In appreciating the systems sciences, it can be important to appreciate distinctions around the producer-product relation and coproducers.  A system — which is conceptually bounded by observer(s) defining a boundary — does not exist independently of its environment.  A system may draw on inputs or resources in its environment.  Changes in the environment may be associated with reactions, responses or proactive reformation (i.e. changes in structure(s)) or transformation (i.e. changes in structure(s) and function(s)).

The most rigourous description of these distinctions is in Ackoff and Emery (1972), but this is a derivation of Ackoff’s original dissertation, and relatively difficult to read.  I happened across a more readable, and helpful summary in Ackoff (1981).

The Machine Age’s commitment to cause and effect was the source of many dilemmas, including the one involving free will. At the turn of the century the American philosopher E. A. Singer, Jr., showed that science had, in effect, been cheating.  It was using two different relationships but calling both cause and effect.  He pointed out, for example, that acorns do not cause oaks because they are not sufficient, even though they are necessary, for oaks.  An acorn thrown into the ocean, or planted in the desert or an Arctic ice cap does not yield an oak.  To call the relationship between an acorn and an oak ‘probabilistic’ or ‘non deterministic causality,’ as many scientists did, was cheating because it is not possible to have a probability other than 1.0 associated with a cause; a cause completely determines its effect.  Therefore, Singer chose to call this relationship ‘producer-product’ and to differentiate it from cause-effect. [pp. 224-225]

Singer went on to ask what the universe would look like if producer-product is applied to it rather than cause-effect.  One might think of Singer‘s question in this way: an orange, when sliced vertically, yields a cross-sectional view that is very different from the view revealed when it is sliced horizontally.  Yet both are views of the same thing. The more views we have of a thing, the better we can understand it.  Singer argued similarly about the universe.

As Singer and Ackoff and Emery have shown, the view of the universe revealed by viewing it in terms of producer-product is quite different from that yielded by viewing it in terms of cause-effect.  Because a producer is only necessary and not sufficient for its product, it cannot provide a complete explanation of it.  There are always other necessary conditions, coproducers of its product. For example, moisture is a coproducer of an oak along with an acorn.  These other necessary conditions taken collectively constitute the acorn’s environment.  Therefore, the use of the producer-product relationship requires the environment to explain everything whereas use of cause-effect requires the environment to explain nothing.  Science based on the producer-product relationship is environment-full, not environment-free.

A law based on the producer-product relationship must specify the environment(s) under which it applies.  No such law can apply in every environment, because if it did no environmental conditions would be necessary.  Thus there are no universal laws in this view of the universe.  For example, we have learned more recently that the law that everything that goes up must come down is not universally true.  (Unfortunately, some things that we have put up with the intention that they do not come down, nevertheless have done so.)  Environmentally relative laws can use probabilistic concepts in a consistent and meaningful way.  In an environment in which all the necessary coproducing conditions are not specified hence may or may not be present — it is not only meaningful but it is useful to speak of the probability of production. For example, we can determine the probability of an acorn producing an oak in a specified environment in which some of the relevant properties are not known. Therefore, the probability determined is the probability that the unspecified but necessary environmental conditions are present.  [p. 225]

To get further clarification, I referred back to Singer (1959) (which was edited posthumously by C. West Churchman, Ackoff’s doctoral supervisor and colleague).  More than two decades earlier, the ideas were explained in Singer’s Chapter 18, “The Producer-Product Relation”.  Part of the challenge was to understand “biocentric sciences” — which would include human social systems — in a way that is different from physics.

If the physicist’s argument for indeterminism is historically episodic and humanly limited in the public competent to debate it, not so the biologist’s, or to come at once to the general case, the “biocentric scientist’s”.  “The general case,” we say, for we recall a previous chapter to have subsumed under the generic term “biocentric sciences” a number of special studies of which biology was one.  Denotatively, these sciences are concerned with all that makes up the domain of life, its organs, instruments, social groupings.  Connotatively, they are concerned with no bodies which the physical leaves unobserved, but they recognize in the objects of their study properties the physicist disregards; namely, the properties called functional.  Now, the attribution of functional properties to the components of the biocentric world is world-old and world-wide; and the recognition of certain difficulties in the way of adjusting objects possessing functional properties to any kind of mechanical imagery is as ancient as human reflection on matters of common experience.  Of these difficulties, the principal ones may be noted in an anticipatory way, at least to the extent of giving name to certain traditional worries.  [p. 273]

First, functional properties seem to be as “inherent” in the subjects possessing them as are those structural properties, configuration, volume, velocity, mass taken by the physicist to be invariant with variation of environment.  Yet no account need be taken of these inherent properties, as data required for the physicist’s predictions and explanations — in short, for his adjustment of observational data to a mechanical imagery between whose momentary distributions a cause-effect relation exists.  How, then, adjust such observations of natural objects as recognize in some of these objects functional properties, to an imagery that has as yet no way of distinguishing the representation of an object that does from the representation of one that does not possess functional attributes?  [pp. 273-274]

In the second place, the constituents of a biocentric world seem to be subject to no such completely determining laws as are the points of a mechanical image, but what “norms” they do conform to allow them a certain indetermination, illustrated in the “spontaneity” of life in general, the “freedom” of man in particular. How can things exhibiting spontaneity of action, freedom of behaviour, be embodied in the details of a natural system that can be adjusted point by point to an image whose constituent points are completely devoid of functional attributes, and completely determined by law as to their changes of position and attribute?

Thus we come to a rough picture of the quandary in which the mind of the historic past has found itself entangled.  Without function and freedom, how give meaning to life?  With function and freedom, how conform life to mechanism?  Without mechanism, how relate cause and effect?  Without cause and effect, how understand anything?  Throughout a long past, the mind has tried numerous devices by which to resolve its perplexities.  None has received the sanction of any preponderance of thinkers; none shows evidence of growing in favor more conspicuously than its rivals.  It is left for each who sees the difficult to seek his own way of extricating himself.  [p. 274]

This leads to making the distinction between cause-effect and producer-product.

… the present study proposes to distinguish two relational terms ordinarily used quite interchangeably; the one a cause-effect; the other a producer-product relation.  [p. 275]

To begin with an example of the latter relationship, used in a sense our analysis intends to preserve — imagine the inheritor to an old estate points to a sizable oak, remarking that his oak was said to be the outgrowth of an acorn planted by his grandfather a hundred years ago.  With what conditions of mechanical imagery would his statement have to conform, if it was to be accepted as true?  That is, in what kind of mechanical image of the natural system of which this oak forms part, would one find two details, one, the image of that acorn, the other, of this oak, such that, of the two objects imaged, the first was to be recognized as a producer of the second; the second, a product of the first? [pp. 275-276]

Evidently, in a mechanical image of any “sufficiently closed” natural system in which a present oak and a past acorn had their respective places, the acorn would be represented in some detail of a point-distribution imaging that natural system as it was a hundred years ago; the oak, in some detail of distribution imaging the system as it is today.  Of these two distributions, the first would be cause of the second, the second, effect of the first.  Now, if between an acorn and an oak so imaged, a producer-product relation is to be recognized, two requirements will have to be met; under the determining law of any mechanical imagery to which that natural system is adjustable, the presence of that acorn image in the cause will have to be (i) a necessary; but (ii) an insufficient condition to the presence of that oak-image in the effect.  Thus, the grandson speaking in our example would be the first to agree that his statement could not be true, if either of two other statements were false; the first asserting that had his ancestor not placed an acorn in the indicated then-and-there, no oak would have stood in the indicated here-and-now, the second asserting that though his ancestor had placed an acorn at the time and place indicated, there might still have been no oak where the present one now stands. We are not asking, for the moment, what evidence the speaker would have to gather to confirm his belief that both these statements were true; but only, what evidence would have to establish, if his original statement was to be accepted.  [pp. 276-277]

We ask, then, what formal conditions would this mechanical image of a given natural system have to fulfil, if the acorn-image in the cause and the oak-image in the effect were to represent two natural objects, of which the existence of the first was a necessary but insufficient condition in the existence of the second?  To arrive at an answer, the present study follows a procedure which might be called, the method of virtual replacements (reminiscent of the principle of virtual displacements familiar to the literature of analytical mechanics).  A simple symbolism lets us follow the application of this method more accurately and more graphically than would an account couched entirely in verbal phrase.  Presenting the problem and its solution in terms of the acorn-oak illustration already before us, it will be easy to generalize the method and its result to apply to any two objects of which the first is shown to be the producer of the second.  [p. 277]

I’ll skip over the formalistic language, for a summary some pages later.

In terms of formal properties thus defined

the cause-effect relation is	the producer-product relation is
reflexive	non-reflexive
asymmetric	asymmetric
transitive	transitive
the relations cause-effect and effect-cause are mutually reciprocal	the relations producer-product and product-producer are mutually reciprocal

So classified, the two relations are seen to share all formal properties, save one:  cause-effect is; producer-product is not a reflexive relation.  [p. 289]

The language above can be unpacked so that:

• the cause-effect relation is reflexive, i.e. cause is necessary and sufficient (if and only if) to the effect; yet
• the producer-product relation is non-reflexive, i.e. producer is necessary but not sufficient to the product.

In the context of systems theory, the system and its environment can be coproducers of an output (and an outcome).  In drawing a system boundary, we don’t need to include every coproducing element inside … and probably shouldn’t try, as we could miss an element necessary to a product.

This ties in to a prior blog post where I had written (as point 4) that “An offering can be either an output of coproduction, or input into coproduction”, referring to (Ramírez and Wallin 2000).

References

Ackoff, Russell Lincoln, and Frederick Edmund Emery. 1972. On purposeful systems. Aldine-Atherton. [preview at Google Books]

Ackoff, Russell L. 1981. Creating the Corporate Future: Plan or Be Planned For. New York: John Wiley and Sons.  [preview at Google Books]

Singer, Edgar Arthur. 1959. Experience and reflection. Ed. C. West Churchman. University of Pennsylvania Press.  [preview at Google Books]

I’ve received news about an Aalto University course on  ”Socio-Technical Systems Paradigm: History and Further Developments” [see pdf], led by Frans M. van Eijnatten (Eindhoven University of Technology) and Mari Kira (Academy Research Fellow at sustain.tkk.fi), scheduled  for September 27-28 in Espoo, Finland.

The course is associated with the Sustain Research Program that “focuses on creating sustainable work in contemporary working life”.  I also noticed a book on Creating sustainable work systems:  developing social sustainability, edited by Peter Docherty, Mari Kira and Abraham B. Shani (Taylor & Francis 2008) [preview at Google Books].

We would seem to be at the leading edge of research with this topic.  Since I’m active in the systems community, I was intrigued by a reference to an article in 2008 article in Systems Research and Behavioral Science by Mari Kira, and Frans M. van Eijnatten, “Socially sustainable work organizations: A chaordic systems approach”.

This 2008 article has led to a yet-to-be-printed (in 2010) SRBS research note by Merrelyn Emery, “Refutation of Kira & van Eijnatten’s critique of the Emery’s open systems theory” [available in early release].  She points out that the Emery variant of Open Systems Theory (OST) comes with a history of divergence in Social-Technical Systems (STS) thinking.  Emery cites continuing work with OST in a 2007 chapter by Emery and DeGuerre “Evolution of Open Systems Theory” [preview at Google Books in The change handbook:
the definitive resource on today's best methods for engaging whole systems, (Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, Steven Cady, editors)].

The Emery refutation is followed by a yet-to-be-printed (in 2010) SRBS research note by Mari Kira and Frans M. van Eijnatten, “Socially sustainable work organizations and systems thinking” [available in early release].  The coauthors thanked Emery for her criticism, and clarified some aspects of the original paper.

The foundations cited for research into sustainable work leads back to articles in a 2004 The Learning Organization special issue on “Chaordic systems thinking for learning organizations, guest edited by Frans M. van Eijnatten and Goran D. Putnik.

The research debate amongst these authors reflects evolution in the systems sciences from the heritage of the Tavistock Institute (circa 1941-1989) with Fred Emery and Eric Trist, and the newer interest in chaos and order by Dee Hock (circa 1991-2001) in the chaordic perspective with chaordic initiatives.

On a brief look at the articles, I’m interested in digging into them.  If I’m going to do the reading, I should seriously think about registering for the course.  (I was planning to be in Finland around that time, already).  Some alternatives that will require fewer air miles include web movies of lectures by Frans Eijnatten at videolectures.net.

P.S.  I hadn’t seen The Learning Organization journal before.  While I was there, I noticed a 2007 special issue on “The relevance of systems thinking and systems dynamics“.  The first article is by an acquaintance in the Ackoff community, Jamshid Gharajedaghi, with an article on “Systems thinking: a case for second-order-learning”.  Jamshid had helped me (both in his writing, and over the telephone) by clarifying some basic concepts when I was climbing the systems learning curve in 1998 with Steve Haeckel and the Adaptive Enterprise / Sense and Respond research.  Jamshid’s 2007 article seems to be a finalization of a draft that appeared on the Ackoff Center Weblog in 2004.

Earlier this year during the Russell Ackoff memorial, I reconnected with some members of the systems community in Philadelphia.  This event was taken as an opportunity to reinvigorate the systems community, in honour of Russ.  With his colleagues and former students scattered around the world, an Internet-based presence seemed appropriate.

We’ve now formally launched SysCOI.com — the Systems Community of Inquiry.  It is intended as open, worldwide network of individuals interested in systems thinking, the systems sciences and/or systems practice.

Inquiry is “an activity which produces knowledge” (Churchman, 1971).  The shared foundations and perspective in systems suggests more than a community of interest, but less than a community of practice (Wenger, 1999).  The interactions as a community aim to (i) foster interactions contributing knowledge and wisdom to the online world, and (ii) cultivate social relationships between systemicists.

