how to configure teams with the specific diversity of talent required to resolve their top challenges; they aren’t clear on what qualifies as diverse in terms of “who” and “how many,” nor how to construct these teams. This is essential to mastering complexity. Let us explain.

Imagine walking into your office one morning and finding a ferocious lion on your desk. If you are like most people, in the blink of an eye you slam the door and run away as fast as you can. Deconstruct that blink of an eye — in less than a second you saw the lion, absorbed the implications, thought about your options, decided what to do, and implemented seamlessly. No confusion, no mixed messages, no consensus-building — just a very smooth path from sensing the lion to fleeing.

Organizations, business units, teams, joint ventures don’t work nearly as fast. Their challenges, like growing faster, taking out cost, merging, digitizing and transforming aren’t solved by any one individual, nor are the solutions executed by any one individual. It takes many people to sense, absorb, think, decide and then act in a unified way.

W. Ross Ashby, president of the Society for General Systems Research from 1962–1964, understood this. His Law of Requisite Variety states “Only variety can destroy variety,” which means that leaders who are faced with a multidimensional challenge must be as multidimensional as the challenge. That’s only possible by tapping into a much broader and deeper variety of people — beyond the usual suspects — who have the combined knowledge, experience and expertise to match the complexity, and whose buy-in is essential for execution. Short-changing requisite variety guarantees partial outcomes; starting with a partial understanding, followed by partial solutions, followed by weak execution.

The following framework enables rigorous examination of variety when constructing teams:

Twelve zones from which to choose people based on their role, perspective, knowledge and expertise;

The 12 Zones of Variety

Cross-checked against 13 Characteristics that span human dimensions like basic demographics, thinking style, personality, attitude and influence.

Different challenges require different zone and characteristic combinations.

Constructing a High-variety Team

Depending on the challenge — for example, improving Net Promoter Score (NPS), transforming manufacturing and supply chain, or securing customer trust and loyalty — start by taking a broad view of the organization, including its customers, stakeholders and partners. Think through each zone to identify the people you need to involve, and then layer in other considerations and characteristics. For example, if you’re choosing among the leadership team, who’s most open to change and willing to be challenged? If you’re choosing from the IT department, who’s going to be the most important doer and who’s the biggest skeptic? Among your agency partners and vendors, who always seems to listen first and come with great insights later? Strength lies in engaging those differences, all together, all at once.

Achieving the necessary variety with a minimal number of people is the trick. When it comes to the “requisite” word, it’s all about efficiency in your selections. Once you’ve listed specific names of people who collectively cover the desired zones and cross-checked the characteristics that are covered by those people, you’ve got a long list of candidates. Prune that list, remove the duplicates, replace three people who cover a few zones and characteristics with one who covers them all, and now you’ve got your high-variety team. Maybe as few as eight people, perhaps as many as 50 or 60.

Improving NPS

A large financial services firm was intent on greatly improving its NPS. They started down the path of their usual practice of involving mostly senior leaders and their reports, augmented by a few younger high-potential staff members. After using the 12 Zones and the idea of requisite variety to rethink the team they’d be convening to find solutions, they made room for strong representation from the field, a hierarchically diverse cross-section of key functions, several external experts, their PMO outsource partner, several customers, and their internal task force responsible for stewarding execution of the plan. As they thought through other key characteristics to bring into the group, they chose a couple of additional insiders who had dealt with a similar challenge but in other industries, switched some of the leaders they had first identified to get more demographic diversity, varied the mix of customers to be more reflective of key segments, and added one more field person with a reputation for being a real challenger.

Within six months, this carefully chosen combination of usual and non-usual suspects was credited with the firm’s NPS Score improvement from -15 to +28.

Transforming Manufacturing and Supply Chain

A conglomerate was able to transform its manufacturing and supply chain much faster than expected in large part because they involved many individuals who typically would not be engaged in figuring this out. All lines of business were represented as were several key functions. Also included were a few supply chain partners, customers, outside experts in supply chain transformation and data and analytics, and layers deep inside a geographically diverse set of plants and distribution centers. In choosing who to bring from the lines of business, intentional choices were made to ensure a mix of strong supporters for change and the biggest resisters. All of the “unusual suspects” commended leadership for having them involved in such an important discussion so early on, for the first time in their careers.

“Achieving the necessary variety with a minimal number of people is the trick.”

