SE Stakeholder Engagement – Productive Conversations (0.5d)
This training programme could equally be called ‘honest conversations’, ‘difficult conversations’, ‘constructive conversations’, or ‘challenging conversations’.
Fundamental to the success and flavour of organisational life – and systems practice interventions – are the quality of conversations we are able to have. If we can develop an honest and shared attempt to get at shared understanding – shared ‘truth’ if you like – or at least to fully appreciate each others’ understanding – then we can make true progress.
This interactive session will:
Discuss different types of feedback / difficult conversation
Understand how the brain rationalises and protect us
Increase awareness of our own habits and perceptions
Prepare and plan for a difficult conversation
Have effective performance conversations
Learn how to respond / look after yourself in the moment
And help you to have productive conversations even when it seems most unlikely. You will need to bring a record of an ‘unproductive’ conversation you have had, or fear having, and be prepared to work with others around it and other examples. You will end the session with the ability to surface more productive conversations even when it is difficult.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
In a classic 2005 article, ‘Techniques to Match our Values’, Weisbord set out the ‘learning curve’, with a movement from ‘experts solve problems’ to ‘’everybody’ solves problems’ to ‘experts improve whole systems’ to ‘’everybody’ improves whole systems’. Inherent in the development of systems practice from the start has been recognition of ‘the whole’, which comes in various forms from group dynamics to organisational viability.
This programme will give an overview of intervention approaches which ‘bring whole systems into the room’ rather than have a few experts work on individual issues. We will look at some of the history and the wide range of interventions that have been developed, and provide an overview of some of the most interesting.
We will compare and contrast these approaches and provide ‘ways in’ to consider when, and which, large group intervention might be an appropriate part of a systems practice intervention.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
This module provides learners with an understanding of the design of workshops and relevant considerations, taking into account the potentially very different contexts and definitions of what a ‘workshop’ is. It introduces a range of tools and approaches for workshop design, building on the facilitation module. It gives tools to consider evaluation and learning about workshop design, and compares various approaches, enabling learners to better select and apply appropriate workshop design approaches to their context.
A workshop can be distinguished from a meeting (though the boundaries may be blurry at times), by some of the following indicators:
intensive discussion and activity, designed to progress thinking and planning
intentionally designed activities (rather than simply an agenda), or flow
an impact focus, usually above and beyond just a discussion or decision – some kind of output taking an intervention or initiative forward
An alternative use of the work, to workshop (something), refers to taking a product or idea into a period of intense focused experimentation and development, often bringing in fresh or different perspectives than the original developers of the product or idea. This is of course closely related, but implies some partly-developed ‘content’ as the workshop focus, as opposed to simply a product or idea. In either case, some input is expected to a workshop, whether process, content, or both.
The learning will cover:
What a workshop is
Where and when we might use a workshop
A range of tools and approaches
How to appropriately select an approach, and design a workshop to fit the requirements in context
The importance of reflection and how to evaluate and build a learning loop
Workshop design tools, core and conceptual
This is a very practical, hands-on course based on you creating an initial workshop design from your context, using sources offered, and sharing and discussing it in the session.
This course complements the course on Facilitation for systems practice interventions, though they can be done independently or in any order.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
ICS2 Facilitation Skills for Systems Practice Interventions (0.5d)
This course provides learners with an understanding of the facilitation relationship in the context of systems intervention itself, and of the challenges it brings. It introduces a range of tools and practices for facilitation and provides guidance on workshop planning. Finally, it compares various approaches to facilitation, enabling learners to develop a stronger sense of the kind of facilitator they want to be.
Topics covered include:
The facilitraining rainbow – where do you stand?
Divergence, emergence, convergence;
Differentiation and integration method;
Adaptive change;
Facilitation for ‘robust systems’;
Session planning and session flow;
The perceptual positions;
Ground rules for workshops and ways into partnership;
Maintaining your authenticity;
Peter Block’s ‘six conversations that matter’;
Chris Corrigan’s ‘seven little helpers’;
Hosting and guiding and/or customer services;
Context cues;
History and three futures;
Power tools and making concrete – Naming The Thing.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
ICS1b Consulting for Systems Practice Interventions – (b) Core (0.5d)
This course provides learners with a deeper understanding of:
Discovery and research into the client system;
Power questions, layers of analysis, and objectifying ‘the system’;
Research and action-based approaches;
Third-party and whole systems approaches;
Maintaining the balance of responsibility for deep engagement;
Structuring analysis and feedback, developing commitment;
Choosing dirty or clean consulting.
To maximise your chances of being effective in achieving positive change, you should combine a sound understanding of systems approaches with well-developed intervention skills.
This in turn requires a clear conception of the role of the systems practitioner as ‘consultant’, of their relationships with stakeholders, especially the ‘client’, and the nature of the practitioner’s influence on the organisations they seek to transform.
Drawing on Flawless Consulting, Barry Oshry’s Organic Systems Framework, and more, Consulting for Systems Practice Interventions emphasises a collaborative approach and equal responsibility between the intervention practitioner and the client, navigating a path between the twin traps of ‘consultant as boss’ and ‘consultant as servant’.