The web interface follows an activity stream style of interaction, as has become popular with Facebook.  In the interest of completely open communications,  content posted on SysCOI.com is visible anywhere the Internet is accessible, and actively crawled by search engines.  There is no ambiguity about privacy with this online community: all communications are public.  The feature of choosing your “friends” on this web site enables following a smaller set of contributors, as the size of the social network increases.  Discussions with longer-running threads can be organized with groups and forums provided on the site.

Pre-announcement of the new web site occurred in April at the Systems Research Conversation at Pernegg, sponsored by the IFSR.  Later that same month, a meeting Honoring and Transcending Russ Ackoff in Washington D.C. allowed the startup team to convene in person.  In July, attendees at the INCOSE International Symposium and at the ISSS Annual Meeting in Waterloo were invited to join.  The June release of Wordpress 3 provided a stable foundation on which Buddypress social networking extensions could be finalized.  The group e-mail subscription plugin enables registered members to choose from immediate, daily or weekly notifications.  Streams can be followed at http://twitter.com/syscoi and http://friendfeed.com/syscoi.

Systemicists interested in collaborating openly on the Internet are welcomed to register.  With the basics in places, the web team is continuing to work towards adding more functionality to these foundations.

An article on NPR about the Quest to Learn program in New York City led by Katie Salen cites systems thinking as one of the foundations for 21st century literacy. I found this article on a lead from Erika von Hoyer on the Systems Community of Inquiry via her Twitter feed.

The learning model at Quest to Learn says: “Games and other forms of digital media serve another useful purpose at Quest: they serve to model the complexity and promise of ’systems.’ Understanding and accounting for this complexity is a fundamental literacy of the 21st century”.   Reading the CV of Katie Salen, I notice that she was working on the Spaceship Earth Game at the Buckminister Fuller Institute in 2005.

This led to finding an interview about the three-year study on “Grinding New Lenses: A Design Project to Support a Systems View of the World” conducted by Kylie Pepper and Melissa Gresalfi at Indiana University.  The funding by the MacArthur Foundation seems to be part of the research on assessing learning with new media as part of the 21st century assessment project.

In a panel at the Digital Media & Learning conference, Valerie Shute says “What attributes of the students are important for success in the 21st century? Systems thinking, collaborating, resource-management skills”.  This is related to worked examples and evidence-centered design.

This direction on systems thinking in middle school is compatible with the proposed design for K-12 education on Smarter Planet Service Systems proposed by Jim Spohrer.  The content is similar; the game based media could be more fun than education from an industrial era mindset.

In the Toronto area, we have had a legacy of many systems scientists as residents.  Although many Meetup attendees were familiar with Anatol Rapoport in association with the prisoner’s dilemma, they did not know that had had been a professor at the University of Toronto since 1970, and resided in the city until his passing in 2007.

One systems scientist who knew him well is Helmut (Ken) Burkhardt, professor emeritus of physics at Ryerson University.  We were delighted when Ken agreed to speak on “Anatol Rapoport, Abridged“.  As a bonus, Ken coordinated the meeting so that Anatol’s wife Gwen and son Tony could join in the discussion.

For those who were unable to attend the February 18 meetup, Ken agreed to allow me to post the notes from his talk on this blog.

<< begin paste >>

Anatol Rapoport as I Remember Him

Helmut (Ken) Burkhardt

Anatol’s biography as given in the Wikipedia is pretty good, therefore, I will report on what cannot be read in the Wikipedia, my personal impressions of Anatol as

• Concert Pianist,
• Systems Science pioneer,
• Peace Researcher, and
• Ethicist.

Anatol the Pianist

I heard Anatol play the piano very forcefully in a public concert at the Hart House of the University of Toronto.  It reminded me of a story told about Beethoven, who played so forcefully that pianos would break.  I was afraid for the piano at the Hart House would not survive Anatol’s concert.  It did.

At one of the Canadian Section of ISSS conferences, Anatol declined to play piano for the group because the instrument we had on site did not meet his standards of quality.

Later I heard Anatol give a piano concert at the Banquet of the ISSS Annual General Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, 1998.  Anatol was 87 years of age at the time.  It was a beautiful setting in a high-rise penthouse, with view all around over the city.  Anatol played a few pieces beautifully, but then in the middle of another one he stood up, and said “sorry, I cannot continue, my strength was failing”.

When Anatol was well over 90 years old, and his mental faculties began to wane, I still remember him playing the piano beautifully at his home.  Gwen may tell us more about that.

Anatol the Systems Scientist

In developing systems research, Anatol emphasized the analogy to physics.  I totally agree with that.  Systems science and all the branches of science must recognize the limits to their freedom of choice set by the physical sciences, and today I would add the limitations set by the ecological sciences.  These are the vital primary sciences that determine what is possible, and set the imperatives for individual, social, economic and political action.

Unfortunately, social scientists including politicians are often not knowledgeable of physics and ecology, and have a tendency to design systems and policies outside of the allowable physical and ecological limits, and are therefore prone to fail; by ignoring the scientific limits solutions become the problems.  One international civil society organisation that promotes this physical framework for policy is the ‘Natural Step’ society that originated in Sweden  http://www.thenaturalstep.org/en/canada/about-us .

Anatol’s pioneering contribution to societal system science was in Game Theory.  One of the most insightful and also popular stories is the Prisoners’ Dilemma.  In an example, two individual prisoners A and B are tied together through their circumstances to form a little mafia system within the state system.  It turns out that in the interests of the prisoner system are opposite to the interest of the state system.  Furthermore, the interest of the individual members of the mafia system can be contrary to the interest of the mafia system.   Thus, there are many different values to be considered, and rational decision of the individual, can cause damage to the mafia systems, which represents the interest common to both prisoners.

I took the following example from the website that Anthony has set up for his father’s published and unpublished works: www.anatolrapoport.net .  The judge has proof of the prisoners’ possession of stolen goods, which justifies a prison term of 1 year for each prisoner.  Pursuing the interests of the state system, he would like the prisoners to confess to burglary, which would justify a 5 year prison term.  Therefore he designs the four scenarios: if no one confesses to burglary, then each prisoner is sentenced to one year in prison.  The judge offers a plea bargain if only one of them confesses to burglary, he goes free and the other one gets a five year sentence. If both confess, they get for being honest only 3 years prison term each.

Before listing the rational options of the prisoners, I would like to represent the example in terms of the mafia ethic of the prisoners.  In this context a ‘ratter’, according to the dictionary, is a slang expression for a person who deserts his/her associates, not a dog that catches rats. Confessing has a positive value for the state ethic, but for the mafia ethic it is ratting, which has a negative value.  The reason for this value inversion will become clear later, when I apply the prisoners’ dilemma to climate change; here the nations are prisoners of the globe, and the national interests are often opposite to the global interests.

Each prisoner has two options, which are to rat, or not to rat.

What are the consequences for them personally and for the prisoner mafia?

If they rat, they might go free, or get 3 years prison term, on average they have to expect 1.5 years prison.

If they do not rat, they will get one year in prison, or might get a 5 year prison term, on average they have to expect 3 years in prison.  Therefore, the individual prisoner’s rational decision for the prisoners is to rat.

However, this meaningful, rational decision for each individual is the worst case scenario for the mafia collective; namely 6 person years in prison, while the when both do not rat, the mafia gets away with only 2 person years of prison time.

I suppose because of this benefit for the collective, trust in your associates has been praised a virtue since Ancient Greek times, as beautifully described in a ballad by Friedrich von Schiller in 1799.  Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Bürgschaft )  has the following synopsis of the story: The ballad is set in Ancient Greek polis of Syracuse. After a failed attempt by Moerus to kill the tyrant Dionysius, he is sentenced to death. However, he is granted a delay in order to consign his sister to her designated husband. Moerus’ friend remains with Dionysius to guarantee Moerus’ return. To the astonishment of Dionysius, after many obstacles, Moerus returns to save his friend. Ashamed by this deed, Dionysius admits the moral value of fidelity and asks to be considered as a friend in their midst.

The rationality of the individual and of the system decisions changes with the conditions.  If the crime the prisoners confess to leads to a penalty of life long prison, of even death, then the expectation changes.

If they both don’t rat, each spends one year in prison.  The alternative is to go free or risk a lifelong prison term, which is worse than one year in prison.  If  both rat, then both get sentenced to life in prison.  In this situation the rational decision for the individual is not to rat, which at the same time benefits the collective.

Let me now apply Anatol’s prisoner dilemma to last December’s climate change discussion in Copenhagen.  Assume the two global coal burning giants of the world, China and the USA think they each will lose a trillion Dollars by no longer burning coal.  However, when one of them continues burning coal they will lose nothing, if the other stops burning coal, which will result in a 5 trillion dollar disadvantage.  If both continue burning coal, the environmental damage will amount to each of them losing 3 trillion Dollars.

Not knowing for sure, what the other nation will do, it is rational for each nation to continue burning coal, because they expect 0 or 3 trillion dollar losses, while if they do not continue burning coal, they must expect 1 or 5 Trillion dollar losses.  However, the global economy will have most losses in this situation, namely of 6 trillion dollars, compared with 2 trillion in if they both were to stop burning coal.

Again, the rationality of the individual nation’s decision will depend on the circumstances.  If we trust the predictions of the International Panel on Climate Change, that the consequence of continued burning of coal and oil is the catastrophic collapse of the ecosystem and with it the global collapse of human civilization, then the individual nation’s rational decision must be to stop burning coal.

In these scenarios described by mainstream climate change scientists the nations must chose between 1 trillion dollars economic loss, and no economic loss but risking global chaos.  Obviously, the rational choice of nations is not to continue burning coal, which coincides with the global interests in the science based decision making.

The Peace Researcher

In the early 1980th, when I joined Science for Peace, they were asking for proposals for research projects.  I stepped forward and proposed research on appropriateness of weapon.  My idea was that the right kind of weapons are survival tools, and inappropriate weapons such as nuclear weapons are suicidal.  Eric Fawcett, the founding president of Science for Peace arranged a lunch with me an Anatol to discuss this peace research proposal.  Anatol’s decision was swift and firm.  No!  All weapons are inappropriate.  To this day, I disagree with this judgement.  When I meet a hostile grizzly bear in the wild, I would rather have bear spray, or even a gun with me, because my strength is no match to theirs.

There are other opinions on peace, which I share with Anatol.  Many, including the Buddhists claim that peace comes from within us, it is made by individuals attitudes.  By contrast, Anatol maintains that individual psychology need not be changed to achieve peace; it is the military industrial complex, the whole war system that must change. I think I have proof that Anatol’s view is correct.

I live with millions in Toronto at an acceptable level of peace.  I only know a few of them personally, but most of the strangers are peaceful enough as they are.   The few who are disturbing the peace are removed by police from the social system.  All functioning states are characterized by such internal peace.  The United Europe, with all the difficulties has extended peace beyond the national level to the continent.  In my view it is just another step to global peace through the adoption of an appropriate global political structure, without changing the psyche of humans.

Anatol the Ethicist

The traditional ethics lists four values: the True, the Beautiful (the Pleasurable according to Anatol), and the Good.  This ethical system I found not really helpful, because it does not define the Good.

I learned from Anatol to differentiate between primary values, and instrumental values.  In contemplating the difference I concluded that only the primary values are universally valid, not only for humans, but for all life forms.  The instrumental values are relative to cultural and environmental conditions.

On this basis I have formulate a science, not philosophy based ethics; it has only two primary, universal values, namely one’s own life, and the life of one’s offspring.  All other values are instrumental for achieving the primary values.  While this is basically a very simple ethical system, it has ‘brutal’ consequences, and in practice it becomes very complicated when considering all the value conflicts arising between the individual and the community, the short term and the long term, the local and the global.

Conversation at the Meetup

The conversation at the meetup with rich.  Although I’ve discussed prisoner’s dilemma in the past, the “mafia” view somehow eluded me.  From the description of Anatol Rapoport’s perspective, the story moves from the usual arena in economics to the sphere of morals and ethics.

One of the surprises from the meeting was the history provided by Gwen Rapoport .  She was already well developed in her career at the founding of the new field of industrial relations at the University of Chicago, in the era of Robert Hutchins — a great advocate of interdisciplinary studies — when she met Anatol.

For those interested in reading more about the life and work of Anatol Rapoport, Tony has launched a new site at anatolrapoport.net .  There’s a more complete article on Prisoner’s Dilemma over there.

I attended the Memorial Service for Russell Ackoff at the University of Pennsylvania in February.  Since I was already in Philadelphia, I was invited to hang out for an extra day to present at the Organizational Dynamics Lecture Series, as part of the master’s program in the School of Arts and Sciences.  I gave a talk on “The Emerging Science of Service Systems”, based on the research that I’ve been doing since I first saw Jim Spohrer speak at the ISSS 2005 meeting in Cancun.

I had previously posted the slides for the talk on the Coevolving Innovation Commons Publications archive.  An outline for the talk is as follows:

• A. Introduction
• B. The “new service economy” and SSMED
• C. The systems in service systems
• D. Artifacts / feeds to follow

The presentation is now available as a web video on the University of Pennsylvania media site for the School of Arts and Sciences.

I’m one, but not the only, researcher looking into Service Science, Engineering, Management and Design from the foundations of a systems approach.  A group from the ISSS has been having conversations on the emerging science. Following the question-and-answer period after the formal talk, some students stayed on to ask questions about systems in more depth.  The University of Pennsylvania, with a long tradition of systems thinking, continues to attract students with that interest!

The Organizational Dynamics program is now the home of the Russell Lincoln Ackoff Systems Thinking Library.  Coincidentally, the ISSS Cancun 2005 meeting with Russ Ackoff as the keynote speaker was the last formal presentation that I saw of him.  I never had the opportunity to discuss service systems with Russ, and hope that he might have appreciated the direction that I’m taking with the services sciences agenda.