Securing Customer Trust and Loyalty

A health care organization that supplies life-essential products was able to elevate trust and reputation, and achieve market share dominance by deliberately involving external stakeholders with polar opposite views and motivations throughout its strategic planning cycles. These people, who were used to being involved through stakeholder-engagement meetings and market research interviews, found themselves instead in the center of strategy development, expressing their needs, voicing their concerns, and ultimately co-creating the way forward. With them at the table was a cross-section of the organization’s people, given full right to be outspoken, to challenge, to be vulnerable about what they felt could and could not be done, and to be open to the possibility that current internal processes and policies were wrong. In fact, in one particular strategy, the entire group realized existing national policy was wrong and aligned and took ownership of changing it. Most of those involved remarked on how they had not seen that coming, and that the need for change wouldn’t have been identified at all without the variety of people in the room that day.

The Difference-maker

In each of these instances, bringing requisite variety to bear was a key difference-maker in the quality of solutions and subsequent speed of execution. Of course, configuring and assembling requisite variety is necessary but insufficient. What you do when you bring them all together in the same place determines whether or not the team will successfully come up with a robust solution and truly buy-in to what they have co-created.

Complexity is the defining challenge of our times. The capability to leap past your biggest challenges and to seize the opportunity on the other side of those challenges is the single most important leadership and organizational capability today. The talent to do so isn’t scarce; it’s abundant and all around you. These people are relatively inexpensive, they’re part of the solution, and when mobilized in the right way, they’re extremely fast. Having a requisite-variety mindset and mastery in configuring special-purpose teams is the gateway.

Source: Why Highly Diverse Work Teams Are Better at Untangling Complexity

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 11:24 am on September 5, 2019

Scale Deep: Using A Feminist Approach to Shift Systems – a Tamarack Institute Webinar 13 September 2019 12pm Eastern Time with Tatiana Fraser and Pamela Teitelbaum

Source: Scale Deep: Using A Feminist Approach to Shift Systems

Scale Deep: Using A Feminist Approach to Shift Systems

Date: Friday, September 13, 2019 | 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. ET

Speakers: Tatiana Fraser and Pamela Teitelbaum

Systems change practice offers new approaches to leadership and collaboration that help leaders address complexity in new ways. Feminist approaches to change offer approaches to analyzing power and centering the experiences of marginalized communities. At MetaLab, we have been engaged in an inquiry exploring the question: What is unique about feminist systems change practice? What can we learn when a gender lens is applied to a systems change initiative?

In this webinar, we will share our insights and a new systems change framework; including key practices, approaches and lessons learned about how gender equity organizations are doing systems change. We will reflect on how this framework illuminates the extent to which marginalized communities are positioned to lead systems change, and how these approaches align with and might be applied to other issue areas.

More info on speakers and book at source: Scale Deep: Using A Feminist Approach to Shift Systems

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 12:25 am on September 5, 2019

Look broader

Advertorial in BEEF magazine not my prime source, but here ya go…

Source: Look broader

Look broader

Systems thinking helps one veterinarian’s stocker clients identify sustainable solutions.

Wes Ishmael | Sep 01, 2019

Some call it systems thinking. Some term it holistic.

Either way, the notion is to consider any system in its entirety and how a change in one part of the system affects change in another.

“The reality is that one initial action seldom, if ever, results in only one reactive change,” explains Burke Teichert, a ranch strategic planning consultant, in a column he writes for BEEF magazine. “This is especially true in biological systems. The interconnectedness between creatures and plants that are affected by weather and environment makes predictability in farming and ranching quite difficult.

“That difficulty is exacerbated when we fail to look beyond the intended result. We must learn to see the reactions that happen in addition to the desired or expected result.”

Such thinking runs counter to the linear thought process most of us are taught.

In the case of cattle health, for instance, Groves explains veterinarians are taught to consider health challenges on an increasingly granular basis, focusing on ever finer details. Here’s the individual head of cattle being diagnosed, the likely organs affected; here’s the bacteria or the virus.

Without also considering the proverbial forest where the individual tree exists, seemingly logical solutions can lead to unintended consequences and unsustainable results.

Groves, who specializes in stocker cattle, shares an example.

When the first effective metaphylactic treatment came along in the mid 1990s, he explains it was a game changer. His clients could run exponentially more high-risk cattle with the same amount of labor.

Over time, BRD-based morbidity and death loss crept up to where it was before the treatment was available. Along came a new, effective metaphylactic product and clients were off to the races again, with the same gradual result over time.

“By using metaphylaxis, they changed by running more cattle through their systems,” Groves explains. “But the net BRD was still the same. I realized we weren’t moving the needle.”