These courses are relevant to anyone – consultant or not! – who is engaging in organisational change.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
ICS1a Consulting for Systems Practice Interventions – (a) Foundation (0.5d)
This course will provide learners with key principles and a structure for interventions. Topics covered include:
The five phases of the consultative process;
‘Techniques are not enough’: relationships in consulting;
Dealing with ‘the space of service’;
Setting up a clear ‘contract’ for interventions – including triangular and rectangular contracting;
Authenticity and setting your assumptions;
The client behind the client and the problem behind the problem;
To maximise your chances of being effective in achieving positive change, you should combine a sound understanding of systems approaches with well-developed intervention skills.
This in turn requires a clear conception of the role of the systems practitioner as ‘consultant’, of their relationships with stakeholders, especially the ‘client’, and the nature of the practitioner’s influence on the organisations they seek to transform.
Drawing on Flawless Consulting, Barry Oshry’s Organic Systems Framework, and more, Consulting for Systems Practice Interventions emphasises a collaborative approach and equal responsibility between the intervention practitioner and the client, navigating a path between the twin traps of ‘consultant as boss’ and ‘consultant as servant’.
These courses are relevant to anyone – consultant or not! – who is engaging in organisational change.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
Meetings, often dreaded, possess untapped potential for transforming challenges into breakthroughs. To maximize every interaction, we must shift from viewing problems as roadblocks to seeing them as opportunities. I propose the ‘Diamond Approach’ to meetings, applicable to sales, management, and recruitment. Imagine a diamond: we start at the top, delving deep with questions to uncover real challenges. Moving through robust discussions, each participant contributes unique insights. At the diamond’s base, we focus on solutions, probing for those aligning with goals and fostering innovation. This approach emphasizes co-creation and co-learning, harnessing collective intelligence. I advocate for active facilitation, not one person leading but the group’s synergy driving progress. Ensuring meetings transcend mere talks involves structuring them as journeys from problem to opportunity, fostering engagement and actionable outcomes. Let’s embrace the diamond’s facets to unlock meeting potential and drive meaningful progress together.
By Michael Frahm Baden-Württemberg, Germany and Dr. Martin Pfiffner Pfäffikon, Switzerland
Abstract: The following article is an introduction to the design of megaproject organizations based on the viable system model. It combines approaches from project management with approaches from systems theory. The understanding of complexity and how it is effectively managed by the organizational code is a central theme. After referring to current research and a short introduction, the application is shown by using an example. The article shows how important the „applied“ management model is for a successful management of mega projects.
Keywords: Majorprojects, Megaprojects, System Theory, Viable System Model, Organisation, Complexity
DECRYPTING THE DNA OF MEGAPROJECTS A Model-based Management Approachusing the Viable System Model (VSM) FEATURED PAPERBy Michael FrahmBaden-Württemberg, GermanyandDr. Martin PfiffnerPfäffikon, SwitzerlandAbstractThe following article is an introduction to the design of megaproject organizations based on the viable system model. It combines approaches from project management with approaches from systems theory. The understanding of complexity and how it is effectively managed by the organizational code is a central theme. After referring to current research and a short introduction, the application is shown by using an example. The article shows how important the „applied“ management model is for a successful management of mega projects.Keywords: Majorprojects, Megaprojects, System Theory, Viable System Model, Organisation, Complexity
We introduce an algebraic analogue of dynamical systems, based on term rewriting. We show that a recursive function applied to the output of an iterated rewriting system defines a formal class of models into which all the main architectures for dynamic machine learning models (including recurrent neural networks, graph neural networks, and diffusion models) can be embedded. Considered in category theory, we also show that these algebraic models are a natural language for describing the compositionality of dynamic models. Furthermore, we propose that these models provide a template for the generalisation of the above dynamic models to learning problems on structured or non-numerical data, including ‘hybrid symbolic-numeric’ models.
Algebraic Dynamical Systems in Machine LearningOpen accessPublished: 18 January 2024Volume 32, article number 4, (2024)Cite this articleDownload PDFYou have full access to thisopen accessarticleApplied Categorical StructuresAims and scopeSubmit manuscriptAlgebraic Dynamical Systems in Machine LearningDownload PDFIolo Jones, Jerry Swan & Jeffrey Giansiracusa 83 AccessesExplore all metrics AbstractWe introduce an algebraic analogue of dynamical systems, based on term rewriting. We show that a recursive function applied to the output of an iterated rewriting system defines a formal class of models into which all the main architectures for dynamic machine learning models (including recurrent neural networks, graph neural networks, and diffusion models) can be embedded. Considered in category theory, we also show that these algebraic models are a natural language for describing the compositionality of dynamic models. Furthermore, we propose that these models provide a template for the generalisation of the above dynamic models to learning problems on structured or non-numerical data, including ‘hybrid symbolic-numeric’ models.