One of the benefits of the IBM’s Smarter Planet vision(s) is its encouragement to think about the 21st century world from a fresh perspective.  The rise of the service economy — which is not the same as the service sector — calls for the nurturing of talents with different emphases.  While curricula typically have a strong grasp of agricultural systems (developed since, say, 1600 A,.D.), and industrial systems (since, say, 1850 A.D.), the science of service systems is still emerging.

A study on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education by a 2007 National Academies committee published recommendations in 2008 for professional science master’s education that is interdisciplinary in character.  Such an investment in curriculum change has been proposed as a good use of stimulus funding in the U.S. In concert, 8 of 10 students expressed a wish for universities to revamp their traditional learning environments in the Smarter Planet University Jam conducted in spring 2009 .

In 2008 and 2009, the focus has shifted to primary and secondary school education, convening another National Academies committee centered on K-12, with a report due in 2010.  Jim Spohrer — formerly the Director of Almaden Services Research, and now the Director of IBM Global University Programs — updated me on his current thinking about a potential design for education on Smarter Planet Service Systems.

Jim is following confirmation of the effectiveness of a Challenge-Based Learning approach by the New Media Consortium as “a strategy to engage kids in any class by giving them the opportunity to work on significant problems that have real-world implications”.  I liked his ordering of systems into three levels:

• systems that move, store, harvest, process;
• systems that enable healthy, wealthy and wise people; and
• systems that govern.

These are ordered so that concrete systems would be studied in early grades.  Kindergarten students — leaving the house regularly to experience walking, buses and cars — could appreciate understanding transportation systems.  Grade 1 students growing up with the modern conveniences of running water and municipal sewage, could study water and waste management systems.  Grade 2 students, old enough to help make their own lunches and shop at local markets, could learn about food and global supply chain systems.  Grade 3 students experiencing simple electrical appliances (e.g. toasters, fans) could take a tour of an electrical plant (e.g. hydro-electric facility, or wind turbines) to learn about the energy and electric grid system.  By Grade 4, 21st century students will have already become facile with mobile phones and personal computers on the Internet, so understanding information and communications technologies infrastructure systems should be easier than for their grandparents.

At the next level, learners would become more adept with the basic infrastructure of a modern society.   Grade 5 students could understand how physical environments are built, in building and construction systems.  Grade 6 students could visit to a local bank — and in large cities, the stock market — to appreciate banking and financial systems.  Grade 7 students, developing into teens with interests in fashions and parties, could learn about retail and hospitality systems.  By Grade 8, as an complement to physical education topics on puberty, visits to a hospital could serve as in introduction to healthcare systems.  The beginning of high school at Grade 9 presents an opportunity to discuss education systems, including universities and colleges.

Secondary school positions learners to be active members of society.  Government systems are relatively abstract.  Learning about city government systems in Grade 10, about regional and state government systems in Grade 11, and about national government systems in Grade 12 gradually prepares the young as future citizens who not only draw on public services, but will also vote in elections.

In higher education and professional life — since the major growth in economies has been in the delivered form of services rather than products, and in end products of information rather than materials — knowledge development would largely be self-selected from specific service systems of interest (coinciding with higher paying jobs).

My correspondence with Jim Spohrer (and past interactions with him) confirm that above list is open for discussion.  At a more academic level, the list reminds me of the Skeleton of Science by Kenneth Boulding, and Living Systems by James Grier Miller.

Appendix 1:  General Systems Theory — The Skeleton of Science

Boulding grappled with the issue about “a body of systematic theoretical constructs which will describe the general relationships of the world”.  In this, he described general systems theory as one of two ways:

Two possible approaches to the organization of general systems theory suggest themselves, which are to be thought of as complementary rather than competitive, or at least as two roads each of which is worth exploring.  The first approach is to look over the empirical universe and to pick out certain general phenomena which are found in many different disciplines, and to seek to build up a general theoretical models relevant to these phenomena.  The second approach is to arrange the empirical fields in a hierarchy of complexity of the organization of their basic “individual” or unit of behavior, and to try to develop a level of abstraction appropriate to reach.  [p.5]

The possibility of leading to a “system of systems” led to Boulding choosing the second path, with a hierarchy of complexity (ordered from simplest to most complex).

I suggest below a possible arrangement of “levels” of theoretical discourse.

(i) The first level is that of the static structure. It might be called the level of frameworks. This is the geography and anatomy of the universe. [....]

(ii) The next level of systematic analysis is that of the simple dynamic system with predetermined, necessary motions. This might be called level of clockworks. The solar system itself is of course the great clock of the universe from man’s point of view. [....]

(iii) The next level is that of the control mechanism or cybernetic system, which might be nicknamed the level of the thermostat. This differs from the simple unstable equilibrium system mainly in the fact that the transmission and interpretation of information is an essential part of the system.  [....]

(iv) The fourth level is that of the “open system,” or self-maintaining structure. This is the level at which life begins to differentiate itself from not-life: it might be called the level of the cell. [...  The] property of self-maintenance of the structure in the midst of a throughput of material becomes of dominant importance.  [....]

(v) The fifth level might be called the genetic-societal level; it is typified by the plant, and it dominates the empirical world of the botanist. [....]

(vi) As we move upward from the plant world towards the animal kingdom we gradually pass over into a new level, the “animal” level, characterized by increased mobility, teleological behavior, and self-awareness. [....]

(vii) The next level is the “human” level, that is of the individual human being considered as a system. In addition to all, or nearly all, of the characteristics of animal systems man possesses self consciousness, which is something different from mere awareness. [....]  This property is probably bound up with the phenomenon of language and symbolism. [....]

(viii) Because of the vital importance for the individual man of symbolic images and behavior based on them it is not easy to separate clearly the level of the individual human organism from the next level, that of social organizations. [... It] is convenient for some purposes to distinguish the individual human as a system from the social systems which surround him, and in this sense social organizations may be said to constitute another level of organization.  [....]

(ix) To complete the structure of systems we should add up final turret for transcendental systems, even if we may be accused at this point of having built Babel to the clouds. There are however the ultimates and absolutes and the inescapable unknowables, and they also exhibit systematic structure and relationship. It will be a sad day for man when nobody is allowed to ask questions that do not have any answers.  [editorial bolding added]

Source: Kenneth E. Boulding, “General Systems Theory — The Skeleton of Science”, Management Science, Volume 2, 1956, pp. 197-208, accessible at jstor.org/stable/2627132 .

Appendix 2:  Living Systems Theory

Miller defines a living system as “a special subset of all of the set of all possible concrete systems” [p. 18].  They are characterized by 19 critical subsystems of a living system.  The universe of concrete systems is organized into levels.

8. Level

The universe contains a hierarchy of systems, each more advanced or “higher” level made of systems of lower levels. Atoms are composed of particles; molecules, of atoms; crystals and organelles, of molecules. About at the level of crystallizing viruses, like the tobacco mosaic virus, the subset of living systems begins. Viruses are necessarily parasitic on cells, so cells are the lowest level of living systems. Cells are composed of atoms, molecules, and multimolecular organelles; organs are composed of cells aggregated into tissues; organisms, or organs; groups (e.g., herds, flocks, families, teams, tribes), of organisms; organizations, of groups (and sometimes single individual organisms); societies, of organizations, groups, and individuals; and supranational systems, of societies and organizations. Higher levels of systems may be of mixed composition, living and nonliving. They include ecological systems, planets, solar systems, galaxies, and so forth. It is beyond my competence and the scope of this book to deal with the characteristics – whatever they may be – of systems below and above those levels which include the various forms of life, although others have done so. This book, in presenting general systems behavior theory, is limited to the subset of living systems -

• cells,
• organs,
• organisms,
• groups,
• organizations,
• societies, and
• supranational systems.

[p. 25, editorial paragraphing added]

Levels should be confused with types, which are described in the immediately preceding section.

7. Type

If a number of individual living systems are observed to have similar characteristics, they often are classed together as a type. Types are abstractions.  [p. 24]

Source: James Grier Miller, Living Systems, McGraw-Hill 1978, at Google Books (without preview), excerpt on panarchy.org.

As much as I read content from the web — either through a feed reader (I’m currently favouring RssOwl) or a browser (I read with Firefox, and post comments with Flock and Cocomment) — there are times when I want my eyes and hands to be free.  I maintain a queue of MP3 audio recordings on a Creative Zen V for listening when walking or driving, and subsequently report on lectures and interview worth noting on the Media Input Queue blog.

The content on this Coevolving Innovations blog is text intensive — people who prefer photos are better to follow the Distractions, Reflections blog — so I have sympathies for readers who find the length tedious.

I was following through on some dialogue on mentoring from Sacha Chua (@sachac) to a blog post by Brian O’Donovan on social software (@bodonovan).  I noticed he had a “Listen” button on the entry, so I pressed it … triggering an automated reading of the content in a woman’s voice. This experiment gave me a close-to-perfect reproduction of the text content (and I could guess the meaning of the mispronunciations).

Following through the links, I discovered ReadSpeaker webReader, which originated as a service for the visually impaired.  For personal web sites, webSpeaker Free is an ad-supported service (with pre and/or post audio, and banners in the player).  It took me less than ten minutes to install on this Wordpress blog (as one of the benefits of self-hosting on my own domain).

I noticed that Brian preferred a female voice with a British accent.  I’ve tried that, and the American male voice, and somehow find the American female voice the easiest to my ear.

The structure of Wordpress plugins makes adding and removing ReadSpeaker webReader easy, so the added function will be another natural experiment over time.

In Toronto — partially in response to members of the International Society for the Systems Sciences looking for sustainable alternatives to the pattern of annual meetings outside of North America every other year — we’ve started a Systems Sciences Meetup group.  There’s a rich history of people and events in the systems sciences in Toronto, and we’ve been remiss in keeping the momentum going.

The purpose of these meetups is to enable conversations amongst like-minded people interested in (continuing to) climb the learning curve on (the) systems science(s).  Having a keynote speaker provides a centre around which the conversations can coalesce.  In November 2009, Allenna Leonard led the first meetup with a talk on “What are the Systems Sciences”.  Given the holiday season, we deferred the next meeting to January.

With the announcement of a Memorial Celebration for Russell Ackoff in Philadelphia in February, it seemed natural to prepare a session for those unfamiliar with his life and work.  Thus, for the January 6 Systems Sciences Meetup, I’ll be leading a talk on “Russell Ackoff, abridged“.  Having satisfied a personal goal to create a single double-sided page of  highlights, I’ll be relying on two maps as visual aids.

Following a style prescribed by the master himself — not just examining the system, but also its environment — the professional timeline of Russell Ackoff includes his relationships with the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations (that included Fred Emery and Eric Trist), as well as C. West Churchman and Peter Drucker.  Ackoff became a professor emeritus in 1986, continuing his involvement with the systems community through research institutions honouring him, and conferences featuring him for keynotes.  Ackoff’s legacy in the systems sciences lives on through former students in the Social Systems Science (S3) program at the University of Pennsylvania (1975-1988).  A full-size view of this professional timeline is available as an interactive page with links.

For a conceptual view of Russell Ackoff, a map of his writings selects from chapters collected in Ackoff’s Best (1999).  Five chapters from the first three parts of the book — systems, planning, and applications — give a feel for his system of ideas.  The full-size view of these selected writings is also available as an interactive page with links.

I am only an extended member of the S3 — known as S-cubed — program, never having studied at the University of Pennsylvania.  I had seen Russell Ackoff speak at the ISSS Atlanta 1998 meeting, and not knowing better, submitted and had a paper accepted to the 1999 Villanova conference in his honour.  My experience with Russell Ackoff is thus not through direct interaction, but instead through his social and intellectual network.

Readers who enjoy these reflections on leading system figures may look forward to an additional Systems Science Meetup on January 21, led by Jennifer Wilby from the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull (on a fortuitous routing from the UK to California). Jennifer will be speaking on “Kenneth Boulding, abridged” — the first president of the Society for General Systems Research, an organization that evolved into ISSS.  Boulding was a renaissance man.  He was accused of not being an economist in the year that he was president of the American Economic Association!

The two interactive web pages linked above were creating using VUE — the Visual Understanding Environment, from Tufts University.  Readers interested in seeing how the above diagrams were created are welcomed to download the timeline and writings source files for VUE.

Digital cameras have become so common that they’re often now a feature in mobile phones and audio players.  Pressing a button to capture a snapshot of time is so easy.  The workflow of storing, printing and sharing those images is complicated.  Many would like to return to the days when we would just take the film cartridge out of the camera, and drop it to a photo lab for processing (often in about an hour).

People take more photographs digitally than they did with film cameras.  In a six-month study in 2000, when digital cameras were relatively uncommon, subjects (aged 24 to 38) took 200 to 1000 (with an average about 500) photographs, compared to their prior non-digital accumulated collection of 300 to 3000 (with an average of about 1000) pictures (Rodden & Wood 2003).  This means that when digital cameras were relatively expensive — and camera phones didn’t yet exist — people were averaging about 1 to 5 photos per day!

People presumably use cameras because they want to be able to retrieve the images later.  In a study of 18 parents, the value of long-retrieval of family pictures was high (i.e. around 4.7 on a scale of 5).  On experiments of 71 retrieval tasks — finding birthdays, family trips, first pictures of a child, etc. — 61% were successful, taking about 2.5 minutes each.  On the 39% of unsuccessful retrievals, subjects gave up after about 4 minutes  (Whittaker et al. 2010).  This effectively means that, on average, nearly 40% of the digital photos taken last year are lost, and considerable persistence is needed for them to be refound.

I. What activities, platforms and artifacts are involved with managing digital photos?

Digitalization in photography has replaced trips to the photo lab with the copying of electronic files.  Industry standards have stabilized so that image files can be readily copied from cameras to personal computing devices, and onto web servers.  Here’s a diagram of some of the activities, platforms and artifacts in digital photography.

