The world according to Humberto Maturana January 1970 Authors: Jay Steven Efran Temple University Michael D. Lukens

(PDF) The world according to Humberto Maturana

An evangelical Roman Catholic perspective on the idea of interconnecteedness of ideas, worldviews, (in)commensurability and development of interpretation over time.

• https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08227
• 03 September 2009

Early-warning signals for critical transitions

• Marten Scheffer, 
• Jordi Bascompte, 
• William A. Brock, 
• Victor Brovkin, 
• Stephen R. Carpenter, 
• Vasilis Dakos, 
• Hermann Held, 
• Egbert H. van Nes, 
• Max Rietkerk & 
• George Sugihara 

Nature volume 461, pages53–59 (2009)

Abstract

Complex dynamical systems, ranging from ecosystems to financial markets and the climate, can have tipping points at which a sudden shift to a contrasting dynamical regime may occur. Although predicting such critical points before they are reached is extremely difficult, work in different scientific fields is now suggesting the existence of generic early-warning signals that may indicate for a wide class of systems if a critical threshold is approaching.

Claude Shannon and creativity

Cautionary Tales – Fritterin’ Away Genius 14th May, 2021

Cautionary Tales – Fritterin’ Away Genius | Tim Harford

Overcast link https://overcast.fm/+U9ZGtVS9g

Seth Godin in a brilliant rant on his home turf; the sociological impact of power laws and the consequent impact on human cretivity and possibilities.

Akimbo: A Podcast from Seth Godin The Magnification of Small Differences May 19, 2021

The Magnification of Small Differences — Akimbo: A Podcast from Seth Godin — Overcast

Akimbo: A Podcast from Seth Godin

The Magnification of Small Differences

May 19, 2021

shownotes:

https://www.akimbo.link/blog/s-9-e-2-the-magnification-of-small-differences

Applied systems thinking: unlocking theory, evidence and practice for health policy and systems research Aku Kwamie, Solip Ha, Abdul Ghaffar Health Policy and Planning, czab062, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab062 Published: 16 June 2021

Applied systems thinking: unlocking theory, evidence and practice for health policy and systems research | Health Policy and Planning | Oxford Academic

Applied systems thinking: unlocking theory, evidence and practice for health policy and systems research 

Aku Kwamie, Solip Ha, Abdul Ghaffar

Health Policy and Planning, czab062, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab062

Published: 16 June 2021 

Abstract

While systems thinking has been generally acknowledged as important to the field of health policy and systems research (HPSR), it remains underutilized. In particular, systems thinking has been perceived as predominantly conceptual, with fewer applications of systems thinking documented. This commentary makes three key points, namely that (1) advances in applied systems thinking in HPSR have been hindered by an imprecision in terminology, conflating ‘[health] systems approaches’ with complex adaptive systems theory; (2) limited examples of applied systems thinking have been highlighted and recognized in research, but have not been fully and equally appreciated in policymaking and practice and (3) explicit use of theory, long-term research-policy collaborations and better documentation of evidence can increase the use and usefulness of applied systems thinking in HPSR. By addressing these matters, the potentials of systems thinking in HPSR can be truly unlocked.

16: Contingency Theory – Lawrence and Lorsch

16: Contingency Theory – Lawrence and Lorsch – Talking About Organizations Podcast

76: Comparative Analysis of Organizations – Charles Perrow

76: Comparative Analysis of Organizations – Charles Perrow – Talking About Organizations Podcast

Talking About Organizations is a very nice podcast where a mixed, international group of organisation scholars discuss classic works.

This is a classic and a half – and mindboggling that Perrow died only in 2019 – and links to very contemporary discussions about the ‘drift’ of organisations and elements in organisations.

“

The structure of an organization depends
upon the kind of task it typically performs.
Routine tasks suggest specialization,
formal-ization, hierarchy, and centralized
power; nonroutine tasks are better
performed under the opposite conditions.
Tasks are defined cognitively as search
procedures and excep-tions encountered.