Thinking Through Archaeological Complexity: Leveraging high performance computing, network science, and agent-based models to understand Australia’s deep past Tuesday Jan 30, 2024 11:30-1:00PM 747 Weiser Hall Stefani Crabtree Department of Environment and Society, Utah State University There will be coffee and snacks. The talk will be recorded for later viewing. Link to full event listingAbstract: Complex adaptive systems science provides ways to examine relationships among individuals in the archaeological past. Through these methods we directly observe the impacts of individuals’ decisions (in the case of agent-based modeling) or their relationships to other individuals (in the case of network analysis) and then examine the effects of these behaviors on larger societal structures. Approaches from complex adaptive systems thus help advance archaeological research to study not just the tangible (artifacts) but the intangible and invisible (relationships). In this talk I highlight how tools from complex adaptive systems science have helped solve debates on when and how the peopling of Australia happened, and how people have been fundamental components in ecosystems for generations. This work has applicability to other systems worldwide, both in the past and into the future. Archaeology helps us understand vexing problems today by illustrating the trajectories of past societies, allowing us to see the long-term consequences of human decisions.Add to Google Calendar Upcoming Events CSCS Seminar, Thursday, February 1, 2024: Twists, triangles, and tentacles: A guided tour of high-dimensional basins in networked dynamical systems, Yuanzhao Zhang, Postdoctoral Fellow, Santa Fe Institute. Biophysics Seminar, Monday, February 5, 2024, 12:00pm 1640 Chemistry. Clare Abreu will present “Predicting microbial community responses to environmental change”.CSCS Seminar, Thursday, February 8, 2024, Talk Title, TBA, Elizabeth Munch, Department of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering and Department of Mathematics; Michigan State University. MCDB Seminar, Monday, February 12, 2024, Heart-brain balancing act: Function and development of motor and sensory circuits for cardiac feedback controlLuis Hernandez-Nunez, Harvard University CSCS Seminar, Thursday, February 15, 2024 A Network Science for Complexity & Society, Brennan Klein, Network Science Institute, Northeastern University ______________ TEDxUofM 2024: Golden Ratio, Friday, February 9, 5:00-8:30pm
[Adapted from a new Encyclopedia of Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity to be published by Edward Elgar Publishing focusing on advances and diversity of theories, methods and practices]
Abstract
Liberating Structures (LS) is a repertoire of open source protocols and an innovative set of rules to guide routine interactions in board rooms, classrooms, and community forums. LS specifies how people are included and participate in ways that sets them free from unwitting patterns that exclude, stifle, and over-control. With deliberate irony, LS employs structural constraints to liberate. Codified in the early 2000s, LS consist of 10 principles and 33 practical methods versatile enough for anyone to use for a wide array of purposes and group processes. The transdisciplinary attributes of LS arise from its complexity science roots. The focus is on relationship patterns rather than individual behavior. LS makes it possible to work with complexity instead of engineering it away, and hence generates options where none existed. Every LS protocol in the repertoire has the same minimalistic “DNA” of five micro-structuring elements. LS use has spread across diverse organization types, social movements, and disciplines.
Keywords: complexity science, social innovation, inclusion and engagement, facilitation, action research, collaborative change
Keith McCandless·Following11 min read·Jul 6, 2023923 By Keith McCandless , Arvind Singhal, and Steven H. Cady[Adapted from a new Encyclopedia of Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity to be published by Edward Elgar Publishing focusing on advances and diversity of theories, methods and practices]AbstractLiberating Structures (LS) is a repertoire of open source protocols and an innovative set of rules to guide routine interactions in board rooms, classrooms, and community forums. LS specifies how people are included and participate in ways that sets them free from unwitting patterns that exclude, stifle, and over-control. With deliberate irony, LS employs structural constraints to liberate. Codified in the early 2000s, LS consist of 10 principles and 33 practical methods versatile enough for anyone to use for a wide array of purposes and group processes. The transdisciplinary attributes of LS arise from its complexity science roots. The focus is on relationship patterns rather than individual behavior. LS makes it possible to work with complexity instead of engineering it away, and hence generates options where none existed. Every LS protocol in the repertoire has the same minimalistic “DNA” of five micro-structuring elements. LS use has spread across diverse organization types, social movements, and disciplines.Keywords: complexity science, social innovation, inclusion and engagement, facilitation, action research, collaborative change
On this site we explore Robin Asby’s thoughts on Thinking Systems, especially as it relates to governing communities. It introduces a paradigm shifting move to include process analytics and to see statics as a special case of processes. You can order Thinking Systems, An Organic Language of Harmony for Human Survival from Amazon.
The Systems Transformation Hub, a pioneering venture designed to drive systemic solutions for Europe, was launched on 24 January 2024 at the European Parliament by a coalition of five thought-leading organisations. This comes at a pivotal time of complex and interconnected crises in the lead-up to key elections in the European Union.
New partnership charts a path for systemic change in the EUIN THE NEWS 24 JAN 2024The Systems Transformation Hub, a pioneering venture designed to drive systemic solutions for Europe, was launched on 24 January 2024 at the European Parliament by a coalition of five thought-leading organisations. This comes at a pivotal time of complex and interconnected crises in the lead-up to key elections in the European Union.
[You need to join the meetup.com group but this is free]
Details
Practical Workshop
Dive into Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) in our concise workshop lead by strategy and organisational clarity-maker Adam Thompson.
We’ll see how to apply this powerful tool for diagnosing and improving any purposeful system, which of course includes organisations.
We ask that you bring along your most pressing organisational pathology so we can apply the model in real-time to create insight and solutions while showing you how to put it to use.
Adam has a wonderful way of explaining complex concepts in a simple and fun way without losing the essence of the concepts.
He has a video that explains VSM in 2 minutes accessible from here:
Facilitator: Adam Thompson Since 2012, Adam has been helping leaders get strategic, organisational and leadership clarity so their organisations can be successful. With over 25 years of organisational leadership experience, the trademark of his work is engaging expertise with a touch of humour (because real change needs it!), bringing together a vast and evolving knowledge of strategic, organisational, systems and people models to create insight and understandings that are bespoke for each situation.