Based on this diagram, let me (a) pose some questions for reflection on the choices we implicitly make about managing photos, (b) outline some popular alternatives, and (c) describe the way I do it, myself.

II. What type of photographer am I?

There’s a variety of styles of digital photographers.  People want to preserve memories of people (43%), experiences (26%), places, and/or special days as ways of communicating with the future.  They use photos to record lives (63%), reminisce (21%), compare today with tomorrow (5%), preserve for future generations (9%) and have fun (2%) (Petrelli et al. 2009).  Let me portray digital photographers as three types, with some observed behaviours:

• type i — the casual snapshooter:
  • Breaks out a camera on special occasions (e.g. birthdays, weddings), and/or uses a cameraphone without guilt.
  • Uses the “auto” mode on the point-and-shoot camera.
• type ii — the digital photologger:
  • Consistently uses more than one camera, and always has one in his or her pocket.
  • Knows when and how to change camera settings from their defaults.
• type iii — the photographic purist:
  • Captures RAW rather than JPEG images.
  • Manipulates the images with a raster graphic editor (e.g. Photoshop).

I have the skills to be in type iii, as I own a SLR film camera, have worked in a darkroom, and am facile with computer-based tools.  I’m really a type ii, because I already spend 12 hours a day on a computer, and prefer the seconds it takes to compose a better picture over the minutes or hours it would take to fix it in the mix.  I coach a lot of people who are type i, posing a lot of the choices in the digital photo workflow steps.

I currently most frequently use a Canon large compact, a Panasonic small compact, and a Sony fixed lens APS, all cameras with zooms to wide angle (28mm to 24mm).  On computer software, I prefer to choose open source software that runs multiplatform (i.e. Windows, Mac and Linux) when practical.

III. At what settings should I (1) capture images?

Since digital photos get copied from one platform to another, the size of the image files merits more prominence.  Here are some typical file sizes (from the Canon S90 user guide).

If you have to ask what RAW is, you should be shooting in JPEG.  The RAW format, unprocessed as captured at the sensor, is only available on advanced cameras.  For the average snapshooter, the conventional wisdom is to shoot at the maximum resolution that your camera sensor allows (e.g. 10MP).  Then choose normal compression — rather than fine or superfine — as there’s no practical difference in quality.  The resizing of photographs to lower resolution (e.g. 2 MP) versions is better done on a computer, than in the camera.

The difference between JPEG Fine and JPEG Normal may not seem like much … until you realize that the added size can result in twice as much time to upload images over the Internet — the bottleneck for sharing photos.

Popular ways:  Most people probably set their digicams to “auto” mode, which usually means:

• simple/automatic mode;
• maximum resolution of the sensor of the camera (e.g. 10 MP);
• low JPEG compression (e.g. superfine quality);
• automatic exposure index (film speed); and
• automatic flash when needed.

The way I do-it-myself: I prefer available light photography, rarely print photographs, and am conscious of image file sizes when I have to upload/download the originals.  I tend to set:

• program exposure mode, which enables manual setting of the features below;
• maximum resolution (e.g. 6MP on a 6MP maximum, 10 MP on a 10MP maximum) with cameras chosen for sensors with low pixel density;
• high JPEG compression (e.g. normal quality, producing smaller files);
• ISO 400 exposure index (film speed) for indoor shots most of the time, with auto exposure index outside when I remember;
• flash off, with the exception for fill flash when necessary;
• clock set to Eastern Time, ignoring daylight savings time changes and international travel to other time zones; and
• orientation always as landscape, following the shape of desktop monitors, resisting turns of the camera to portrait mode.

All of these settings are possible, even on my small compact camera.  Changing from simple/automatic mode to program exposure mode disables “foolproof” features, e.g. the flash going off unexpectedly, and large image files without benefit.

I rarely delete images on the camera, and prefer to transfer all of the images to the working storage on my computer for browsing and selection there.  This seems be unlike the norm (i.e. 7 of 12 people edit on the camera) (Kirk et al. 2006).

IV. How can I (2) ingest images from a memory card or camera to working storage?

People transfer images from their digital cameras (a) depending on the time it takes to perform the downloads, if they take a lot of photographs, (b) after an event (e.g. a holiday), or (c) for a specific goal (e.g. a picture for an eBay item) (Kirk et al. 2006).  Since I take a lot of photographs, I fall into the first category.

Popular ways:  I’ve observed that many people connect their cameras to a computer via a USB cable, although some use a memory card reader.  Although cameras are typically bundled with software to transfer and browse images, most people use either Windows Explorer or iPhoto for those tasks (Kirk et al. 2006).

I once found defects with the integrity of some image files transferred, that led me to investigate ImageIngester, that includes ImageVerifier.  I haven’t tried, but also notice the free Authentegirty for Downloader Pro plugin for Breeze Systems Downloader Pro.  These software packages are available for a small fee.

The way I do-it-myself: I somehow trust the camera manufacturer over operating system developers to ensure data integrity.  I rely on the bundled software that comes with the camera, e.g. Canon Zoombrowser and Lumix Simple Viewer.  I once used Windows Explorer with a card reader to copy and delete a movie from an SD card, leading to a hidden file that couldn’t be deleted.  After attaching a cable to the camera and copying all of the images off, the only resolution was to reformat the SD card and wipe all of its contents.

Bundled camera software normally has lightweight photo organization, with options to define the resulting folder structure on the computer.  I transfer all of my photos into folders by month, and leave further sorting for a later step.

For still photographs, I take the memory card out of the camera and plug it into a card reader on the computer.  (On my laptop computer, the SD memory card reader is built in, but I need an adapter for a CompactFlash card).  For movies, I’ve become cautious, and use a cable to connect the camera to the computer to reduce the risk of data corruption.

V. Can I (3) organize, (4) archive, (5) touchup + print, (6) downsize + share, and (7) illustrate stories all with one service?

In the 2009 study, only 39% of participants had experimented with photo software (e.g. Picasa, Photoshop).  While 83% of subjects had the time correctly set on their cameras, some transfer programs labelled folders associated with computer upload dates, rather than when the picture was actually taken.  Only 2 of the 17 parents studied created annotations on the digital photos in the same way that they had done with physical albums, with neither finding successful in maintaining them (Whittaker et al. 2010).

Popular ways: The current leading one-stop option seems to be buying into the Google family:

• organizing with Picasa (on Windows, Mac or Linux);
• archiving with the “sync to web” feature on Picasa Web Albums;
• printing with a Picasa partner, e.g. Snapfish by HP, available in 20 countries including Canada, or others that print in the U.S. (with shipping and possibly customs charges);
• sharing photos collaboratively with Picasa Web Albums; and
• using “blog this” in Picasa to put a photo onto a blogger.com post via a Picasa Web Album.

Picasa is free.  The first 1 GB of photos on Picasa Web Albums is free (i.e. 800 JPEG Normal images or 375 JPEG Fine images at 10 MP).  After that, you can purchase additional storage annually from Google at modest prices, with the first level at 20 GB.

If you like Picasa but not Picasa Web Albums, there are plugins connecting Picasa to Flickr and Picasa to Smugmug.  These launch browser windows, so the integration isn’t quite as seamless as an all-Google approach.

The way I do-it-myself: I manage my own domains (e.g. coevolving.com, daviding.com), and see archiving and sharing photos as two separate activities.  In addition, I appreciate the active community of plugins available when self-hosting with Wordpress, so blogger.com isn’t an attraction for me.  Finally, since I live in a major city, I would prefer to pick up photographic prints in person, rather than having them shipped.  I will thus cover each of the steps in the above diagram as a separate activity, below.

VI. Could I bypass (B) “working storage” on a personal computer to go directly from the (A) camera to the (F) web?

The vision of cloud computing removes steps associated with a staging area at home (i.e. transferring to personal computer, and then uploading to the web) in favour of a direct connection to the “jukebox in the sky“.  There are a few recent alternatives, with more likely to come in the future

On cellular telephony, the best camera phones available are continually improving, and a cross-industry Camera Phone Industry Quality Initiative demonstrates progress. Various hardware and software manufacturers offer applications for free (e.g. Blackberry to Flickr, iPhone to Flickr (quickly gaining in popularity), Nokia to Ovi Share, and multiplatform support is coming up through startups (e.g. Shozu).  If you already have a generous or unlimited data plan, then you could jump directly from film cameras to a smartphone.

A second alternative is a wireless (wifi) digital camera.  The earliest wifi cameras were “pull” devices, only eliminating the cable in the pull of files to a personal computer.  Recent wifi cameras are now “push” devices, e.g. Nikon sends pictures to Picturetown via wifi, Sony sends photos to Picasa Web Albums and Photobucket.  One hint: “push” devices have a virtual keyboard so that you type in URLs and settings.

A third alternative is to add a wireless memory card — Eye-Fi is the first-of-a-kind — to a conventional digital camera.  Eye-fi, on specified camera models, can “push” from the camera via wifi to the Eye-Fi’s webshare site, which then replicates to popular photosharing sites (e.g. Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Smugmug) and photofinishing sites (e.g. Kodak Gallery, Snapfish).

These solutions have the potential to eliminate the personal computer in the workflow, with the upside and downside of making the browser the standard interface to web albums.   Online photo editing enables resizing and light retouching, with responsiveness depending on your Internet bandwidth.  The rest of this article assumes a personal computer as a stage in the workflow.

VII. How can I (3) organize my images into a collection?

As an advance over film photography, digital cameras store date and exposure information as EXIF metadata.  Thus, the most basic way to organize photos should be by date.  Unfortunately, cameras typically create file names such as DSC-101, which are meaningless.

Popular ways: People typically categorize image collections into subjects (e.g. holiday in Tunisia) or simple labels and dates (e.g. 2002-4-London) (Kirk al. 2006).  The logical organization of photos generally follows the physical organization of folders.

Picasa encourages tagging of places (with geotags) and people (through automated face-matching), as well as tags of the photographer’s own choosing.  This is an easy way to break the coupling between the physical location of a file and its content.

The way I do-it-myself: As a data purist, I don’t want to risk corrupting the image file by editing its metadata, and see the value in each file having a meaningful file name.  After the photos have been downloaded to my computer, I take the following steps:

(a) On the personal computer, create month-subject folder names with extended year-month and location descriptions (e.g. 200902e-Narita-Tamachi).

(b) Using the freeware Xnview photo viewer, locate images relevant to each month-subject folder, and move them accordingly.  Since I may use multiple cameras on any given day, this procedures facilitates merging image files from a variety of cameras with internal clocks all synchronized.

(c) Apply Flexible Renamer to rename the image files by date, in pattern of

Photographer_YearMonthDay <<space>> HourMinuteSecond <<space >> MinuteSecond

While spaces in file names complicate URLs in web browsers, they improve readability by word wrap for thumbnails listed on a personal computer.  The last MinuteSecond pattern is a placeholder for an edit in the next step.  In Flexible Renamer, the pattern is coded as:

DI_\Y\m\d \H\M|S \M\S for myself, and
DY_\Y\m\d \H\M|S \M\S for my spouse.

When I snap multiple photos in sequence, there are sometimes collisions with two files named on the same second that I then rename manually.  If I didn’t use Flexible Renamer, I might might look to alternative EXIF renaming applications, e.g. Métamorphose File and Folder Renamer.

• Addendum on March 21, 2010: I’ve now started using AmoK EXIF Sorter to rename (not move or copy) image files, since it enables parsing of the date-time down into month-day-year in a way that I’ve been unable to do with Flexible Renamer.

(d) Manually rename the final MinuteSecond phrase by place, and subject, e.g. DI_20090222 024404 Narita ATMs.JPG, while browsing with Xnview photo viewer.  If there are people I want to identify in the photo, I include only his or her initials (which is meaningless for search engines, later).

The result of the above steps is digital images (a) with meaningful file names, (b) organized by date and subject in folders, and (c) unaltered inside the file content (and metadata).

VIII. How can I (4) archive my images in long-term storage?

The options for long-term storage are (a) leave the images on the memory card and buy more cards as they get full; (b) store on a computer hard disk (i.e. magnetic media); (c) copy to CDROM or DVD (optical storage), or (d) copy to online storage (i.e. web).  Let’s assume that the average photographer finds the first option unreasonable, and clears old memory cards for reuse.

Popular ways: Most people store images on their personal computers, backing up to CDROM infrequently (e.g. 18 months) (Kirk et al. 2006).  There are cost and material considerations for magnetic and optical storage, as data stability, recovery and removal issues.

An alternative to offline storage is storing copies of the original image files on online photo sites.  The maximum image file sizes — 20 MB for Picasa Web Albums and for Flickr and for Photobucket, and 12/24/48 MB for Smugmug — aren’t an issue for people uploading JPEG images on the order of 1 MB each.  Once the photos have been uploaded, however, relocating them somewhere else at a later date take effort.  Downloading and re-uploading can be eased by Migratr, although you might have to watch out for your home Internet monthly bandwidth limit.

The way I do-it-myself: I’ve been happy with my web hosting provider — effectively unlimited storage as low as $5 per month — so I now have all of my photos on the Internet.

• I’ve installed a simple and reliable script — Qdig (Quick Digital Image Gallery) — that indexes, creates thumbnails, and caches resized images on demand.
• Directory protection puts a simple userid and password on all of the photos, so that only people I authorize can see the full archive.
• Image files are transferred using Filezilla Client from my personal computer to my personal web domain.

For long term storage, I’m relying on the oldest and most reliable open source protocols (e.g. http, ftp) for longevity.  I’m relieved from the failure issues associated with magnetic disks and disk rot on optical media (e.g. CD-Rs with an expected lifespan of 10 years could fail after 2 years).  The pressed CDs created in factories are not the same technology as CD-Rs burned on a personal computer.