That was about 15 years ago. Groves took a step back—way back. He’d stumbled across some information about systems thinking and tried the approach. That’s when he could clearly see that metaphylaxis wasn’t the problem or the solution, necessarily. Instead, moving the BRD needle had to do with many aspects of client operations.

He gathered and shared data with his clients. They could see the way they were using metaphylaxis wasn’t sustainable if they hoped to reduce BRD-related challenges.

More than just health

“Systems thinking helps you communicate with those you work with,” Groves emphasizes.

Since then, Groves consults with his clients on a wide array of their stocker management, including nutrition, pen size, employee training and bio-containment. They moved the BRD needle in a positive direction. More important, they discovered the value of systems thinking.

Consider this past year. A major challenge for his Central Missouri stocker clients revolved around the shortage of forage the previous summer. That meant many cow-calf producers elected to wean calves early. Specifically, Groves is referring to fall-born calves that his clients began procuring last spring.

Clients also employ a number of cooperators to start calves. So, shifting to significantly lighter calves required adjusting typical protocols, based on understanding the system and its components.

For instance, Groves explains clients and their cooperators set up more pens with bunks and waterers closer to the ground. They reduced pen counts and grouped calves across a weight range of 50 pounds rather than 100 pounds.

They adjusted rations to make them denser and more palatable. They reinforced sound cattle handling principles, understanding the inherent challenge of asking crew members to process 350-pound calves in facilities designed to process larger ones.

“Conventional or common practices of livestock healthcare are very focused on disease-causing organisms and how best to kill them,” explains Greg Braun, 2007 Nuffield Scholar, in Holistic Livestock Healthcare, a report for Nuffield Canada. “The emphasis is placed on the nature of the bacteria or virus when making a treatment decision, which is assumed to be the primary cause.”

“Using the appropriate antibiotic for the specified time frame should kill enough of the undesired organism for the animal to be ‘cured’. The holistic approach is about taking a broader view of disease and health. It looks for the deeper, more fundamental cause of disease, the very rational cause and effect relationships between an animal’s entire body and the complete environment,” he says.

“The animal is seen as being part of the complete farm ecosystem. A treatment of disease in the holistic approach will often focus on the overall health and immune system function of an animal rather than one specific bacteria, virus, or disorder.”

Source: Look broader

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 8:59 am on September 3, 2019

Our Human Current: Stories about Complexity, Systems, and Mentorship by Angela Cross and Haley Campbell-Gross

so excited this is now out – The Human Current http://www.human-current.com/ is/was a brilliant complexity and systems thinking podcast. After funding ran out, they’ve closed down now – final podcast below – but produced what promises to be an excellent book! Ordered… and cheers to Angela and Haley…

Source: Our Human Current: Stories about Complexity, Systems, and Mentorship by Angela Cross (Paperback) — Lulu GB

Our Human Current: Stories about Complexity, Systems, and Mentorship

By Angela Cross & Haley Campbell-Gross

Paperback, 412 Pages

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Our Human Current: Stories about Complexity, Systems, and Mentorship

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Human Current, the complexity podcast, emerged from the belief that the world will be a better place if more people learn about complexity—as a scientific theory and way of understanding the world. Our Human Current is a story of listening and learning, and of the power of mentorship, inspired by our own mentor, Douglas Drane. We conducted more than 125 thoughtful interviews with scientists, influencers, and practitioners in the fields of complexity science and systems thinking. Let us take you on a 365-day journey through the stories, research, anecdotes, and advice from Doug and our conversations with guests including: Stephen Wolfram, a founding father of complexity science; Yaneer Bar-Yam, president of the New England Complex Systems Institute; Jean Boulton, co-author of Embracing Complexity; Melanie Mitchell, professor at the Santa Fe Institute; Margaret Wheatley, best-selling author; Dean Radin, chief scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences; Albert-László Barabási, author; and so many more!

Source: Our Human Current: Stories about Complexity, Systems, and Mentorship by Angela Cross (Paperback) — Lulu GB

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 5:33 pm on September 1, 2019

An Introduction to Cybernetics by W. Ross Ashby (full book) 1957

(pdf)

Click to access IntroCyb.pdf

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 12:21 pm on August 31, 2019

The Cybernetics Society, 51st Anniversary Conference 21st September 2019 at King’s College, London

Source: The Cybernetics Society

51st Anniversary Conference

The Conference will be held on Saturday 21st September 2019
The Council Room, King’s College, 152-170 Strand, London WC2R 1ES

Programme

9.30 Registration

10.00 “The Use and Abuse of Cybernetic Concepts in Economics“ Dr David Dewhurst, Management Consultant, Member of Brunel University Council, Society Secretary, Former Head teacher, University Lecturer and Ofsted Inspector.

