Top phive of the week
What do you think of each other? How dangerous would it be if everyone knew? A partnership exercise
Here is my theory of tomato inflation and latte carcinisation
What else have you noticed that degrades over time? What are the organisational equivalents of these theories? Tomato inflation When I was a kid, the tomatoes from Derek, our local greengrocer, were *proper tasty*. Juicy and full of flavour. In those days, you could confidently buy a tomato in any shop, and it tasted of …
A surprising new role for local government
The Municipal Journal (the MJ) is the online management journal for local authority business
I’m proud of RedQuadrant – chosen path
I try to make these posts interesting, challenging, accessible. But today I’m just going to be proud of my company for a minute here. What’s your big achievement at the moment? Mine is that we set up in public services consultancy in 2009, just as the good times turned into full-blown austerity. We survived that,…
Launching today, the new iteration of the ESPO Consultancy Services Framework. Run by the Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation on behalf of all UK public services (and accessible to charities and other bodies too), we are proud to have been on this framework for ten years. This is a record year for us, though, as we have qualified for all the lots for which we bid – 17 in total:
public | service | transformation
Breaking reoffending cycles in the criminal justice system – NPC (with systems map)
Breaking reoffending cycles in the criminal justice system Mapping causal factors, leverage points and funding flows Breaking reoffending cycles in the criminal justice system – NPC Breaking reoffending cycles in the criminal justice system Mapping causal factors, leverage points and funding flows Home » Breaking reoffending cycles in the criminal justice system The criminal justice system is […]
Transforming Public Procurement – Government response to consultation
Did you know that public procurement accounts for around a third of all public expenditure in the UK every year? Find out more through this report by the Cabinet Office.
How can public procurement support innovation? The need for deep cultural change
Through this Oxford Government Outcomes Blog post, find out why developing research capacity is a key strategy for innovation in public procurement.
TRUE VALUE – TOWARDS ETHICAL PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSIONING
Localis have produced a new report on public service commissioning called ‘True Value – towards ethical public service commissioning’. It explores how the public, private, and third sector can deliver for communities through a more socially conscious approach to public procurement. Check it out by clicking here.
EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY IS A MAINSTAY FOR SUCCESSFUL CONTRACT MANAGEMENT
This article, published by the National Audit Office, argues that accountability and good governance are vital for successful contract management. Check it out here.
Ten Actions for an Asset-Based Area
A community that highlights the strengths and skills of its citizens is one that is likely to improve its public services. This is what Think Local Act Personal’s latest report aims to bring to light. Find out more here.
systems | complexity | cybernetics
Turning the stone: embedding systems thinking in the everyday Turning the stone: embedding systems thinking in the everyday | by Oliver Standing | School of System Change | Dec, 2021 | Medium
Tweet thread on Gerald Midgley’s Systemic Intervention
The Ghost in the System: | Systems Community of Inquiry
In today’s post, I am looking at the idea of ‘category mistake’ by the eminent British philosopher Gilbert Ryle. Ryle was an ardent opponent of Rene Descartes’ view of mind-body dualism. Ryle also came up with the phrase ‘the ghost in the machine’ to mock the idea of dualism. Cartesian dualism is the idea that mind and body are two separate entities. Descartes was perhaps influenced by his religious beliefs. Our bodies are physical entities that will wither away when we die. But our minds, Descartes concluded are immaterial and can “live on” after we die. Descartes noted:
Mapping for Emergence – Emerge
source Mapping for Emergence – Emerge THEO COX, RUFUS POLLOCK AND ANNA KATHARINA SCHAFFNER MAPPING FOR EMERGENCE Life Itself and Emerge will join forces to map the emergent metamodern ecosystem. But what is so great about social network mapping? Why does it matter, and how can it help? EMERGENCE 8.12.2021 INTRODUCTION Life Itself and Emerge […]
Complex Change in a Complex Environment | Debbie Sorkin
Complex Change in a Complex Environment Dec 9, 2021 Complex Change in a Complex Environment | Leadership
CYBERNETIC WISDOM, Best of Stafford Beer’s, by Javier Livas
The Cybernetic Ethos of Cryptocurrencies – Doria (2020)
The Cybernetic Ethos of Cryptocurrencies: Economic and Social Dimensions Doria, Luigi.Partecipazione e Conflitto; Milan Vol. 13, Iss. 1, (2020): 384-408. DOI:10.1285/i20356609v13i1p384 The Cybernetic Ethos of Cryptocurrencies: – ProQuest Also at http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco/article/view/21994/18566 Which leads me to the definition of ‘cybernetization’: https://second.wiki/wiki/kybernetisierung And (via the source, Evgeny Morozov) also leads me to https://www.the-syllabus.com/about which (published also by Morozov) looks deeply cybernetic..