I used to have a private web server in my basement running open source software, with Dalbum to create indexes and thumbnails in batches.  Having hardware gave me easy access to a CD/DVD writer for backups.  Over time, however, I discovered that on-demand creation and caching of indexes and thumbnails one-by-one is more reasonable than the days needed to reindex years of images as batches.  Maintaining a private Intranet server with dynamic DNS access became more effort than it was worth.

When I moved the image files from the Windows-based web server in my basement to my Linux-based web hosting provider, I used the ncftp mput command recursively.  Although this transfer took days to complete, the commands executed in an unattended mode so that I only had to check every few hours for a dropped line.  I don’t plan to change web hosting providers, but if it’s necessary, a Linux-to-Linux online-to-online wget recursive transfer should be fast, and won’t involve downloading to, and reuploading from, my home.

IX. How can I (5) touchup + print my images into photographic prints?

Raster graphics editing — most popularly known as Photoshop — requires significant practice to gain proficiency, and the aesthetic skills of a graphics artist are not necessarily natural.  Getting images onto paper can be done by (i) using a photo printer at home, or (ii) ordering prints from a photo lab.

Popular ways: Young men tend to print photos on home photo printers, whereas young women tend to prefer photo kiosk print stations.  The economics of printing supplies favour online photo printing services, either with local pickup or by mail order.

The way I do-it-myself: I don’t print photos.  My wife does.  She first visited the grocery store with camera memory cards, USB flash drives and then CDs, standing at the kiosk to touch-up images one by one.  Since Photolab.ca uses the same printers for kiosk printing in grocery stores as it does for online orders from albums for pickup, I had her try that out.  Unfortunately, she lost a lot of work on the Java-based file uploader, so she was discouraged from repeating the experience.

In Canada, I’ve found an interesting alternative with Kodak Gallery.  Pickup is free at Best Buy and at Future Shop stores.  Kodak Gallery maintains a online photo gallery for you, as long you as print at least one photograph per year.  Cropping and minor touchups can be done through the web interface in Kodak Gallery.

The key factor in choosing this service, however, is Kodak’s participation in the open source movement:  they’ve funded the development of the Firefox Companion for Kodak EasyShare Gallery, that enables drag-and-drop functionality for photo printing.  With Kodak’s permission, the developer has extended the plugin into the Fotofox add-on for Firefox that supports not only Kodak Gallery, but also Flickr, Smugmug and others.  I have to remind my wife to drag-and-drop the highest resolution original photographs for upload to Kodak Gallery, rather than the web-quality versions, but she’s otherwise been able to order large batches of photos for printing from the comfort of our home.

X. How can I (6) downsize + share my images in online web albums?

People typically “triage” their images, selecting and sorting a few to be shared (Kirk et al. 2006).  Thus, selections in the long term storage archive aren’t necessarily the same as the selections for printed photos, which aren’t necessarily the same as selections to be shared over the Internet.  Downsizing images speeds up browser page loading on 1024 x 768 px (0.8 MP) SVGA screens and 1920 x 1080 px (2.1 MP) monitors for HDTV, where the original high resolution (e.g. 10 MP) images from a digital cameras is wasted.

Popular ways: The wrong way to share photographs is to send large (e.g. 10 MB) photos via e-mail.  Some people use Photoshop to resize images.  There’s a free open source alternative in GIMP – The Graphical Image Manipulation Program.  Both Photoshop and GIMP are large packages with many features and a learning curve.  Simpler programs, such as XnView, can be used for easy resizing of images down to 1024 x 768 px for sharing over the Internet.  Downsized images are typically (a) embedded in an e-mail message addressed to a few individuals, (b) put onto a private space online with a link or invitation to view through a browser, or (c) shared on a public web site open to the world.

(a) If you insist on embedding photographs in e-mail to a few close friends, the Gmail webmail browser interface will allow you to add photos so that at least only one version gets copied around the Internet.

(b) The better way to share photos is to (i) put the photos online, and then (ii) send messages to your friends to access those photos and/or albums.  These are sequential steps.

(i) If you’ll don’t want to install an application for each service — and are interested in a better browser — Flock is built on the same foundations as Mozilla Firefox, and enables drag-and-drop uploading to Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket, as well as blogs and Facebook.  The Flock Photo Uploader, upon pressing the “Upload” button, brings up options including “always resize the longest side of the photos” to 640, 800, 1024, 1280, 1600 or 2048 pixels.  The multiplatform and multiservice features of Flock make it my recommended approach.

As an alternative to the browser interface, Flickr Uploadr will let you drag-and-drop photos from your PC or Mac into a window, for batch uploading.  Under the menu, Properties … Settings … Automatic resizing can be set to 800, 1280, 1600 or 2048 pixels wide.  If you’re only going to be sharing online at a time, 1280 pixels wide is beyond the size viewable on most computer monitors, yet small enough to help you may stay within the free 100 MB per month.

Uploading from Picasa to Picasa Web Albums is easy.  You can set the upload size to 640, 1024 or 1600 pixels wide.  While Flickr has a rolling upload limit of 100 MB per month, Picasa has a cumulative limit of 1 GB free at any time before an annual fee kicks in.

Other popular web sites for sharing include Smugmug (for a fee) and Photobucket (as ad supported)

(ii) If you prefer to not share with the world, you can notify your friends of private Flickr albums with a guest pass as e-mail with coded links, or unlisted or private Picasa Web Albums to individuals in a Google contact group.  The Flickr method provides the more straightforward e-mail click-through for novices, and the Picasa Web Albums / Google approach is better for people who receive at multiple e-mail addresses and want to remember fewer passwords.

(c) Sharing photos publicly to the world, in the above services, is a simple matter of setting the option to specific images or web albums.

The way I do-it-myself:  For the few people who want copies of unpublished or high resolution photos, I e-mail a link and passwords to the private Qdig archive described above in section VIII.

I otherwise assume everything that I post onto the Internet is public.  Over the past month, I’ve been impressed by an open source package called Zenphoto.  It has an active support community.  It offers a variety of themes — including one called Flickrish that is a tribute to the industry leader.  It creates feeds following the Media RSS standard.  It automatically indexes, creates thumbnails and caches images uploaded to web albums via FTP. Web photos can be played back as slideshow using Flash.  Thus, after having organized the original images into a collection on my PC, I follow the following steps.

(a) For a month-subject folder on my personal computer, I batch convert images in Xnview with a stored script that (i) sets auto levels, (ii) sets auto contrast, (iii) resizes down to 1024 x 768 px (maintaining the photo ratio) using Lanczos resampling, and (iv) sharpens to a setting of 20.  The last two steps were ones that I always did manually, and I’ve added the first two steps to automatically adjust exposures that might be slightly off.

After I’ve done the resizings, I can browse the images with Xnview.  If any resulting image isn’t to my taste, I return to the original image to manually crop with the same selection ratio of 1024 x 768 px, and then resize and sharpen.

(b) In order to preclude character issues in URLs, I take two passes with Métamorphose File and Folder Renamer to (i) replace spaces with hyphens, and (ii) modify the filenames to all lower case.

(c) I’m conducting a slow natural experiment by geocoding my web photos.  I’ve noticed geocoding (in the EXIF metadata) and geotagging (text descriptions) first in Panoramia, and more recently in Flickr and Picasa.  The web search interface to Google Maps on Geosetter for Windows speeds up setting longitude and latitude for each image within a folder to minutes.  I’m watching for how images of public locations may become easier as technology advances.  I exclude pictures of people in their homes from geocoding.

(d) The last step is to upload the folder(s) of web photos to and album directory in Zenphoto, using Filezilla Client.  Thumbnails are created automatically on the first access of the image.

In theory, there isn’t a reason that Zenphoto couldn’t be used as a long term storage archive, in the way described for Qdig in section VIII, above.  In practice, I’m comforted by the fact that Qdig has been so stable that its code hasn’t changed since 2006.  The continuing evolution of Zenphoto introduces risks that I would just as soon preclude.

Since I host my own domains, I had first tried (Menalto) Gallery, which is so popular that it’s featured as a one-button installation on Fantastico.  The Gallery community is one of the most active in open source.  Gallery Remote is a Java-based client-side uploader, and images can be integrated into Wordpress blogs with the WPG2 plugin.  Architecturally, however, I found that Gallery wasn’t for me.  Gallery has one requirement — a relational database (e.g. MySQL) — so that my caution for easy open access (and potentially migrating) images would be defeated.  In addition, uploading image files over 2 MB in size to Gallery requires a change in setting in PHP, which is technically inelegant.

XI. How can I (7) illustrate my stories into a photoblog?

Photographs benefit by (at least a few) words that describe the context for the images being viewed.  Words can be added minimally as captions, or more fully as stories.

Popular ways: Many people share their photos on Facebook, which — for better and for worse — limits their audiences to individuals specified directly as friends.

A more open alternative is to get a (free) blog on wordpress.com, and then choose the Monotone theme for photoblogging.  Images can be uploaded onto the Wordpress site, or linked from another site (e.g. Flickr or Picasa).  Wordpress.com doesn’t charge for the first 3GB of space, with upgrades available for a fee.  However, the most flexible path is to blog only text on Wordpress, and post photos linked from Flickr or embed a slideshow, album or image from Picasa Web Albums.

If you prefer Blogger, there’s the “Blog This” button in Picasa.  I see that Blogger does support third party themes, but haven’t readily found one specifically for photoblogging.

As an alternative to blogging through a direct browser interface, I’ve suggested Flock to my friends, and they like to use the blog posting features.

The way I do-it-myself:  I have blogs both on wordpress.com, and on my own domains.  I prefer to post my photos on my own domain.  While my professional blog (i.e. coevolving.com, that you’re reading) is almost all text, my personal blog (i.e. daviding.com) features a photoblog with stories.  Following the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words, my style has been to share images of my travels.  My experience as an editor of photography for my high school yearbook also taught me that images by themselves aren’t sufficient.  I find stories are more expressive than captions.

I often take advantage of the web clipboard feature in Flock to embed images and links from other web sites in my posts.

XII. How can I (8) order photographic prints from the archives in my long-term storage?

Maintaining photos online in long term storage, when not associated with a photofinishing provider, complicates placing orders.

Popular ways: Since maintaining online archives is relatively uncommon, most people would order prints from the images on their home computers, either by physically taking copied image files on a USB memory key or CDROM to the kiosk or store, or ordering online as described in section IX.

The way I do-it-myself: Copying photos from my password-protected Qdig archive to Kodak Gallery is made as easy as drag-and-drop with the Fotofox plugin for Firefox.

(a) In Firefox, open the Fotofox sidebar, at Tools … Fotofox ….  Switch to “Kodak Easyshare Gallery” and continue to login.

(b) In the Firefox main window, surf to the image that you want to print, and select the “FS” link to “See the Full Size version of this image”.  Hover over the image, and select the right mouse button to “Upload Image with Fotofox”.  This will add an image to the Fotofox sidebar.  At the bottom of the sidebar, enter a title for the image, and select a folder in which it will be uploaded.

(c) After there are a few photos in the sidebar, select the “Upload” button.

(d) In another browser window, surf to Kodak Gallery — you can change the country in the upper right corner, if necessary — and you’ll find the images in a folder in “My Photos”.

(e) For each photo, it should be relatively straightforward to zoom, crop and trim photos, and add them to your shopping cart.

The Fotofox plugin supports dragging-and-dropping images from your home computer into the sidebar, even simpler than the procedure for online images in the browser.

XIII. What features can I get if I (9) source images from a self-hosted web photos into a self-hosted photoblog?

This last question is of interest only to those who want the complete do-it-yourself experience.  In the interest of completeness, I’ll describe the benefits and procedure for self-hosting my web photos (in Zenphoto) with self-hosted photoblog (in Wordpress).

Benefits: Self-hosting a Wordpress blog enables me to install additional plugins on daviding.com.  Specifically, I like:

• Geotag for Wordpress, to place each blog post in the world;
• MediaRSS, to embed images in the RSS feed;
• MyZenAlbums, for a preview of photo albums in the blog sidebar;
• Wordbook, to cross-post blog posts from Wordpress into Facebook; and
• Shadowbox JS, a version of the popular Flash-based Lightbox / Thickbox / Shadowbox slide show media viewers.

These customizations are part of my natural experiments on web technologies, allowing me a view on progress and the way that standards evolve.

Procedure: To speed up blog posts, I learned to code a little PHP to write shell HTML with links to all of the images in a Zenphoto web album (which is a directory on the web server).  I extended a tutorial to “List a Directory’s Contents Using PHP”, and would be happy to provide this on request.

This script writes all of right code to embed scaled images (i.e. 475 px wide) from the Zenphoto web albums onto a Wordpress post, with placeholders for the story text.  It’s relatively quick for me to write the stories, as the images have meaningful file names to jog my memory.  I occasionally cut-and-paste images in a different sequence on the post to suit the story, so the decoupling of words and images is complete.

XIV. It’s a hobby, not a job!

Despite the length of this article, and the variety of details and options on the ways of managing personal photo described, digital photography is a hobby for me, and not a job.  I hope that this outline may help that large (and increasing) segment of the population that has problems finding last year’s photos!

References

David S. Kirk, Abigail J. Sellen, Carsten Rother, and Kenneth R. Wood, “Understanding Photowork“, Proceedings of CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2006.

Daniela Petrelli, Elise van den Hoven and Steve Whittaker, “Making History: Intentional Capture of Future Memories”, Proceedings of CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2009, http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1518701.1518966.

Kerry Rodden and Kenneth R. Wood, “How Do People Manage Their Digital Photographs?”, Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’03), http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/642611.642682

Steve Whittaker, Ofer Bergman and Paul Clough, “Easy on that Trigger Dad: A Study of Long Term Family Photo Retrieval”, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (forthcoming, 2010), draft accessed at http://dis.shef.ac.uk/stevewhittaker/PUC_pix_retrieval_final.pdf .