11.00 “AI & VR in Healthcare- A Cybernetic Perspective” Martin Ciupa, Chief AI Officer MindMaze, Lausanne, Switzerland. Former TEDx Speaker, Top 25 Social Influencer in Risk and Regulatory Technology in the USA.

12.00 Break

12.15 “Holistic Security-or Finding Needles in Needle-stacks!“ Prof. Peter Cochrane OBE, Professor of Sentient Systems at the University of Suffolk and previously Professor for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at Bristol University.

1.15 “Imparity, Service-Dominant Logic, and the Architecture of Enterprise“ Prof. Angus Jenkinson, Partner at Thinking, Director at the Centre for Thinking Futures.

2.15 Lunch at Aldwych Cafe, Starbucks, Pret a Manger etc

3.30 “A Cybernetic Approach to Introducing Robotics“ Prof Richard Mitchell, Professor of Cybernetics and Director of the School of Technology Enhanced Learning, Department of Computer Science, University of Reading.

4.30 “Anticipating New Waves of Disruption in the Field of Artificial Intelligence” David W Wood DSc, Principal, Delta Wisdom and Chair of London Futurists.

5.30 Break

5.45 “Ten Thousand Years of Alienation” Prof John Wood, Professor of Practice, Swansea College of Art, University of Wales, and Emeritus Professor of Design at Goldsmiths, University of London.

6.45 Panel question and answer session with all our speakers.

Finish at 7.15 to be followed by dinner at 7.30pm at Salieri’s Restaurant, Strand.

Cybernetics Society members, staff, students and alumni of King’s College are admitted free of charge. Non-members may apply to join at the conference. The membership fee for the three months to the end of the year is £5. The student membership fee for the three months is £2.50. Application forms will be made available on the day. If you are considering attending please email so that we can estimate numbers. If you are contemplating joining us for dinner, please let us know for restaurant booking.

Further information on the Society and an application form is available on our website here.

Please put the date in your diary now.

Abstracts

“The Use and Abuse of Cybernetic Concepts in Economics”

David Dewhurst Economics is replete with systems models. Umpleby (2011) identified it as ideal territory for Second Order Cybernetics and Soros’ concept “Reflexicity” previously expressed the same notions, profitably. Hayek promoted the market as the perfect distributed intelligence network and was versed in the potential of neural nets. Mainstream economics has promoted stochastic stabilisation models while Marx posited an inevitable collapse. Complexity and chaos models are easy to build but of little demonstrable use as yet, at least at the macroeconomic level. The modelling of Minsky and Keen has gained credibility and popularity, but modelling itself is prone to systematic weaknesses. The implicit assumptions of economists and the zeitgeist do not usefully simplify these issues. The territory explored in this presentation will be moderated by (damped) audience feedback.

“AI & Virtual Reality (VR) in Healthcare â€“ A Cybernetic Perspective”

Martin Ciupa This presentation describes closed-loop machine learning applied to neurological disorder diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy. The platform described as a working example is MindMaze’s MindMotion product family. MindMotion’s first application is in stroke therapy. If a stroke victim develops upper arm impairments the computer provides a gamified VR motion-based experience. The patient’s actual kinematic movements are detected (by Machine Learning), and if anomalies are present, recommendations are made to exercise normative motions (e.g., a patient may compensate upper arm movement impairment by twisting the torso). The case is made that the methodology allows for a new paradigm of healthcare, that we refer to as Healthcare 5.0.

“Holistic Security – or Finding Needles in Needle-stacks! “

Peter Cochrane In an increasingly connected and complex world, solutions to problems are no longer simple. Old techniques and thinking are being pushed aside as non-linearity and emergent behaviour become dominant. So, it is no surprise to see cyber-security on the “back foot” and struggling to cope with agile enemies that are faster to innovate. “We have to get ahead of the game by embracing a multiplicity of new tools and techniques”. “In an ideal world: responses to Cyber and Terror would be automated and immediate”. National Security Threats now embrace: People; Companies; Governments; Devices; Networks; Services; Vehicles; Properties; LAND; SEA; AIR; SPACE; CYBER and INFORMATION. So we have to think and operate simultaneously across all these domains and behave more like our enemies.