Prior to establishing his consulting practice, he was part of the Executive at RAA, earlier work saw success in senior roles in the insurance, finance, education and legal industries, both in Australia and in the UK. His formal qualifications are in Economics and Law and he is a qualified Barrister and Solicitor in South Australia while successfully avoiding actual working as one! He also holds certification from the Institute For Development Coaching for providing feedback and tailored coaching on the Leadership Maturity Framework.
Outside of work and his busy family, he is the Soccer Coordinator for his children’s school and lives essentially the exact opposite life to Jason Bourne.
Demystifying the Viable System Model: A Practical ApproachHosted ByDavid W. and 2 othersDetailsPractical WorkshopDive into Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) in our concise workshop lead by strategy and organisational clarity-maker Adam Thompson.We’ll see how to apply this powerful tool for diagnosing and improving any purposeful system, which of course includes organisations.We ask that you bring along your most pressing organisational pathology so we can apply the model in real-time to create insight and solutions while showing you how to put it to use.Adam has a wonderful way of explaining complex concepts in a simple and fun way without losing the essence of the concepts.He has a video that explains VSM in 2 minutes accessible from here:
: Adam ThompsonSince 2012, Adam has been helping leaders get strategic, organisational and leadership clarity so their organisations can be successful. With over 25 years of organisational leadership experience, the trademark of his work is engaging expertise with a touch of humour (because real change needs it!), bringing together a vast and evolving knowledge of strategic, organisational, systems and people models to create insight and understandings that are bespoke for each situation.Prior to establishing his consulting practice, he was part of the Executive at RAA, earlier work saw success in senior roles in the insurance, finance, education and legal industries, both in Australia and in the UK. His formal qualifications are in Economics and Law and he is a qualified Barrister and Solicitor in South Australia while successfully avoiding actual working as one! He also holds certification from the Institute For Development Coaching for providing feedback and tailored coaching on the Leadership Maturity Framework.Outside of work and his busy family, he is the Soccer Coordinator for his children’s school and lives essentially the exact opposite life to Jason Bourne.
Abstract: This essay investigates the radical reconceptualization of communication demonstrated in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005). In the novel, Ishiguro depicts communication not as a means to establish mutual understanding, but as an autonomous phenomenon independent from the participants, which I call dislocated communication. I articulate this notion of communication following from Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. In deploying this framework, I argue that Ishiguro positions dislocated communication as the reality of communication, in turn obliging readers to experience the otherness of clones as epistemologically inaccessible since the readers, too, participate in communication with the novel’s protagonist narrator, Kathy H.
The Otherness of Communication: Systems Theory and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go
This essay investigates the radical reconceptualization of communication demonstrated in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005). In the novel, Ishiguro depicts communication not as a means to establish mutual understanding, but as an autonomous phenomenon independent from the participants, which I call dislocated communication. I articulate this notion of communication following from Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. In deploying this framework, I argue that Ishiguro positions dislocated communication as the reality of communication, in turn obliging readers to experience the otherness of clones as epistemologically inaccessible since the readers, too, participate in communication with the novel’s protagonist narrator, Kathy H.
The Otherness of Communication: Systems Theory and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go
Abstract: This essay investigates the radical reconceptualization of communication demonstrated in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005). In the novel, Ishiguro depicts communication not as a means to establish mutual understanding, but as an autonomous phenomenon independent from the participants, which I call dislocated communication. I articulate this notion of communication following from Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. In deploying this framework, I argue that Ishiguro positions dislocated communication as the reality of communication, in turn obliging readers to experience the otherness of clones as epistemologically inaccessible since the readers, too, participate in communication with the novel’s protagonist narrator, Kathy H.
The Otherness of Communication: Systems Theory and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me GoKazutaka SugiyamaCollege LiteratureJohns Hopkins University PressVolume 51, Number 1, Winter 2024pp. 106-12910.1353/lit.2024.a917866ArticleView CitationAdditional InformationAbstractAbstract:This essay investigates the radical reconceptualization of communication demonstrated in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005). In the novel, Ishiguro depicts communication not as a means to establish mutual understanding, but as an autonomous phenomenon independent from the participants, which I call dislocated communication. I articulate this notion of communication following from Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. In deploying this framework, I argue that Ishiguro positions dislocated communication as the reality of communication, in turn obliging readers to experience the otherness of clones as epistemologically inaccessible since the readers, too, participate in communication with the novel’s protagonist narrator, Kathy H.
Wednesday 31st January Dr. M Zargham From Viable Organizations to Viable Ecologies
Wednesday 6th March Dr. Pile Bunnell Language as an Enabling Constraint for Viability
Wednesday 3rd April Professor Andrew Pickering Cybernetics and the Environmental Crisis
Wednesday 8th May Dr. Peter Robertson The Sapient Paradox as the consequence of a cybernetical bifurcation in the evolution
You can watch all the recordings of the 2023 Webinar Series (and the first webinar this year) on our webinar recordings webpage: https://metaphorum.org/webinar-recordings
Dr. M Zargham From Viable Organizations to Viable Ecologies Jan 31st. 5:00- 6:30 pm (UK wintertime)
This workshop presents an approach to organizational analysis and design, leveraging Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) as well as methods for mapping an organization’s environment and its interactions across a range of regulatory modalities. The first part of the workshop is a presentation which explores how these models can be applied to understand an organization’s infrastructures and internal dynamics in relation to external environmental pressures. Specifically, these models are applied to the analysis of an organization developed by the speaker over the past 7 years, alongside many collaborators.