On Hayek’s “Kinds of Order in Society”
Piece by Donald J Boudreaux: Original piece: https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/hayek-on-kinds-of-order-in-society
SYSTEMS THINKING PRACTITIONER Systems thinking practitioner / Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education As providers start to train the first apprentices, a good time to refresh on this. The specification and requirements for the post-graduate-level apprenticeship (which doesn’t have a specific degree requirement) are above. The official providers page is: https://findapprenticeshiptraining.apprenticeships.education.gov.uk/courses/556 Providers I know of: […]
An unfortunate (but clever and useful) propagation of the ‘X: …. Me: …’ twitter format trope 🙂 Alidad Hamidi @HumanSelectionX: I find Wardley Mapping more useful than Systems Thinking Me: Interesting, how so? X: With WM I can see the connection between components, where they are in their evolution and help gain a shared perspective.December 17th 202112 Retweets48 Likes
organisational development / transformation
The Dynamics of Vertical and Horizontal Diversity in Organization and Society The Dynamics of Vertical and Horizontal Diversity in Organization and Society – Susan M. Awbrey, 2007 The Dynamics of Vertical and Horizontal Diversity in Organization and Society Susan M. AwbreyFirst Published March 1, 2007 Research Articlehttps://doi.org/10.1177/1534484306295638 Article information Abstract Diversity focuses on human characteristics that make…
The Convoluted Mess of The Hybrid Workplace – Paul Taylor
What if hybrid ends up being a mix of the worst of both worlds?
ethics in public service
Why some of the smartest people can be so very stupid | Psyche Ideas
Struggling to understand is perfectly honourable. Being wilfully stupid is something else and we should strive to fix it
environmental and social justice
How a Reddit “antiwork” mob fought Kellogg’s hiring of replacement workers – The Washington Post
Driven by “anger and resentment,” one of the Internet’s biggest discussion boards for worker discontent has focused its power into a real-world labor rights campaign.
The patriarchy is dead … but the kyriarchy lives on | Nichi Hodgson | The Guardian
Nichi Hodgson: ‘Patriarchy’ is no longer relevant when ethnicity, class, education and gender, intersect to oppress men and women alike
Democratizing Access To The Tools For Transformation Democratizing Access To The Tools For Transformation | by Otto Scharmer | Field of the Future Blog | Aug, 2021 | Medium
pdf[PDF] Boundary critique and its implications for conflict prevention | Semantic Scholar Boundary critique and its implications for conflict prevention G. Midgley, Luis A. PinzónPublished 2011Economics, Computer ScienceJournal of the Operational Research Society This paper reviews developments in the theory of boundary critique, which has been used in a number of OR projects to support conflict resolution.…
Philip Agre predicted technology’s pitfalls and then he disappeared – The Washington Post
Philip Agre earned his PhD in 1989 in computer science, but his greatest impact came when he left the technical side of the field and helped create the field of social informatics, or the study of how technology and humanity interact. Then he disappeared, leaving behind a legacy of work that was eerily prescient in predicting how technology would impact society.
more brain food
I have an affection for and an interest in ‘Game B’ and/but I can’t help thinkin there’s a peculiarly ‘Game A’, rationalist drive behind it. Like the thinking is almost there, but not quite… anyway, this is a nice example – a nice article but not a framing that fundamentally appeals to me. From the…
Wait, is that what people mean by ‘sensemaking’? Dealing with the unknown? I… guess? But for me, it’s recasting the known as the unknown, and going from there… Sensemaking
Pixel: a biography A biography of the pixel, the elementary particle of pictures | Aeon Essays Pixel: a biography An exact mathematical concept, pixels are the elementary particles of pictures, based on a subtle unpacking of infinityWoody and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story (1995). Main image courtesy of Pixar Animation Studios; all additional inset diagrams © Alvy…
So You Think That There is a Mind-Independent Physical Reality…
A short but rather amusing clip of Dan Robinson discussing Berkeley’s subjective idealism in a lecture on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Refutation o…
Ecological psychology is built on a perception-oriented ontology. The primary focus has been on explaining the perception and action behavior of individual animals. To accommodate social phenomena …
Exploring different metaphors for change to support individuals and teams to better navigate organisational transformation.
Could it be that life didn’t spawn from just one ancient microorganism? | SYFY WIRE
If where life spawned from is a question that often keeps you up at night, maybe you ought to look in the mirror — right into your own eyes.
How life emerged and evolved is often seen as a road that has gone in one direction for 4 billion years. That might not have actually been what happened. Researchers Chris Kempes and David Krakauer of the Santa Fe Institute believe that life probably originated multiple times, in different ways. It is possible that new features showed up in different life-forms that were unrelated, and neither may have even known the other existed.
Echolocation is the use of reflected sound to sense features of the environment. Here, we show that soft-furred tree mice (Typhlomys) echolocate based on multiple independent lines of evidence. Beh…
You Don’t Have a Lizard Brain – Daniel Toker
Despite our best intentions, scientists sometimes make a very basic mistake: we look for what makes humans unique. Certainly, humans are not just unique, but extraordinary. Nothing else in the known universe has produced art, science, technology, or civilization. But, our history of searching for how, precisely, we came to be exceptional has often led to…
chosen path 
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Hmm. Not for me! You can read it and subscribe direct at https://www.getrevue.co/profile/antlerboy/issues/transduction-leading-transformation-issue-29-925748
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