“Imparity, Service-Dominant Logic, and the Architecture of Enterprise”

Angus Jenkinson Imparity Is a concept within Ternary Theory (Stewart) that proposes the necessity for a third domain in the organization of (at least) a large variety of systems. These would include the socio-economic systems of civilisation. Service-dominant-logic (SDL) is a paradigm-shifting marketing theory (Lusch and Varga) close to the presenter’s position. It re-architects the nature and relationship of value or service in the (cybernetic) business process. It offers a framework for the considered application of ternary theory. The implications fold back into the conceptual structuring of an enterprise as a recursive dynamic of value-creation. Drawing also on theories of organisational identity and botanical morphology, and including a brief critique of marketing, the presentation hopes to suggest new avenues for cybernetic and practical research.

“A Cybernetic Approach to Introducing Robotics”

Richard Mitchell. Begin Robotics is a successful open online course on FutureLearn, which uses cybernetics to introduce robotics, control, haptics, artificial intelligence and artificial life (including Lovelock’s Daisyworld). Whilst aimed at Key Stage 3 pupils as a recruitment tool, it also features in the first year of the undergraduate degree. The course features various robots, including a specially designed robot called ERIC which appears in some videos, and interactive web pages which are used to illustrate key concepts and in exercises where users work out the velocities of ERIC so that it can perform suitable actions. This talk will give an overview of the course, the cybernetic approach, demonstrate some of the web pages which are used, and feature the “robots behaving badly” out take video.

“Anticipating new waves of disruption in the field of Artificial Intelligence”

This presentation will defend the view that what’s known as AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, might be developed by mid century, and possibly as early as within the next decade. The presentation will include some history, an analysis of how disruption occurs (drawing on the speaker’s enterprise professional experience as well as his studies as a futurist), reasons why the pace of development of AI is likely to increase, answers to various commonly expressed criticisms, a review of some potential future scenarios, and some discussion about steps that might be taken in view of this analysis. As it happens, Norbert Wiener long ago anticipated some more recent thought experiments about over-eager paperclip maximisers. But as AGI approaches, paperclip maximisers will be the least of the challenges facing society.

“Ten Thousand Years of Alienation”

Although Marx’s saw humans as intrinsically “natural”, his theory of estrangement from the self (1844) can be interpreted either allopoietically, or autopoietically. For 10K years, agriculture and technology have enabled us to scale-up our social systems at levels increasingly beyond our comfort zones, cognitively speaking. We did so by exchanging the situated experience of being “responsible” with the detached and summative concept of “accountability”. Since then, successive developments (clock-time, unit-based money, geometry, writing, Taylorism, automation, AI, etc.) added layers of alienation, that estranged us further from ourselves in our “natural” ecological context. One way to make governance and education more convivial, like “living systems” (i.e. “sympoietic”) is to develop Metadesign tools and grammatical frameworks that are more relational.