The second part of the workshop is a guided discussion which explores the potential of emerging technologies to foster networks of smaller, self-governed entities – as compared to the common monolithic organizational archetypes. This segment explores how new technologies can support the development and maintenance of organizational infrastructures that increase viability without loss of variety. Attendees will brainstorm environmental forces such organizations must navigate, as well as the tools and practices available to ride or buttress against those forces – concluding with a discussion of potentially actionable steps toward this future.
Michael Zargham is the founder and Chief Engineer at BlockScience, as well as a board member and research director at the Metagovernance Project. He holds a PhD in Electrical and Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania with a focus on Optimal Dynamic Resource Allocation Policies in Networks. Zargham’s research focus is on Generalized Dynamical Systems with special attention to complex networked systems. This research has been applied in the design and analysis of systems across the domains of governance, economics, and technology. His work has been funded by a variety of sources including private businesses, governments, NGOs, and non-profits.
Professor Andrew Pickering Cybernetics and the Environmental Crisis March the 6th. 5:00- 6:30 pm (UK)
Foreshadowing the disasters of the Anthropocene, in the late 1960s Gregory Bateson developed a cybernetic analysis of the environmental crisis which was then starting to be recognised. He argued that its roots lay in dualist fantasies of control of nature which inevitably produced unintended and sometimes catastrophic spin-offs—Silent Spring. The implication Bateson drew was that we need to think differently, non-dualistically. We have to understand that we are not the masters, not in control. But thinking is not so much the problem as acting. Our actions, not our thoughts, were killing the songbirds, exterminating whole species and filling the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. In this talk I therefore want to explore a distinctively cybernetic pattern of acting in the world.
Taking as my example adaptive attempts to restore the ecosystem of the Colorado River, I seek to map out a stance in the world that I call acting with nature, in contrast to our usual stance of acting on it—in Heideggerian terms a stance of poiseis rather than enframing—characterised by an experimental attunement to nature’s emergent agency—finding out what natural systems want to do and finding ways to get along with that. Acting as if we are indeed part of a world which we cannot control but are swept up in. I discuss the exploratory phase of acting-with as the staging of a dance of human and nonhuman agency, with a dynamically regularised choreography of agency as a possible endpoint.
I emphasise the performative skeleton of adaptive management (and of the style of cybernetics I have written about before): it is primarily about doing things in the world, not anything cognitive: knowledge, calculation, science. In that sense, my example outlines a way of ‘doing without science,’ a different paradigm from modernity. But going one step further, we can note the ancillary role of scientific modelling in our example, which I try to understand along the lines of Stafford Beer’s remarks in 1968 on ‘continually aborting’ corporate plans.
Given time, I can mention other examples of cybernetic acting-with, including the Room for the River project in western Europe, an approach to ‘natural farming’ developed in Japan, Aboriginal techniques of fire-control in Australia, and Amazonian animism. Though not an immediate antidote to the Anthropocene, I think these are the sorts of practices that can in time chip away at it from below.
BIOG Andrew Pickering completed a PhD in particle physics before moving into science and technology studies, which he taught for many years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, before returning to England in 2007 and joining the University of Exeter, where he is now professor emeritus of sociology and philosophy. His research focusses on couplings of the human and the nonhuman. He is the author of Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science and The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future. He is currently completing a book on our relations with nature and the environment.
Dr. Pile Bunnel ‘Language as an Enabling Constraint for Viability’ April the 3rd, 2024. 5:00-6:30 pm (UK summertime)
We are usually unaware that language imposes constraints on how we perceive, think and act, even as it is central to all that we do. What language enables is clearly apparent: all the cultures, technologies and designs we humans have created are grounded in our ability to coordinate with each other as we plan, organize, act and create, and evaluate what we have done. What language constrains and hides is far more difficult to see, yet there are clues in our experiences. I will delve into some of those clues to provide grounds for reflections and conversations concerning how our vocabulary biases what we can do and how we do it. What, for example, do some of our distinctions—such as for example “system”, “feedback”, “observer” and “recursion” enable us to see and think about while at the same time, what other thoughts and actions are made invisible or inaccessible by how we understand and use these words? This has consequences for viability and ethical living, as that requires that we be able to harmonize with both the obvious and the implicit, the visible and the hidden dimensions of our lives on this planet.