In the Adaptive Enterprise research that I had conducted between 1998 and 2001, I was primarily focused on conversations for action, towards a commitment action protocol. I extended, in 2008, those ideas into a research paper to recognize (at least) four types of obligations:

• commitments to produce a deliverable;
• commitments to follow a process;
• commitments to provide a capability; and
• commitments to contribute to a relationship.

These four types were not considered exhaustive, but helpful in understanding how service systems work.

In the background, I’ve always known that there are other kinds of conversation.  To be explicit about these, I’ll refer to a 1987 article by Terry Winograd (that was a revision of 1986 workshop paper reprinted in 1988).

Winograd provides the foundations back to speech act theory, from Austin, and then Searle.

Austin (1962) noted that not all utterances are statements whose truth or falsity is at stake. Performatives, such as I pronounce you husband and wife are actions, which can be made appropriately (felicitously) or not, but which are neither true nor false in a simple sense. Similarly, the language actions of commands, questions, and apologies are not descriptions of a non-linguistic world.

Searle (1975) identified five fundamental illocutionary points — things you can do with an utterance:

Assertive	Commit the speaker (in varying degrees) to somethings being the case — to the truth of the expressed proposition.
Directive	Attempt (in varying degrees) to get the hearer to do something. These include both questions (which can direct the hearer to make an assertive speech act in response) and commands (which direct the hearer to carry out some linguistic or non-linguistic act).
Commissive	Commit the speaker (again in varying degrees) to some future course of action.
Declaration	Bring about the correspondence between the propositional content of the speech act and reality (e.g., pronouncing a couple married).
Expressive	Express a psychological state about a state of affairs (e.g., apologizing and praising).

[pp. 7-8]

The conversations for action tend to focus on the commissives, but the other illocutionary points happen as well.

Winograd describes three other types of conversations.

We distinguish several additional kinds of conversation that go along with conversations for action (CfA):

• conversation for clarification,
• conversation for possibilities, and
• conversation for orientation.

There is no sharp line between them, but they are accompanied by different moods.

In a conversation for clarification the participants cope with or anticipate breakdowns concerning interpretations of the conditions of satisfaction for a CfA. The conditions are always interpreted with respect to an implicit shared background, but the sharing is partial and needs to be negotiated. As a simple example, the request “Give the patient some diazine” might evoke responses such as “Right now, or with the morning meds?” or “What dosage?” One can never guarantee that everything is totally precise. Precision is relative to each party’s implicit anticipation that the other party will have a sufficiently shared background to carry out the action in a satisfactory way.

In a conversation for possibilities, the mood is one of speculation, anticipating the subsequent generation of conversations for action. Specific conditions of satisfaction will emerge in the course of the conversation, and associated conversations for action will be initiated. Many gatherings that are called meetings are best conducted in this mood. The meeting is a failure if some action does not come out of the discussion. Some conversations for possibilities are highly routinized. For example, work rounds on a hospital ward is a routine conversation for possibilities, during which the medical team visits each patient and specific requests and commitments are generated.

In a conversation for orientation, the mood is one of creating a shared background as a basis for future interpretation of conversations. This shared background includes specific knowledge, interpersonal relations, and general attitudes. The most obvious examples are meetings labelled orientation, in which newcomers begin to develop the understanding that is required to function in the organization. Conversations for orientation are prominent in less formal settings (shooting the bull). Although the mood here is not directed towards action, it is important to recognize the importance of developing mutual orientation as the basis for future effective action and for appropriately shared interpretation of language acts.

Each of these types of conversation has its own regularities of structure, which in turn can be reflected in the design of the tools for conducting it.  [p. 15, editorial emphases and paragraphing added]

A case study of work in a hospital is analyzed for each of these kinds of conversations.  The context of the “larger web of conversations” is recognized.  These include written documents (e.g. on the quality of care), as well as non-written and/or uncaptured electronic communications that would have to be recalled as declarations by individuals with subjective interpretations and purposes.

The language action perspective is seen as superordinate to semantics, with profession-oriented meanings resulting in distinctions that may not be understood to practitioners out of an immediate context, let alone the layman.  Winograd surfaces some “blindnesses” that are introduced through the technological medium of computing.

Beyond having conversations recorded in writing or via electronic media, recognition of the above types of conversations may help communications and coordination in business, not only in superior-subordinate relationships, but also peer-to-peer relationships.  Haeckel (1999) calls for rigour as necessary but not sufficient in a commitment-based governance system.

The commitments made and and registered must also be authentic.  By authentic, I mean two things.  First, both parties must mean what they say and say what they mean — they must be sincere.  Second, each party must know and understand what they mean — they must be competent.  [p. 150]

Beyond commitments — in clarifications, in possibilities, and in orientation — these three principles are good practice:  (a) mean what you say, (b) say what you mean, and (c) know what you mean.  In a turbulent conditions, this third principle — to know what you mean — can be a challenge.  Reorienting, exploring alternative possibilities and/or gaining additional clarification may drive revisiting and renegotiating commitments made under uncertainty.

References

Stephan H. Haeckel, Adaptive Enterprise: Creating and Leading Sense-and-Respond Organizations, Harvard Business School Press, 1999.

Terry Winograd, “A Language/Action Perspective on the Design of Cooperative Work”, Human-Computer Interaction volume 3, number 1 (1987-88), pp. 3-30, available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327051hci0301_2 posted at http://hci.stanford.edu/winograd/papers/language-action.html

Terry Winograd, “A Language/Action Perspective on the Design of Cooperative Work”, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: A Book of Readings (Irene Greif, editor), Morgan-Kaufmann, 1988, pp. 623-653.

While some of my activity on the Internet is recreational, I continue to play with web tools to learn about the ever-evolving technology.  While the average person has become comfortable with e-mail, web feeds are still pretty much a mystery to many.  The RSS and Atom specifications first used by newswires has become the principal form of web syndication for blogs and social media.

I’ve recently rearranged my pattern of web use (again).  To encourage readers to think about how they use the Internet, let me pose four questions.

• 1. Which principles on web content do I have in mind?
• 2. How do I post content, and flow it?
• 3. Why have I recently changed my use?
• 4. What consideration should web users have for their content?

With the way that technology continues to evolve, the specific web applications may change … but the pattern should remain the same.

1. Which principles on web content do I have in mind?

My attitude is reflected in two ideas:  (a) open content with attribution, and (b) open platforms with interoperability.

(a) Open content with attribution reflects that I like to share my learning with other people.   Posting the content on the Internet improves access and distribution.  I understand the workings of copyright — there’s a Creative Commons license on this blog — which means that I retain ownership of my words, on the condition that if someone wants to formally cite the work, he or she should cite me as the source.  I’m not an author who makes his living at writing, so simple acknowledgement is normally sufficient.

(b) Open platforms with interoperability means that I don’t want my content inappropriately trapped in places inaccessible to others.  I appreciate instances when content should remain private, respecting the needs of others and/or commercial conditions, but secrecy should be the exception rather than the rule.  The content should flow freely (i.e. free as in liberty), rather than having to stumble through technological obstacles.

2. How do I post content, and flow it?

With these principles in mind, I’m reforming the way that I interact on the web.  Here’s a diagram (linked to another page in an interactive map).

I write content on four blogs, all using Wordpress software (which is open source and free).  Distractions, reflections has become a photoblog of my travels, on my personal domain.  Coevolving Innovations is my professional blog, on a separate domain that I had originally started with colleagues.  The Media Input Queue is a trail of MP3 audio lectures and talks that I’ve found worth remembering.   I’ve recently started In Brief as a microblog to retain short messages based on the new P2 theme.  These last two blogs are  on the free hosting provided by wordpress.com, as I expect their volume to be relatively light, and I can observe how new features are added to the technology by professionals.

When I leave responses on the blogs of others, a Firefox plugin ensures that my words are tracked on cocomment.com.  These comments become available as a feed — just as with my blog posts.

I bookmark items in three ways.  Topical items, such as newspaper and magazine articles, are saved with the bookmarklet to my Google Reader Shared Items, with a snippet and a personal comment.  Research content is saved in my Diigo library, enabling colleagues to subscribe (e.g.via e-mail) according to interests.  Other web content is saved in my Delicious bookmarks, normally without comment.

In the hopes of coincidentally meeting friends and colleagues in cities where I’m destined, I post my upcoming trips on Dopplr.  Since I have an appreciation for varieties of food, I reviews on Urbanspoon (who reciprocate by providing links back to my photoblog).  To learn about the emerging location-based technologies, I’ve been regularly updating landmarks and visits on Brightkite.

I don’t post this content just on my own web site, because much of it naturally belongs to communities that won’t all coincide (e.g. people who listen to podcasts aren’t necessary the same people with extensive business travel).  Through web standards established on the Internet, it’s relatively easy to pull content from one place to the other.  I’ve recently created a consolidate view as a webstream on my personal domain — I don’t call it a lifestream, as I do have a life outside of the Internet! — taking advantage of the Lifestream plugin for Wordpress.  Every 30 minutes, Twitterfeed sends out notifications of these web activities to my Twitter account (with the promise of some notifications being sent out immediately with PubSubHub and RSScloud coming soon).  With the format of some feeds not being exactly as I’ve wanted, I’ve been hacking Yahoo Pipes to beautify some feeds.

I’ve had ups and downs on the amount of content that I put on Facebook.  I used to change the status message once per day; then I increased the number of feeds imported it, and now have cut back to a minimum again.  My primary use of Facebook messages is — since I travel so much — to let my family and friends know which city I’m in.  If anyone really wants to know more, all of the other web content is available on the open Internet.

3. Why have I recently changed my use?

While I’ve now experienced blogging for a few years, microblogging — known by most people as tweeting or twittering — is something new to understand.  The medium can be noisy, but it helps me keep tabs on people with whom I have a real connection.  The most recent changes in pattern are (a) separating microblog content from medium, and (b) consolidating content into a webstream.

(a) Separating microblog content from medium means that I’m using Twitter as one channel for communication, but it’s not the only channel.  Although some people use it as a one-to-many broadcast medium, I don’t see Twitter as a conversational platform and prefer either one-to-one or one-to-few (i) instant messaging, (ii) e-mail, or (iii) teleconferences.  I publish content on the web for others to learn, not as a recreational agenda.  I want to increase the ratio of signal-to-noise in Twitter.  I scan through Twitter messages the way that I scan through a newspaper: I can speed-read through headlines, and sometimes find ideas that I wouldn’t naturally seek.  Serendipity has advantages.

(b) Consolidating content into a webstream is a way of evolving content to be more person-centric, over topic-centric.  I don’t know why any particular person would be interested in following my webstream, but it’s technologically feasible to do so.  This is part of the ongoing experiment that is social media.  I’ve also set up accounts on Profilactic and on Lifestream.fm, as a way of benchmarking the technology.

I’ve been a fan of Friendfeed over the last year, as the above two patterns were satisfied by that technology.  However, there’s been some question as the future of Friendfeed since the acquisition of the company by Facebook has halted development.  The platform is still available, and its life may have actually been extended since fewer people using Friendfeed reduces the load.  Still, the uncertainty is discouraging.  I’ve just noticed an OpenFF group has formed, looking into an open source version of Friendfeed, and will monitor their progress.

4. What consideration should web users have for their content?

Based on the above demonstration of web technologies, people active on the Internet should think about (a) what content is being put on the web, and (b) where is that content going.

(a) What content is being put on the web? I’ve previously written that individuals should take control of their web personas, because it will be shaped passively unless active management is undertaken.  Just entering your own name (or aliases) into a search engine may produce a profile that may or may not be appreciated.  The division between business personas and personal personas has fallen.  It’s almost impossible to remain invisible in the Internet age, so each person will be judged — appropriately or inappropriately — by the content that he or she creates (or has had created about him or her).

(b) Where is that content going? Almost all web technologies have adopted web feeds as foundational technologies, so the original venue for content may be only a starting point for its further distribution and reuse.  This has both upsides and cautions.  The upside is that good content is readily accessible to interested audiences, and can aid in the development of social capital.  The caution rests with traceability of the ideas back to the originator.  Intellectual capital is mobile, and some effort is required to maintain claims on personal works.

When a group of people come together for sensemaking about a situation, it’s pretty typical for someone to start sketching out boxes and lines to improve the clarity of the ideas.  Amongst 2 or 3 people, this might be sketching on a napkin.  Convening in an office usually suggests that a flip chart or a whiteboard will be used.  These media have the advantage of expressiveness — effectively conveying ideas — with the challenge of replicable precision and subsequent intelligibility to people beyond the original participants.  As the average business professional has become more adept with computer-based tools, presentation graphics — often as dreaded Powerpoint slides — are common.  Although more advanced drawing tools (e.g. vector graphic editors) and specification languages (e.g. UML and SysML) are easily available, the gulf between “easy-to-use” office productivity tools and “rigourous” modeling tools has yet to be bridged.

Based on a legacy of collaborations with IBM Research, my colleague Ian Simmonds pointed out the upcoming workshop on “Flexible Modeling Tools” at Cascon 2009 — a short commute within the Toronto area — with the following description.

This workshop will explore why modeling tools are not used in many situations where they would be helpful and what can be done to make them more suitable.

For example, during the exploratory phases of design, it is more common to use white boards than modeling tools. During the early stages of requirements engineering, it is more common to use office tools. Yet in these examples, as in many other tasks, the advantages of modeling tools would be valuable – providing multiple views for visualization and convenience of manipulation, providing domain-specific assistance (e.g., “content assist”), ensuring consistency, etc. Why, then, are they not used? The many reasons include: learning curve, interaction medium, rigidity and lack of support for informality.

This workshop will bring together tool builders and people who have or might use tools for their software development activities to explore the barriers inherent in current modeling tools and what can be done to remove these barriers. It will also address what key research challenges remain.