Speakers’ biographies

	Dr David Dewhurst is a former Management Consultant, Member of Brunel University Council, Head Teacher, University Lecturer, Lead Ofsted Inspector and Facilitator for the Economics Group of “Occupy London”. He has published in The Financial Times becoming the editor’s monthly pick. He has written on economics for politics.co.uk and the Tax Justice Network. David was instrumental in getting the 1217 Charter of the Forest (medieval “Basic Income”) celebrated in the Speaker’s House, Westminster. He has debated in Parliament’s Committee Room 10 and has written for, and helped organise, a number of economics conferences. He has a talk on YouTube. He has an interest in what modelling (and metaphors and myths) omit from our perception of reality and sees economics as an ideal playground to illustrate this. His PhD title was “Conceptual and Cognitive Problems in Cybernetics”.
	Martin Ciupa is Head of AI Initiatives at Mindmaze, Switzerland. Formerly Regional VP for Agilent and British Telecom and senior manager in AI/Cybernetic & Robotic systems and IT&T in Europe, the Americas and Asia, in technology, commercial and executive roles. His most recent position was CTO of Calvary Robotics developing intelligent automation systems. He has published in international journals and conference proceedings, including presentations to the EU, the Robotics Industry Association, the Harvard Medical School Big Data & AI conference, the Berlin “Rise of AI conference” and the United Nations SDG Health Summit. Martin was listed as a top 100 authority in AI, ML, Speech Recognition and NLP, and in the top 25 influencers in Risk, Compliance, and Regulatory Technology in the United States. He is a TEDx speaker with 80k followers on social media.
	Peter Cochrane is Professor of Sentient Systems at the University of Suffolk and previously Professor for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at Bristol University. He has Honorary Doctorates from six other universities. He was Head of Research and Chief Technology Officer at BT, with a 1000 strong team. He was given the Queen’s Award for Innovation & Export in 1990. He has published over 400 scientific and engineering papers, patents, press articles, edited books and chapters and made over 300 national and international appearances on radio and TV. He has been advisor to over 100 universities, research groups, journals and organisations.
	Angus Jenkinson was the world’s first Professor of Integrated Marketing and is a leading researcher and authority on the theory of enterprise self-organization, identity, and performance. He is a non-executive director of several companies, a system designer, and strategy consultant. He founded the management consultancy Stepping Stoneswhich later became Thinking, in which he is a partner. He also founded The Centre for Thinking Futures. A former tech entrepreneur and pioneering authority on digital marketing (as a cybernetic discipline), Angus has advised scores of leading companies and coached very many business leaders. He created the Virtuoso® management tool, used around the world. He has authored or co-authored 3 books and published numerous papers, cases, and book chapters. He is a Trustee of the Cybernetics Society.
	Richard Mitchell is Professor of Cybernetics and a University Teaching Fellow at the University of Reading, which he first attended as an undergraduate reading Cybernetics & Control Engineering, prior to his PhD, entitled ‘Multimicroprocessor Control of Processes with Pure Time Delay’, before becoming a lecturer. He has held many offices at Reading, including Head of Department of Cybernetics, Director of Teaching and Learning and then Senior Tutor in the School of Systems Engineering, and is currently Director of Technology Enhanced Learning in the School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences. He programmed the “seven dwarf” robots in Cybernetics which were forerunners of the ERIC robot which features in “Begin Robotics”. His interests include artificial intelligence, control, robotics, Gaia and online learning.
	David Wood D.Sc is a consultant for Delta Wisdom and Chair of London Futurists. He is one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry, having co-founded Symbian, the creator of the world’s first successful smartphone operating system. He held leadership roles at: Accenture Mobility, Psion Software and Symbian. His software for user interface frameworks and application architecture has been included on over 500 million smartphones. David has a triple first class mathematics degree from Cambridge and undertook doctoral research in the Philosophy of Science. In 2009 he was included in T3’s list of “100 most influential people in technology”. He is author or lead editor of eight books including “Envisioning Politics 2.0: How AI, cyborgs, and transhumanism can enhance democracy and improve society”, “Smartphones and Beyond”, “The Abolition of Aging” and “Sustainable Superabundance”.
	John Wood recently founded the Metadesign Research Centre at University of Wales Trinity St. David, where he is Professor of Practice. He is also Emeritus Professor of Design at Goldsmiths, University of London. His interest in cybernetics began in the late 1960s when, as a fine art student, he developed interactive electronic installations and a computer-assisted play. After ten years as Deputy Head of Fine Art at Goldsmiths, during the YBA years, he wrote several radical design degrees which formed the basis for the current Department of Design. John is co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice and an original and active member of the cult band “Deaf School”.

Directions

By Underground

For Underground train travellers the nearest stations are Temple (500 metres, District and Circle lines), Covent Garden (800 metres, Piccadilly line), Embankment and Charing Cross (800 metres, Northern and Bakerloo lines).

By Bus

Bus travellers may catch the 6, 7, 13, 23, 76, 521 and RV1.

cafes

Source: The Cybernetics Society

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 12:00 pm on August 31, 2019

Metaphorum 2019 – Ctrl+Shift+Del – Rebooting Society, The Nautisch Kwartier Hotel (Huizen, Amsterdam) November 1st-3th 2019

Source: Metaphorum 2019 – metaphorum

Ctrl+Shift+Del – Rebooting Society

The Nautisch Kwartier Hotel (Huizen, Amsterdam)

November 1st-3th 2019

This won’t be the first time that we’ve held a Metaphorum get-together to share experiences and knowledge on ways to apply and develop Stafford Beer’s original innovations, the Viable System Model and Team Syntegrity, as useful tools to support more conscious, self-evolutionary individuals, organisations and societies. This time, the challenges of our current international environment couldn’t be more demanding: the escalating impact of global climate change; the massive domination of global capitalism through trans-national corporations; the mind-boggling increase in inequality, continuing poverty for the majority of people in the southern half of the planet; and the escalating risk of wars, given the rising geo political tensions.

Everyone seems to be calling for massive, urgent and dramatic system change at all levels. New forms of economy need to be invented; new forms of businesses need to emerge; new ways of relating to each other inside organisations are in high demand; in other words, we need to reboot society! (Ctrl/Shift/Del!!) We need to invent a new (sustainable and equitable) economic model, new business models, and new ways of relating to each other.