Pille has a background in ecology and ethology. After finishing her doctorate studies in Berkeley half a century ago, she began her professional life as a research associate at the University of British Columbia, followed by nearly two decades as an international environmental consultant. Leaving the consulting field, she taught postgraduate courses in systems methods and systems thinking at Royal Roads University for a further couple of decades and became active with several professional systems societies (ASC, ISSS and CybSoc). References Bunnell, P. (2021). Stories and Alternative Stories. Constructivist Foundations 16(1): 084–087. https://constructivist.info/16/1/084 Bunnell P. (2020). Reflections on Languaging. Constructivist Foundations 15(3): 152–155. https://constructivist.info/15/2/152 Maturana H. R. (1988). Ontology of observing: The biological foundations of self-consciousness and the physical domain of existence. In: Donaldson R. E. (ed.) Texts in cybernetic theory: An in-depth exploration of the thought of Humberto Maturana, William T. Powers, and Ernst von Glasersfeld. American Society for Cybernetics (ASC) conference workbook. Maturana H. R. (2006). Self-consciousness: How? When? Where? Constructivist Foundations 1(3): 91–102. Maturana H. R., Mpodozis J. & Letelier J. C. (1995). Brain, language and the origin of human mental functions. Biological Research 28(1): 15–26. Maturana H. R. & Mpodozis J. (2000). The origin of species by means of natural drift. Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 73(2): 261–310. Maturana H. R. & Poerksen B. (2004). From being to doing: The origins of the biology of cognition. Translated by Wolfram K. Köck and Annemarie R. Köck. Carl-Auer, Heidelberg. Maturana H. R. & Verden-Zöller G. (2008). The origin of humanness in the biology of love. Edited by Pille Bunnell. Imprint Academic, Exeter. Vaz, N.M. (2022). Immunity and Intentionality. Accepted for Constructivist Foundations 17, No. 4.
Dr. Peter Robertson The Sapient Paradox as the consequence of a cybernetical bifurcation in the evolution. May the 8th, 2024, 5:00-6:30 pm (UK)
My presentation intends to illustrate one different view on the cybernetical history of humankind that is emerging in the natural sciences, not to assume any answer but to inspire more exploratory questions.
Why did humankind create such a moral and ecological mess of this world, and why have we done that for only about 10,000 years? This question might be related to the Sapient Paradox, which emerged after decades of archeological and neurophysiological research (Donald, 2009; Iriki, Suzuki, Tanaka, Bretas Vieira, & Yamazaki, 2021; Renfrew, 1996, 2007, 2008a, 2008b; Renfrew, Frith, & Malafouris, 2009; van der Leeuw, Lane, & Read, 2009). As we know it today, the human brain has been in its actual shape for at least about 60,000 years and probably much longer. Still, the explosion of human development and rational thinking only happened at the beginning of the Neolithic period, about 10,000 years ago, just a fraction of the 3.7 billion years of life on Earth. This “explosion of human development” happened without any change in the brain. During these 3.7 billion years, evolution developed the complexity of life as we observe it today. Until 10,000 years ago, the complete diversity and interactions of living forms were part of a self-organizing, ecologically controlled system. The rhythms of life cycles of birth, growth, and death kept the system surviving and becoming more complex during evolution. From our modern human perspective, it took millions of years for this process to see a recognizable change. We are used to calling this “slow.” The human brain was no exception, inspiring Renfrew in 1966 to ask: “What created the modern mind without changing the brain’s anatomy? The human brain today is not different from 60,000 years ago, but the behavior is.
The short answer is that humankind started becoming sedentary, externalizing its behavior (= non-ecological manipulation of an ecosystem), disconnecting from the rhythm of nature, and escaping ecological control, causing an exponential process with a speed of change never seen before in 3.7 billion years. The consequences of this ecological dislodgment might have been the cause of the derailment from the ecological order, allowing both so-called human advances and an ecological and cognitive mess in this world to emerge. For a species to survive in evolution, it needed to have enough complexity to match the complexity in the environment. To match a complex system, one needs to be as smart as the system, maybe a little bit smarter, but not much. Evolution doesn’t waste energy being smart without a purpose. Ashby’s law of requisite variety is the scientific version of this principle. Combined with the law of least action, it also means that the brain could only evolve as brilliantly as the environmental ecosystem but never much brighter. Without any option to change the brain and its integration within the ecological environment, derailment might have been the only way to escape ecological control and grow as fast as humankind did without becoming smarter. The cause of today’s moral and ecological mess might be the same that created all human progress. Another related paradox is that the advances of the last 10,000 years might not be caused by human beings being smarter than nature but, in reality, being more stupid. Being less smart than nature might have been, and still might be, a fundamental condition for escaping ecological control and creating a non-ecological exponential development speed.
Peter Robertson focuses on decision-maker dynamics in business transformation. He has over 30 years of experience as an international corporate adviser at KPMG (Amsterdam) and Human Insight (London) and as an executive lecturer and associate professor at universities in the Netherlands, China, and the USA. Peter developed an organization-ecological assessment suite of tools, available in sixteen languages, based on the work of Nobel laureates Lorenz and Tinbergen. He is the author of “Always Change a Winning Team,” which describes the early development and history of the organization-ecological approach.
Peter works primarily with boardrooms, executives, and senior teams of high-tech, telecom, financial industry, and medical technology firms. This includes large corporates and startups located in Europe and the USA. Peter teaches at the Nyenrode Business University in the Netherlands and is an associate of Change Logic, Boston, USA. His focus is organization-ecology, culture-independent ways of cooperation, and life-cycle dynamics. He is a member of the International Society of Systems Sciences and the American Society of Cybernetics. Before building his career in corporate life, Peter studied medicine and worked in immunology at the University of Amsterdam and the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota). He later specialized as a psychiatrist-psychotherapist, with a sub-specialization in neurology.