• Chairs: Harold Ossher, IBM Research; Andre van der Hoek, University of California, Irvine; Margaret-Anne Storey, University of Victoria

The day-long workshop on November 2 should be more of a generative conversation, rather than an exposition of completed research.  Contributions to the workshop are in the form of position papers.  On my last visit to the UK, I had some discussions with Gary Metcalf and Jennifer Wilby on current research into an emerging science of service systems, as well as ongoing client work with municipalities in Canada.  We wrote this up, and the position paper was accepted for the workshop.

Introducing modeling tools to non-technical business professionals: some cases with preliminary observations

A position paper prepared for the Flexible Modeling Tools workshop at Cascon 2009, by …

David Ing, IBM Canada Ltd. and the Helsinki University of Technology, daviding@ca.ibm.com ;

Gary Metcalf, Interconnections LLC, and the International Federation for Systems Research, gmetcalf@interconnectionsllc.com; and

Jennifer M. Wilby, University of Hull Centre for Systems Studies, and International Society for the Systems Sciences, j.wilby@hull.ac.uk

This position paper responds to the following description of scope:

This workshop explored why modeling tools are not used in many situations where they should be helpful, what might be done to make them more suitable, and what key research challenges must be overcome to achieve their adoption.

The position paper also responds to the request in the agenda:

Each participant is also asked to bring to the workshop two problems they have with existing modeling tools, and two features or differences in behavior or ideas for radical new tools they really would like to see.

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Non-technical business professionals have generally accepted and achieved a basic level of proficiency on representing and expressing their knowledge with word processors, spreadsheets and presentation graphics.  At a slightly higher level of sophistication, the availability of non-commercial open source software has reduced obstacles to mind mapping (e.g. with Freemind).  When increased proficiency with techniques and tools is required (e.g. concept mapping with CMapTools, or issue mapping with Compendium), popularity lessens.  When techniques and tools become very formal (e.g. scheduling and budgeting with project management software; or describing roles, tasks and activities in business process language and tools; or diagramming and engineering information technologies with software modeling language tools), the non-technical professionals generally delegate to specialists.

This contribution to the workshop is outlined in four parts.

• 1. Two case studies
• 2. Observations on inquiring systems, sensemaking and boundary objects
• 3. Some limitations with existing modeling tool
• 4. Prospects for modeling tools as radical

These ideas are intended as an input towards a richer conversation in a workshop, rather than a standalone point-of-view to be defended.

1. Two case studies illustrate the challenges of introducing modeling tools to non-technical business professionals

As concrete studies of the introduction of modeling tools, two cases are presented:  one large, inter-organizational collaboration across governments; and the other, a small group of researchers distributed internationally.

1.1 Cross-jurisdictional (and intra-organizational) collaboration formalizes the business of government within municipalities

MISA Canada — an association of cities and regions across the country — has had a Municipal Reference Model since the early 1990s that provides a standard language and set of definitions for commonly used terms (e.g. program, service); a framework which illustrates the relationships among these concepts; and a standard taxonomy (catalogue) of municipal programs and services, with a standard set of attributes.

The pilot solution has recognized (a) commonality and comparability achieved through a standard metamodel underlying “my municipality” profile instances, simultaneously with (b) the practicality of “my muncipality” profile instances in practice that may be evolved to conform to the standard metamodel.  Stepping up from legacy tools — of PC-based documents and spreadsheets — to a model-based collaborative environment raises training, administration and governance questions not previously relevant.  Tools include Rational Software Modeler, Rational RequisitePro, Rational Requirements Composer and Lotus Quickr, with custom integrating extensions.

1.2 Academic collaboration evolves shared learning on an emerging science of service systems

Senior members of the International Society for the Systems Sciences have embarked on a “Conversation on an Emerging Science of Service Systems“.  The research team is internationally distributed over 14 time zones, with a few upcoming occasions for face-to-face interactions.  Since this domain of focus is young, methods to share knowledge — as initial alternatives to writing and reading long articles — in an effective and productive manner have been sought.

The research team has started working through a combination of collaborative issue mapping, and system modeling applying OMG SysML.  Tools under experimentation include Compendium and Rational Rhapsody.

2. The use of modeling tools surfaces choices about types of inquiring systems and brings in dynamics of collaborative sensemaking on boundary objects

Modeling is not only an activity of knowledge representation; it is also an activity of social engagement.  Creating artifacts in collaboration and facilitating the inclusion of stakeholders go hand in hand.

2.1 A tool can enable convergence on a model standard, and/or multiple perspectives converged tightly or loosely

Creating a universal model of reality may not only be impractical, but also not desireable.  The activities of modeling can be seen as varying designs of inquiring systems (Churchman, 1971; Mitroff & Linstone, 1993).  Including or excluding domains, parties and/or interests raises questions of boundary critique (Midgely, 2001).

In the cross-jurisdictional municipal case, two approaches were seen as valid: (a) working from a standard meta model to the reality of local practices, and (b) conforming from local views to common and comparable concepts and measures.

In the service systems collaboration case, an industry standard language (i.e. SysML) endorsed by the systems engineering community is being applied by systems scientists.  The appropriateness of the notation and framework traditional used to describe technical systems (e.g. aircraft, mobile devices) is being evaluated for other system domains (e.g. social systems, ecological systems).

2.2 A tool can facilitate a model as a boundary object, with simple diagrams leading to more involved reasoning and experiences

Modeling tools typically include features for diagramming, as “one picture is worth a thousand words”.  While different people may recognize and/or converge on that one picture or image, however, it may only be as a boundary object (Bowker & Star, 2000).  Amongst a group of people, activities associated with sensemaking (Weick, 1995) may lead either to convergence, or recognition of multiple perspectives.  A modeling language provides extra richness to navigate in and between diagrams, which increases clarifty from some tools users, and complexity for others.

In the cross-jurisdictional municipal case, the advantages of sharing a common metamodel include the potential for improved shared learning and comparability.  In practice, only a handful of skilled users will be named as metamodelers.  Business analysts will work in text and two-dimensional cross-reference tables.  Business users will be readers or approvers.  Maintaining coherency over time is seen as a potential challenge.

In the service systems collaboration case, the academics share a body of knowledge on systems science, but not on formal representations.  One person is acting as the lead facilitator, with others potentially following along as concrete artifacts reduce the learning curve.  Initial presentations with a larger community have drawn some strong responses. In the categorization of temperaments, (Keirsey, 1998) we conjecture that Rationals (i.e. NT temperaments who are introspective and and pragmatic, or intuitive-thinking in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators) could be more comfortable with translating concepts into tangible artifacts than Guardians (i.e. SJ temperaments who are observant and cooperative (or sensing-judging in the MBTI).

3. Existing modeling tools are limited in coevolving with continually refining knowledge representations, and the legacy and emergence of complementary tools

Many non-sophisticated computer users have become comfortable with using presentation graphics tools (e.g. Powerpoint) or drawing tools (e.g. Open Office Draw) to express ideas visually, without explict semantics.  At the other extreme of sophistication, modelers may have learned specialized notations (e.g. Unified Modeling Language) or frameworks (e.g. process simulation) to create executable programs.  The gulf in between is large.

3.1 Existing tools don’t facilitate the gradual formalization from simple diagrams to rigorous models

Generally, there’s a divide between tools that couple the concrete form and abstract semantics (e.g. in Powerpoint, every instance is a separate object), and tools that decouple the two (e.g. Eclipse-based modeling tools where all visual elements don’t show up on every canvas, and non-visual elements are possible).  The ideal tool would enable progressive refinement from the sketches created by a novice to formal models that might be executable as programs.  Typically, the proficient modeler finds the task of redrawing the content simpler than dealing with imports and exports of formats (e.g. WMF, SVG) which may or may not properly render the original representation.

3.2 Existing tools don’t enable collaboration at varying levels of involvement, or contributions in varying modes

While all participants in a modeling activity may not be equally facile with tools, existing tools, for the most part, do not encourage varying levels of expertise.  Most participants are usually considered to be readers, or all are given permission to be authors and editors.  This reflects a “wiki” style of collaboration.

In the current generation of social media, varying forms of participation are recognized.  In blogging, commenters leave the original content as initially posted, but append remarks.  In microblogging, a reader can endorse an itema as worth repeating by”retweeting” to draw attention to his or her followers.  The rise of device alternatives to the window, icon, menu, pointing device (WIMP) form of interaction raises not only challenges, but opportunities (e.g. shaking the device).

4. For a prospective modeling tools to be considered radical, it should reflect the social nature of collaborative modeling

Many of the advances in computing over the past decade have not been on new information systems per se, but the connections between them.  Thus, the focus may not necessarily be on the net, but on the Internet.  Is it possible to bridge the knowledge of individuals collaborating in creating a shared model, while recognizing differences in their preferred modes of thinking and perceiving?

4.1 A radical new modeling tool could enable and incorporate multiple realities

Collaborators coming together for the first time have different perspectives and ideas.  Some may have complete and rigourous models, while others have rough sketches and are interested in learning.  In discussions, the mental models of each participant will evolve, resulting in (a) a collective model for the group that may or may not be challenged as findings are returned to their constituents; (b) multiple subgroup models that recognize variations on a theme, that are not converged but can be mapped to each other, or (c) distinct subgroup models that are unreconcilable, where the parties have “agreed to disagree”.  A radical new tool would not only reflect the coevolving models and artifacts amongst the group, but also that the acceptance of views at the individual, subgroup, and collective levels.

4.2 A radical new modeling tool could support both the introspective and collaborative

The introduction of software tools into a conversation can resurface some foundational predispositions in participants.  Individuals comfortable with the computer sciences need to be aware that they may not be in the majority.

The non-scientists have a rooted impression that the scientists are shallowly optimistic, unaware of man’s condition.  On the other hand, the scientists believe that the literary intellectuals are totally lacking in foresight, peculiarly unconcerned with their brother men, in a deep sense anti-intellectual, anxious to restrict both art and thought to the existential moment.  And so on.  (Snow 1959, pp. 5-6)

Some people seek clarity, while others revel in ambiguity.  Some have a talent for structuring conceptual models into concrete representations, while others have will just “know it when they see it”.  Modeling is partially an art — even if it is based on rigourous notation and standard procedures that enable communications and sensemaking.  A radical new tool would not only suit individuals with strong sense of order, but also creatives who value spontaneity and improvisation – with a means to bridge the variety of attitudes.

References

Bowker, Geoffrey C., and Susan Leigh Star. 2000. Sorting things out. MIT Press, 2000.

Churchman, Charles West. 1971. The design of inquiring systems: basic concepts of systems and organization. Basic Books, 1971.

Keirsey, David. 1998. Please understand me II. Prometheus Nemesis, 1998.

Midgley, Gerald. 2001. Systemic intervention. Springer, 2001.

Mitroff, Ian I., and Harold A. Linstone. 1993. The unbounded mind. Oxford University Press, 1993.

Snow, Charles Percy. 1959. The two cultures and the scientific revolution. Cambridge University Press, 1959.

Weick, Karl E. 1995. Sensemaking in organizations. Sage, 1995.

If you find these ideas interesting, and happen to be in the Toronto area on November 2, you might drop by.  There’s no charge to register for Cascon, and the four day event had thought leaders in computer science in keynote addresses.  (The conference also has a reputation for serving a great free lunch!)

In engagements with clients/customers, my work often includes system envisioning: facilitating the description of a collective desirable future (on a horizon of maybe 1 to 3 years out).  Once a group has converged on a future state or vision, moving forward is merely a matter of will.  Defining that future state, however, is more art than science.  In addition, with many more businesses operating as service systems, getting a handle on the invisible work that will be performed can be a challenge.  Work practices will coevolve with new technologies in ways unfamiliar to experiences to date.

In discussions with my colleagues, differences between their engagement approach and mine became clearer.  I understand and appreciate the process-based methods (e.g. process consultation by Ed Schein) used by large consulting teams, but my typical engagement is now timeboxed to a few weeks elapsed time, with just a few interviewers.  Some executive sponsors may ask for an interview guide in advance of coming onsite, but I don’t use a formally-structured guide.  The context for 60-to-90 minute interviews are light — we want people to talk about time-intensive activities and annoyances in their jobs — and generally find that interviewees would be happy if small adjustment could be made so that each would have to do less work.

Reflecting on these methods, I’ve seen a pattern of three stages in this approach:

• (1) Induction: Rather than coming in with a preconceived model of how work gets done in a particular business, let those closest to the activities speak freely.  From the data collected, converge on common patterns in issues and/or problems that can be reviewed, validated and prioritized for resolution.
• (2) Abduction: Test the feasibility and desirability of various alternative paths and/or options.  The future could be a small step from current practices, or a bigger leap where some discomfort may occur.  Evaluation of the preferred future state is subjective, coalescing around sensemaking with a variety of perspectives being voiced.
• (3) Deduction: Once the desired future state is clear, then constructing a roadmap to get from the current state is relatively straightforward.

This whole idea has been expanded in a paper, “Envisioning Innovation in Service Systems: Induction, Abduction and Deduction”, presented at the ISSS Brisbane 2009 meeting, and now posted on the Coevolving Innovation Commons.  Here’s the abstract.

An initiative to transform or redesign a service system can be centered on envisioning a future that may be explicit or implicit, shared or tacit. When that future represents a discontinuous change from the current state, detailed analysis from a single frame (e.g. process modeling) may mislead or confuse collective choices and priorities.

Four envisioning engagements – across a variety of  service businesses – are reviewed as case studies to surface commonalities in approach. Success in the engagements has largely been attributed to the sequencing of consultations into sequential phases of induction, abduction and then deduction. Challenges to adoption of this three-phase approach are outlined, as a departure from current practice in envisioning innovations.

Following an inductive style of description, conclusions are presented with theoretical saturation of research concepts based on the philosophy of phenomenology.