Venue and accommodation

The Nautisch Kwartier in Huizen, Amsterdam (30 min from Schiphol).

This is conference venue and hotel together, for those who wish to stay in the hotel

Website location: https://www.hotelnautischkwartier.nl/en/photos-videos

Conference Fees:

1. Conference fees, no hotel is €200 (this includes opening dinner on Friday and 2x lunch, coffee/tea etc)

2. Conference AND hotel is €474 (this includes 2x dinners, 2x lunches and 2x hotel nights including breakfast). You should book your place and pay it directly with the hotel.

Payment: You can pay your fees (€200) by depositing your registration fees through Paypal. Follow this link, which will allow you to register directly in the Metaphorum Bank account

https://paypal.me/pools/c/8gnmIS541m

(Registrations opened now)

Accommodation:

You can either stay at the the Nautisch Kwartier in Huizen , or get your own accommodation nearby

So if you flag your interest on this Metaphorum meeting to Angela Espinosa or Jon Walker , you will receive further information on the procedure to enroll.

Agenda

We’ll start with a social gathering and dinner in the evening of Friday the 1st November, at the Hotel, to recap on last year’s conference and to decide on details for the agenda of the following days. There will be food and drinks available at the venue combined with other social events.

On Saturday, all day, there will be a series of seminars, from those presenting a topic for discussion. Participants can choose between several topics, following the detailed agenda which will be provided before the event.

On Sunday, there will be an open forum, to develop core issues emerging from the previous conversations, in self organised teams. The methodology we will apply could be World Café or an adaptation of Open Space. Simple, adequate and flexible.

There will be an extra workshop on Monday, for those interested in staying an extra night, leaded by Joe Truss, Christine Cullen and David Beatty, on latest development of Team Syntegrity, from 11 a.m.-17:45 pm, called: “ Embodying the Cosmic Code’. See attached flyer with more information. Contact David at djfbeatty@icloud.com to register and/or for clarifications

ABSTRACTS

You can either register as a speaker, or just as a participant. For speakers, we will need asap:

– Short cv (with your picture)

– Title of your talk and a brief summary

We will be choosing the best abstracts, to invite speakers to complete a paper to be publish in an Academic Journal. Details of the journal to be confirmed soon.

So if you flag your interest on this Metaphorum meeting to Angela Espinosa or Jon Walker , you will receive further information on the procedure to enrol.

Conference Fee

1. Conference fees, no hotel is €200(£185) (this includes opening dinner on Friday and 2x lunch, coffee/tea etc)

2. Conference AND hotel is €474 (this includes 2x dinners, 2x lunches and 2x hotel nights including breakfast). You should book your place and pay accommodation (aprox. €274) directly with the hotel.

[Pay your registration €200(£185) as explained below, directly to the Metaphorum bank account or through Paypal]

[Note: Our Conference co-organisers are still trying to get a discount in the accommodation fee. We shall announce soon the final deal with the hotel. Mention you are attending the Metaphorum Conference on registration]

Payment:

You can pay your fees by:

a) Depositing your registration fees through Paypal. Once you have received confirmation on acceptance, you will be sent an invoice from Paypal. You can deposit the money using the Paypal link; It will be deposited in the Metaphorum Bank account.

b) Depositing directly the registration fees in the Metaphorum Bank account and sending us a copy of the receipt:

Account name: Metaphorum

Bank name: Lloyds Bank

Sort Code:30-98-97

Account: 42736760

(Registrations opened now)

ACCOMMODATION:

You can either stay at the Nautisch Kwartier in Huizen , or get your own accommodation nearby

Check www.metaphorum.org for updates and more detailed information.

Hope to see you all in November!

Angela Espinosa, Jon Walker, Allena Leonard, Jan Kuiper, Mark Lambertz

(Organisers)

angela.espinosa.salazar@gmail.com

walker.jon.99@gmail.com

see the conference flyer at:

Ctrl Shift Del Nov 2019 (009)

and the Monday workshop flyer at:

Embodying the Cosmic Code Invitation

Enrollment

So if you flag your interest on this Metaphorum meeting to Angela Espinosa or Jon Walker , you will receive further information on the procedure to enroll.

Angela
angela.espinosa.salazar@gmail.com
+44 7910 708389

Jon
walker.jon.99@gmail.com
+44 7530 427429

Source: Metaphorum 2019 – metaphorum

antlerboy - Benjamin P Taylor 1:06 pm on August 29, 2019

Governing artificial intelligence at scale – Policy Forum. Can cybernetic theory be applied in policy practice?