First CFP : Call for papers at WCCS24 November 11 to 14, 2024, in Casablanca, Morocco ================================== In this call: Call for Papers; Call for Workshop and Invited Session Proposals.
5th Edition of World Conference on Complex Systems (WCCS24) November 11 to 14, 2024, in Casablanca, Morocco ==================================
The following three awards sponsored by Wolfram Research: -WCCS24 Best Paper Award -WCCS24 Best International PHD Student Paper Award -WCCS24 Best Moroccan PHD Student Paper Award
Each award includes: -A financial prize of US$ 1720 -A one-year subscription to Wolfram|One Personal Edition -A one-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro ==================================
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
-Systems thinking -System dynamics -Mathematical modelling -Mathematical ecology -Mathematical Biology -Discrete-event simulation -Network theory -Control theory -Agent-based modeling -Cellular automata -Multi-agent systems -Information theory -Evolutionary game theory -Time series analysis -Data mining -Statistical learning -Soft computing -Machine learning -Deep learning -Reinforcement learning ==================================
Areas of applications will be (but are not limited to):
– Complex Networks – Complex Engineered Systems – Complex Social Systems – Complex Computer Systems – Complexity in Epidemiology and Public Health – Urbanisation and Land Use Change – Complex Biological and Ecological Systems – Complex Management Systems
Keynote and Invited Speakers: ================================== – Stephen Wolfram, Founder & CEO of Wolfram Research, United State – Michael Bonsall, University of Oxford, United Kingdom – Hector Zenil, Immune Algorithmics and Cambridge University, United Kingdom – Sergei Petrovskii, University of Leicester, United Kingdom – Abdul Sattar, Griffith University, Australia – Ali Idri, Mohammed V University in Rabat and Mohammed VI polytechnic University, Morocco
Conference Proceedings and Special Issues: ================================== – All presented papers will be published in the conference proceedings and included in IEEE Xplore Digital Library.
Distinguished papers from WCCS24 will be invited to submit a revised and extended version to indexed International Journal: -Complex Systems (indexed Scopus – Impact factor 1.2 Clarivate/Web of Science) – ….. ================================== Important Dates
SUBMISSION : May 31, 2024 NOTIFICATION : June 30, 2024 CAMERA-READY : July 7, 2024 REGISTRATION : July 8, 2024 WCCS24 : November 11-14, 2024 ================================== Best regards, NEMICHE, Mohamed
Web-based application; ability to work from everywhere
Collaborative work of multiple modelers
OPM ISO 19450:2015 compatible
Interface with other system (DOORS, ARAS…) using OSLC, RDF
Using latest technologies
Context-sensitive modeling promotes correct-by-construction model
Backward compatibility for OPCAT models
Object-Process Methodology (OPM) is a language and approach for modeling and communicating the architecture and detailed design of complex systems of all kinds, based on a minimal universal ontology of objects and processes that transform them. By using intuitive yet formal graphics and natural language text, OPM models communicate what systems do, why and how they do it, as well as what they require to accomplish these tasks.
OPCloud main featuresWeb-based application; ability to work from everywhereCollaborative work of multiple modelersOPM ISO 19450:2015 compatibleInterface with other system (DOORS, ARAS…) using OSLC, RDFUsing latest technologiesContext-sensitive modeling promotes correct-by-construction modelBackward compatibility for OPCAT modelsObject-Process Methodology (OPM) is a language and approach for modeling and communicating the architecture and detailed design of complex systems of all kinds, based on a minimal universal ontology of objects and processes that transform them. By using intuitive yet formal graphics and natural language text, OPM models communicate what systems do, why and how they do it, as well as what they require to accomplish these tasks.
Please search or filter the resources to find those of interest to you. If you are a non-member, you will not be able to see all the videos and presentations from past SCiO Open Meetings.To find videos of Open Meeting sessions, filter on Resource type “Session” and Attachment “Yes”.Green blob means: “The material is in the public domain, you may reuse with accreditation.”Orange blob means: “The content is company confidential or content confidential, the approach may be open, please contact the author before using.”Red blob means: “Everything is protected, please contact the author before using.”
[Application of systems dynamics models to horseriding]
In this book Kerry Turner has challenged the rider – not just to improve but to really “think” about what they are doing. It is clear throughout that the author believes that the good rider should be a lifelong student of this absorbing art and it is because I wholeheartedly agree with her that I am delighted to write this Foreword. Riding is an art that involves another living being, the horse, who is as unique and individual as us. The difference between the rider and the horse is that the horse is not a volunteer. As a result we owe it to him to constantly strive to improve our skills and “connection” with him if his welfare is to be uppermost in our hearts and minds, which should be the case for all good horsemen. All too often good horsemanship is sadly measured by how many competitions have been won or difficult horses conquered, when in reality it should be measured by a state of peaceful agreement and co-operation between horse and rider – in other words HARMONY. Good harmony can only be achieved by understanding oneself first and then the horse, along with a sound grasp of technical skills. When the rider is truly aware of this and is committed to constantly strive to improve, only then can he or she reap the rewards this lifelong journey will bring. I know that by reading this book your own and your individual horse’s journey can only be enhanced. Patrick Print FBHS Chairman The British Horse Society July 2007
The Metaphorum 2024 Conference is set to take place in Berlin, Germany, at the mid of September. This two-day event will span from Monday, September 16th, to Tuesday, September 17th. This year’s conference theme centers around the role of creativity in sustaining viability. The primary conference activities are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, to be held at The Change Hub, an innovative space dedicated to creating sustainable transformation and social impact.Additionally, the Annual General Meeting (AGM) will take place on Wednesday, September 18th. Optional pre/post-conference events and/or VSM trainings are under consideration. Nevertheless, one thing is already clear: It will be a highly interactive event!