“

Original paper: https://www.tarjomefa.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/5481-English.pdf

Review of it as a classic paper, with critical comments from Perrow himself in 1981:

Click to access A1981LH21200001.pdf

WCSA PROUDLY PRESENTS THE GENERAL CALL FOR PANELS AND PRESENTATIONS FOR THE 10th WCSA WORLWIDE CONFERENCE LISBON, APRIL 20th to 22nd, 2022 online or hybrid (TBA)

10th WCSA Conference – Lisbon | WCSA

WCSA PROUDLY PRESENTS

THE GENERAL CALL FOR PANELS AND PRESENTATIONS FOR THE 10th WCSA WORLWIDE CONFERENCE

LISBON, APRIL 20th to 22nd, 2022

online or hybrid (TBA)

Always worth keepoing an eye on all the work and offers from the Systems Sanctuary – www.systemssanctuary.com – along with the big developments in the ‘developing the field of systems change’ space, below.

An Invitation: Gather for Illuminate’s Solstice Soirée Luis Alejandro Tapia, Joining us as Illuminate’s ‘Network Doula’. Monday June 21 @ 1 – 3 pm pm EST RSVP below.

Illuminate — The Systems Sanctuary

Illuminate: Cultivating the field of systems change practice

An Invitation: Gather for Illuminate’s Solstice Soirée

Monday June 21 @ 1 – 3 pm pm EST

RSVP below.

Online gathering to celebrate and find out more

An invitation to connect to Illuminate at a pivotal stage. Over the last 18 months, we have launched inquiries, new nodes and learning communities.  We have leveraged our collective networks to engage more deeply and more internationally, to meet the needs of the emerging field of systems change in its many expressions and practices. 

We invite you to join us for an Illuminate gathering where we will share our learnings, celebrate our wins, and invite collaborators to our network of Illuminators.

Learn about our call for proposals and inquiries

We will be sharing a call for proposals/action to invite new nodes and inquires into the work of Illuminate. RSVP FOR ILLUMINATE’S SOLSTICE SOIRÉE HERE

Introducing Luis Alejandro, Network Doula

Luis Alejandro, has spent the last year supporting the strategy development of Illuminate, and he is now stepping into his new role as Network Doula.

He will lead the design and hosting of the Solstice event.

About Illuminate

What’s the deal?

Illuminate is a collaborative network designed to connect people committed to cultivating the field and practice of systems change towards a just, equitable and regenerative future for all.

We, Tatiana and Rachel (The Systems Sanctuary) have been involved in this field building initiative since its inception In June 2018.

The Systems Sanctuary’s role in the network

Specifically Tatiana has Chaired the Stewardship Group for 18 months and she and Rachel have acted as a ‘start-up crew’, kicking off various nodes in the network including:

• Working with Anna Birney to kick off the Learning node – where all the leads of different nodes come together to learn and the funders node.
• Led on branding, positioning and website development
• Both served on the Stewardship group
• Set-up processes for how we work together as collaborative partners
• Led an equity working group to integrate intersectional lens across Illuminate
• Led on financial strategy, model development & secured funding
• Led a strategy working group
• Setup fiduciary partners in different regions

Background to Illuminate

Along with Anna Birney (Forum for the Future) and Darcy Ridell (at McConnell at the time), we supported the design and co-convening of an event on Wasan Island, Canada.

Here we brought together practitioners, academics, and funders to explore together how we might work together to build the field of systems change.

The outcome of this was a report and the beginnings of a network of people who’d been working on building the field in different contexts’ and wanted to explore ‘what could we do together that we can’t do alone?’

On the history of Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s “General Systemology”, and on its relationship to cybernetics

Part I: elements on the origins and genesis of Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s “General Systemology”David Pouvreau  &Manfred DrackPages 281-337 | Received 26 Sep 2006, Accepted 20 Sep 2006, Published online: 22 Feb 2007

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03081070601127961

Part II: Contexts and developments of the systemological hermeneutics instigated by von Bertalanffy

David PouvreauPages 172-245 | Received 10 Nov 2013, Accepted 22 Dec 2013, Published online: 05 Feb 2014

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03081079.2014.883743

part III: convergences and divergences

Manfred Drack &David PouvreauPages 523-571 | Received 07 Aug 2014, Accepted 29 Nov 2014, Published online: 23 Feb 2015

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03081079.2014.1000642

A Practitioner Tool for Developing and Measuring the Results of Interventions | Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability

A Practitioner Tool for Developing and Measuring the Results of Interventions

Authors

• Sharon ZivkovicUniversity of South Australia

DOI: 

https://doi.org/10.33423/jsis.v16i1.4183

Keywords: 

sustainability, innovation, wicked problems complex measurement tool interventions