Source: Governing artificial intelligence at scale – Policy Forum

Governing artificial intelligence at scale

Can cybernetic theory be applied in policy practice?

KATHERINE DANIELL, GENEVIEVE BELL, AMY MCLENNAN

PHOTO: Lukas on Unsplash

GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNANCE, TRADE AND INDUSTRY, LAW | AUSTRALIA, THE WORLD

29 AUGUST 2019

Talking about artificial intelligence alone isn’t enough. We need to discuss the systems in which it will be a critical component, Genevieve Bell, Katherine Daniell, and Amy McLennan write.

Defining artificial intelligence (AI) is messy. Ask 10 experts to define AI and you will get 10 different answers. It is easy to think that the most important policy question, then, is a definitional one that tidies up the mess: what is AI?

But AI is not a singular thing. According to Kate Crawford and Meredith Whittaker, AI “refers to a constellation of technologies, including machine learning, perception, reasoning, and natural language processing”.

That means there are lots of AIs, in lots of different places. And that’s only the beginning. Systems which contain AI are built from natural resources, powered by energy, created and sold on markets, incorporated into our societies in myriad ways, and have a range of effects on people’s lives.

So what if the mess is the important part? What if, instead of focusing on AI as if it is some singular object, we think about the complex systems into which AI is being built? To understand systems, single definitions don’t work because they erase multiple perspectives, definitions, values, and relationships that shape the system and how it behaves.

None of this is new. All public policy areas are messy. Health, education, defence, immigration, environment, social policy and others are interconnected and complex. They change over time, they look different depending on who we are and where we are positioned, and decisions in one area affect others.

For some time, we have drawn on systems thinking to help us make sense of this mess. Systems concepts such as feedback loops have become increasingly common in public policy and service development, especially since the 1970s.

Decision-making relating to AI might also benefit from systems approaches. We are not the first to suggest this. In 1946, when the first general-purpose computing machines began operating, a mathematician and philosopher named Norbert Wiener proposed a new area of study – cybernetics – to understand the relationships between biological, technical, and human systems.

Wiener developed the idea of the feedback loop, and he helped shape systems engineering and control theory. In 1950, he considered how cybernetic thinking might be applied to society. He emphasised the role of policy feedback in the system, and the importance of thinking carefully, creatively, and critically about the decisions we make about new technology.

Can cybernetic theory be applied in policy practice?

Thinking cybernetically requires us to understand the dynamic relationships between our ecosystem, the technologies we create, and people. To do this, we need to bring in diverse perspectives from the breadth of the system.

We also need to ask questions to understand the system and our place in it, rather than simply solve the problems we can see ourselves. Governing cyber-physical systems for public good requires us to continually ask useful and salient questions, to stay curious, to admit we don’t know everything, and to expect the system to continue to change.

Good practice in every area of public policy relies on all of us – including policymakers, politicians, and citizens – asking good questions.

Others have made a similar point. For example, Bruce Pascoe recently emphasised the importance of asking questions, raising doubt and wrestling with concepts rather than simply trusting government or others.

Of course, asking questions is easy to say and much harder to do. So where might we start? What is a cybernetic question?

As with any complex system, the list of questions we could ask is limitless and some questions will more important than others. The 3A Institute at The Australian National University has begun to develop some core questions about AI at scale. Around this set of questions, we are developing a new applied science to scale AI safely into cyber-physical systems.

In what context is the system operating? How might we determine the boundaries of the system?

Will the system – or parts of it – have autonomy, and to what degree will it be able to make decisions about its actions without an operator or other constraints?

Will the system have agency? Will it act or exert power on behalf of others? Will it bear responsibility? Will it be subject to laws, controls, and restrictions?

How will we think about assurance in the system? What are the safety, ethical, risk, security, and policing concerns? How will we reassure people that they are safe?

What indicators will we use? How will we monitor performance? What will success look like, and how do we ensure the metrics align with the future we want to live in?

What interfaces will the system have, and how will we know we are interacting with it? What form will that interaction take and how might it change the system?

Finally and most importantly, we must consider the system’s most important aspect: its purpose. Deciding what we actually want to achieve with a system is the core piece of this framework.

The 3A Institute is developing research to test and iterate these core questions. We are also building training programs, including a Masters program and a range of short-courses, to develop a new generation of practitioners who can put cybernetic questions into practice.

Why is all this important? Because the public policy we create when it comes to AI at scale will only be as good as the questions we ask.

Source: Governing artificial intelligence at scale – Policy Forum