We encourage our community to save the date and are eager to announce more details about the Metaphorum 2024 conference as soon as possible. Please note for your planning that the WOSC 2024 is scheduled to take place the week before, in case you are interested in attending both events.
Looking forward to seeing you,
Angela Espinosa, Allenna Leonard, Jon Walker, Marcus Wetzler and Mark Lambertz
Heylighen F. (2024): Why Emergence and Self-Organization are Conceptually Simple, Common and Natural, in: Proceedings of the Science Week on Complexity, (UM6P, Ben Guerir)
Why Emergence and Self-Organization are Conceptually Simple, Common and Natural
Abstract: Emergent properties are properties of a whole that cannot be reduced to the properties of its parts. Properties of a system are defined as relations between a particular input given to a system and its corresponding output. From this perspective, whole systems formed by coupling component systems have properties different from the properties of their components. Wholes tend to arise spontaneously through a process of self-organization, in which components randomly interact until they settle in a stable configuration that in general cannot be predicted from the properties of the components. That configuration constrains the relations between the components, thus defining emergent “laws” that downwardly cause the further behavior of the components. Thus, emergent wholes and their properties arise in a simple and natural manner.
This is the core of cybernetic theory and practice, the essentially transdiciplinary from which all the specialist fields grow and feed back.
This is an essential field of enquiry and learning.
Think of context and feedback and variety, of markers and cues and signs, of navigation and outcome…
Design:
Almost all cybernetic activity that is not pure theory is also design work, incldujgn the design of scientific method, of theory, of its communication.
But there are also core fields recognised as belonging to design such as…
Architecture and interior design
Business design
Apps, products, services and materials design — R&D, innovation
Designing social futures and what is needed for them
Physics and chemistry especially work with material substances and the forces and organization of these, but they play a role in many fields. But from the design of research to the construction of things out of these materials and substances for a purpose, cybernetics can and does play a useful role. It dances with
Designing machine systems, e.g. AI, IoT, software, and other smart technologies
Ethical and functional consequences
Homeostatic devices and signal systems
Smart software systems (feedback and controls)
Software systems and coding practices
The internet
Semantic web and advanced coding
People:
Sociology and Anthropology
Sociology and social structuration, and its concepts, eg recursive situations, context, reflexive monitoring of the flux of encounters, speech acts, Erving Goffman face-to-face social interaction as a PCT theorist…
Social Ecology/social autopoiesis
Economics, macro and micro, Nudge, behavioural economics
Integrated Sociology: General theory, Political Theory; Economic Theory, Cultural Theory
Social anthropology
History
Human Synthesis & Meta Levels, eg
Domain Analysis & Transdisciplinary Methods
Therapeutics (inc Psychotherapy, PCT Theory of Levels, Medical Science)
Social Planning
Aid and development
Crisis Solutions ( Global Warming, Degradation, Political Breakdown, Etc)
Change Design
Governance and the law
Education & training
Design thinking and practices
Architecture
Social planning and social architecture
Product design
Systems:
How important has systemic thinking become!
Cybernetics is routinely equated with the systems sciences, but despite its affinities with all of them, it has a particular orientation that marks a distinction. Yet many problems are resolved when a systems discipline is united with a cybernetic.
The purpose of this contribution is to give an overview of the origins and further developments of Organizational Cybernetics, its transdisciplinary nature and its links to different areas of science, i.e., both natural sciences and the humanities.
The Evolution of Organizational CyberneticsJournalScientiae Mathematicae JaponicaeISSN1346-0862ISSN-Digital1346-0447Typejournal articleDate Issued2006-09-28Author(s)Schwaninger, Markus AbstractThe purpose of this contribution is to give an overview of the origins and further developments of Organizational Cybernetics, its transdisciplinary nature and its links to different areas of science, i.e., both natural sciences and the humanities.
[Only just come across this though it’s not very active in recent years – found it because the titular Eve Mittleton-Kelly spoke at a Systems Innovation even
The EMK Complexity Group has been working for over 20 years, with organisations in the private and public sectors to address practical complex problems. In the process it has developed a theory of complex social systems and an integrated methodology using both qualitative and quantitative tools and methods.
Oh, gee, thanks Microsoft Word! My muscle memory for copy and paste format just got screwed up – yay! And – what’s that you say – PowerPoint is staying the old way? Oh jolly good!
I am one of those people often referred to as having ‘lived experience’ – a label given to those of us who are not professionally qualified to assert the things we do who are instead authenticated by the adversities we have suffered. If you spend…”
www.bentaylor.com
* curator at www.syscoi.com
* The Public Service Transformation Academy - Chief Executive - www.publicservicetransformation.org
* RedQuadrant - public service network consultancy - www.redquadrant.com
* SCiO - non-exec director - www.systemspractice.org
* Quadrant Resourcing - excellent interim change people - www.quadrantresourcing.com
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chosen path 