Abstract

It is not uncommon for practitioners to attempt to address a wicked problem by developing an intervention that only addresses a few of the problem’s underpinning causal factors and not the wicked problem in its entirety. To address the whole wicked problem, practitioners need to work through collaborative networks to transition ecosystems of initiatives to a new improved state, or develop interventions that create systems change by influencing others to take action. This paper examines a matrix tool that was created to assist practitioners to develop and evaluate interventions that address simple, complicated, complex and wicked problems. The tool highlights that the type of intervention and the type of measurement that is most appropriate will depend on the scope and the causal logic of the intervention. The four quadrants of the matrix are: basic services, integrated services, social movements and solution ecosystems. To demonstrate how this tool can assist practitioners to develop and measure the results of initiatives, the paper refers to two Australian case studies.

JUN 22 Critical Systems Thinking: What has been done and what needs doing

Critical Systems Thinking: What has been done and what needs doing Tickets, Tue 22 Jun 2021 at 12:00 | Eventbrite

JUN

22

Critical Systems Thinking: What has been done and what needs doing

by The Open University, Faculty of STEM FollowingFree

Event Information

Professor Michael C Jackson presents the third seminar to critically examine what has been done and what needs doing in systems thinking.

About this event

Welcome to the third event in the jubilee celebrations of 50 years of Systems Thinking in Practice at The Open University!

In the wake of the pandemic, confronted by human-induced climate change and exposed to a gamut of vulnerabilities within our societies, many commentators call for investment in thinking and acting differently, particularly with systems thinking in practice, or STiP. The Open University (OU, based in the UK) is well-placed to respond to this imperative of our times because it has been one of the significant investors in STiP education over the last 50 years. In 1971 a new academic department was created; Systems thinking practitioners (STPs) collaborated to design and then present a new undergraduate course called Systems behaviour (T241). This was a pioneering achievement in the UK’s first supported open, distance teaching university. Worldwide, there have been nearly 50,000 OU STiP students.

Fifty years on, the OU has a thriving postgraduate suite of qualifications in systems thinking in practice (STiP) and extensive experience in designing and delivering STiP education and scholarship. In 2021, the OU celebrates this continued unique pioneering tradition of fostering STiP capabilities for lifelong learning and managing change in broad-ranging professional contexts with nearly 250 graduates in recently named degrees.

Please join us through 2021 to celebrate this unique achievement and add your support to what has become an urgent global need – the more excellent capability to think and act systemically. We will have a series of events, blogs and engaging discussions that you are welcome.

Want to keep learning about STiP? Check out our OpenLearn platform that offers free courses on hundreds of subjects, including STiP!

#OUSTiP #OUSTiP50

Professor Jackson’s topic:

Critical Systems Thinking and Practice: What has been done and what needs doing

In 1979 the four UK universities that had groups or departments teaching ‘systems’ – Aston, City, Lancaster, and the Open University – established the UK Systems Society (UKSS). Number 3 of the UKSS Newsletter (June 1980) has a map of the distribution of the membership by postcode. Professor Jackson will discuss the research programme in critical systems thinking and practice that developed at Hull in the early 1980s and has continued for 40 years. He will assess what has been achieved and what still needs to be done and will relate the work at Hull to what has happened in systems thinking elsewhere in the UK, particularly at the Open University.

Get to know…Professor Michael C Jackson

Michael C. Jackson is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Hull and MD of Systems Research Ltd. He graduated from Oxford University, gained an MA from Lancaster University and a PhD from Hull, and has worked in the civil service, in academia and as a consultant. Between 1999 and 2011, Mike was Dean of Hull University Business School, leading it to triple-crown accreditation. Mike has been President of the International Federation for Systems Research and the International Society for the Systems Sciences. He was editor-in-chief of Systems Research and Behavioral Science for 26 years. Mike is a Companion of the Association of Business Schools, a Chartered IT Professional, and a Fellow of the British Computer Society, the Cybernetics Society, the Chartered Management Institute, the Operational Research Society, the International Federation for Systems Research, and the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences. He has received many awards, two honorary degrees, and has been a visiting professor at numerous international universities. In 2011 he was awarded an OBE for services to higher education and business. In 2017 he received the Beale Medal of the UK Operational Research Society for ‘a sustained contribution over many years to the theory, practice, and philosophy of Operational Research’. Mike is known as a key figure in the development of ‘critical systems thinking’ – a topic on which he has published ten books and over 150 articles. His latest book ‘Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity’ was published by Wiley in April 2019.