The levels of skills required to successfully execute this approach aren’t clear, so I won’t claim that the method is universally replicable.  In addition, techniques are unlikely to scale when the engagement team gets large.  For more details, see the full paper.

When the Master’s program on International Service Business Management started up at Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in 2006 — then it was Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia — I was one of the original authors for the curriculum.  I happened to be in Finland in September 2006 and 2007, so I gave some of the early lectures.

My schedule in 2008 didn’t line up, but I did happen to be back in Finland in September 2009.  Thus, I gave an updated version of the lecture in one of the first classes for the session.  The content included:

• A. Introduction
• B. The changing world, and SSMED
• C. Service-dominant logic
• D. Service as a paradigm
• E. A smarter planet
• F. Artifacts / feeds to follow

The lecture ran just under 2 hours.  I’ve posted the slides on the Coevolving Innovation Commons, under Publications.

Towards the development of a science of service systems I’ve been facilitating a group of senior researchers, internationally.  I’ve posted a presentation from a workshop in early September at the UKSS meeting in Oxford that reflects the current status of this project.

The results of this year-long project will be presented at the ISSS annual meeting scheduled for July 2010 in Waterloo, Canada.  The conversation started with an organizational meeting at ISSS Brisbane in July 2009.  Key face-to-face meetings when content will be developed include …

• in March 2010, a workshop supported by the Service Innovation Educational Program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (similar to the invited workshop in 2008 and in 2009 ; and
• in April 2010, a team participating in the (Fuschl) Conversation hosted by the International Federation for Systems Research.  (In a break from tradition, the meeting will probably not be at Fuschl am See this year, but another location in Austria).

The essential attributes of participants are an interest in service science and systems science … plus a tolerance for jet lag, or at least the willingness to work with collaborator spanning 14 time zones.  The core of the researcher team are drawn from among the officers of the International Society for the Systems Sciences.

I generally prefer to relate research when it’s near completion, rather than when it’s just beginning … but a year is long time to wait for artifacts.

The Service Innovation Educational Program at the Tokyo Institute of Technology hosted an “Open Seminar on Service Systems Science” (with a flyer in PDF) — as well as a private “Invited Workshop on Services Science, Management and Engineering” — in February 2009.

I’ve just noticed that much of the content is totally opaque to people who don’t read Japanese, so I’ve posted my (English-language) digest of the meetings on the Coevolving Innovation Commons.  The text is incomplete, but it at least provides a minimal sketch of some of the ideas discussed. (Digital photographs help, too!).  Speakers include:

• Ken Senoh, University of Tokyo
• Marianne Kosits, IBM
• Klaus-Peter Fahnrich, University of Leipzig; and
• Yonekura Hiroyuki, Gourmet Navigator; and
• a panel including Gary Metcalf, Jennifer Wilby, and Hiroshi Deguchi,
• moderated by Kyoichi Jim Kijima.

The 2009 meetings were an annual extension of the 2008 21st Century CoE Symposium, and the first Invited Workshop on SSME.

With many of the researchers coming from a perspective of systems science, the trend has been to work out some of the ideas on an emerging science of service systems.

I’ve been approaching the development of an emerging science of service systems from a background of the systems sciences.  Describing and designing service systems — not only in business, but also in the public sector — includes the evolution and development both of human organization and of technology.  A large body of knowledge on social systems science was developed in the post-war industrial age, e.g. research conducted by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (1941-1989).  This work has been categorized in three perspectives:

• the socio-psychological perspective;
• the socio-technical perspective; and
• the socio-ecological perspective.

The socio-ecological perspective emerged while facing cases where “von Bertalanffy’s concept of open systems” was not sufficient to deal with the degree of change in the environment.

We gradually realized that if we were usefully to contribute to the problems that faced the cases mentioned above we had to extend our theoretical framework. In particular, we had to discard the  assumption that systems or individuals could not know their environments and the unipolar focus on the system, or individual as system. In a positive sense we had to theorize about the evolution of the environment  and the consequences of this evolution for the constituent  systems.  (Emery 1997, pp. 38-39)

In 1967, Fred Emery summarized needs that the social sciences should have prepared to meet over the next thirty years.  More than a decade beyond that, we now have the Internet, globalization, and the prospect of an instrumented, interconnected and intelligent “smarter planet”.

The bridge in social ecology from the Tavistock legacy to current times is made in the 2008 volume, Business Planning for Turbulent Times , edited by Rafael Ramírez, John W. Selsky, and Kees van der Heijden.  The collection of papers is a culmination of the Oxford Futures Forum 2005, with a focus on the intersection between social ecology and scenario practice.

… we consider the future through the spectacles of the scenario approach.  While we do that, we reflect on our practice in the light of the perspective offered by a school of thought in the social and organizational sciences call social ecology, in particular its description of the ‘turbulent environment’.  We will show how scenarios and social ecology inform each other ….  [p. 4]

This volume doesn’t directly address service systems.  However, the foundations from social ecology provoke some consideration for service systems.  Reshuffling the sequencing of the chapters, I found myself reflecting on on the following five ideas:

• A. The problem: an addiction to prediction
• B. Sustaining organizational systems in turbulent environments
• C. Techniques for envisioning future systems
• D. Changing systems
• E. Shared value and engagement

The book has strong experience reports on scenario practices that may interest other readers.  I’m particularly focused on how advances in the understanding of social ecology can advance an emerging science of service systems.  Let’s expound on the five ideas.

A. The problem: an addiction to prediction

In 1965, Howard Perlmutter suggested that a theory and practice of social architecture was needed, to build indispensable institutions.

One indication of an institution’s indispensability is to be found in the attempts by individuals, groups, and other institutions in the environment to preserve it when it risks failure or begins to be ineffective — when the threat of its disappearance becomes actual (Selznick, 1957).  [p. 2-3]

In addition to these environmentally oriented definitions, we may add that an effective or viable institution creates conditions in which the competencies of its personnel are well utilized, and the positive values applied to structures related to its clients are also applied to structure related to its members.

These conditions lead to our definition of social architecture as pertaining to the building of institutions that are considered indispensable both by their members and by their clientele, and that embody positive values regarding persons ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. [pp. 2-3]

Essentially, the question is whether an institution — which could be a service system or part of service system — deserves to continue to exist, particularly as the world changes.  The structure of an institution (as a system) comes with a history or legacy.  The functions and purpose of an institution (system), in the face of a changing environment, may be altered reactively or proactively … or become obsolete to external constituents.

Reading the postscript first, Angela Wilkinson describes the challenge in the “learning ‘with’ rather than ‘about’ the future.

The inherent uncertainty of the future is its greatest promise, but tends to invoke the darkest fears of key decision-makers.  Despite embracing the rhetoric of an uncertain world, key decision-makers still want certainty.  In response, there has been a tendency to confuse certainty-seeking with accuracy-seeking, and, in turn, accuracy with precision.  [p. 275]

The result is an addiction to prediction.  This addition is in turn fed by the combination of … the global spread of adversarial legalism, the increasing emphasis on evidence-based policy, the hubris of experts who drastically overestimate their own knowledge, and overconfidence in the benefits of qualitative approaches to risk management, often enabled through sophisticated computer modelling and a belief that quantitative analysis generates better truths about the future than more qualitative enquiry.  [p. 276]

Organizations — particularly large ones — have and often enjoy momentum.  Changing course in a world of high uncertainty has risks that the transformed (or reformed) system could be even less productive (or in more trouble) than before.  Understanding risks is not, however, the same as avoiding risk. Even with full participation of experts with the community of interest, we can’t foretell the future.  It’s human arrogance that gives us misplaced confidence.

B. Sustaining organizational systems in turbulent environments

The ideas about turbulent environments (and beyond) are most directly addressed:

• in Chapter 2, “Historical and Conceptual Overview” by Ramirez, Selsky and van der Heijden; and
• in Chapter 9, “To What Extent do Venezuela’s Causal Textures Allow Scenarios to Work towards Social Dialogue?”, by Martin Thomas.

In Chapter 2, Ramirez, Selsky and van der Heijden trace go back to the origins of causal texture theory in 1965 (that led to the later larger description of social ecology).

…causal texture theory, which Emery and Trist launched for the first time in their seminal 1965 paper… developed a taxonomy of causal textures of environments within which organizations aim to survive and thrive. The one they drew particular attention to was called ‘turbulence’. Turbulence in colloquial English describes conditions that are uncertain, complex, and changing unpredictably and often quickly.  In their paper, Emery and Trist (1965) defined ‘turbulence’ in a much more precise way that could refer to organizational environments. [p. 18]

The organizational challenge in turbulence is sustainability of the social system.

Causal texture theory deals with systems trying to survive and thrive in their environments in a sustainable way. The inside (a system) and the outside (the environment of that system) ‘co-evolve’ in the sense that systems and their environments mutually and systematically influence each other, and they proceed into the future together (Selsky et al. 2007). System and environment both have links between variables that exist within them and links with each other. Several interacting systems. their shared environments and the links that connect them together are defined as a ‘field’.  [pp. 18-19]

Causal texture is an emergent property of the whole field and concerns the behaviour of all systems within it. The causal texture of a field sets conditions on how these systems and their shared environments transact (Selsky et al, 2007, p74).  [p. 19]

Interested readers should read Ramirez, Selsky and van der Heijden (2008), or look up the original Emery and Trist (1965) article.  Here’s a brief excerpt to refresh those familiar with the ideas.

The differences among the four ideal types that Emery and Trist (1965) developed depended upon how systems in the field (systems they termed ‘1′) and their surrounding environment (which they termed ‘2′) are linked. They were particularly interested in links they called ‘law-like` (i.e. links driven by a logic that pertains over a period of time). [p. 19]

What do the four types of causal texture tell us?  Mistaking a turbulent causal texture (i.e. changes in the external context compounding changes in the organizational field) for a disturbed reactive causal texture (i.e. changes in the field impacted by organization) means that resources expended to defend against immediate issues (e.g. competitors) may be wasted in the context of a larger scale (e.g. industry or societal theatres).

[....] The logical conclusion of conflating turbulence with competitive challenges is that ‘the more turbulent the environment, the more aggressive must be the firm’s response’ (Ansoff, 1988, p173). Causal texture theory, on the other hand, suggests that ’such “proactive” responses may produce highly problematic unintended consequences in extended social fields’ (Selsky et al, 2007, p77).  [p. 23]

The 21st century phenomenon of globalization is coincident with turbulence.  Businesses too focused on local and immediate threats (as well as governments aiming to satisfy only their direct constituents) can miss threats and opportunities on a more extended horizon.  Collaboration is an alternative strategy for turbulence.

[....] in a field with a turbulent causal texture, systems are advised to collaborate in order to identify a set of values that they can institutionalize to create common ground. At a large-scale level, one can argue that this is what the process of civilization has done throughout history.  At a lower level, it entails creating inter-organizational collaborative ‘island’ arrangements that can keep turbulence outside (e.g. Normann and Ramirez, 1993, and the ‘value constellations’).  [pp. 23-24]

The “new economy”– with shifts from products to services, and from material to information — has contextual shifts that some organizations have chosen to embrace, while others have chosen to discount or ignore.  Inter-organizational arrangements and “value constellations” characterize service systems that warrant deeper inquiry.

The 1965 Emery & Trist article has become a standard reading in graduate-level organization theory classes.  In Chapter 9, Martin Thomas describes extensions of the four types by Baburoglu with a fifth type, plus a transitional state.

Emery and Trist (1965) suggested a typology organizational environments that identified four ‘ideal types’, approximations to which exist in the ‘real world’ of most organizations. They gave them descriptive names and assigned them codes numbered I to IV in ascending order of disturbance. McCann and Selsky extended this in 1984 to include hyper-turbulence a transitional step to the vortical environment (Baburoglu, 1988), now widely accepted as type V.  Table 9.1 sets out a summary of this framework. [p. 149]

… In hyper-turbulent conditions, adaptive capacity is key and collective strategy proves too demanding a challenge for the scarce resources.  Consequently, social enclaves form from among the ‘haves’ and social vortices from among the ‘have nots’.  In the highly challenging conditions of the vortical environment in type V, internal resources are not enough to break out of the enclaves.  Baburoglu  (1988) suggests that the way out is for the actors in the field to develop new skills and bring in resources from outside the the enclave(s) in order to address the situation with a collective strategy that includes all actors plus outsiders.  However, according to Baburoglu (1988), there may be no escape from type V other than surrendering to the possibility of collapse.  [pp. 151-152]

In service systems, the hyper-turbulent environment sees “enclaves” — or subsystems — forming, so that the matching of needs and supplies of resources has broken down.  The production or provisioning of services, at the scale of the whole, may be challenged as one “enclave” has its needs fulfilled while others don’t.  In the vortical environment, institutions and service systems may persist, but their relevancy or ability to fulfill their original purposes may have been lost.  Other chapters in this volume aim for approaches to avoid, if not preclude, these types of traps.

C. Techniques for envisioning future systems

If we accept that businesses / institutions / service systems can and should be designed for turbulent environments, how do we do that?  There’s entire books written on scenarios (e.g. by the Oxford Futures Forum), so contributions from of approaches from the social ecology community are worth considering.  Some are described:

• in Chapter 3, “How Do Scenario Practices and Search Conferences Complement Each Other?”, by Jaime Jiménez, and
• in Chapter 4, “Reflecting on Scenario Practice: The Contribution of a Soft Systems Perspective”, by Trudi Lang and Lynn Allen.

Readers specifically interested in search conferences can refer to books on that topic (e.g. by Emery and Purser).  In Chapter 3, Jaime Jiménez contrasts scenario planning and search conferences on focuses (i.e. on one actor versus one issue) and futures (i.e. multiple possible versus one desired):

Although both scenario planning and SC are planning methods aimed at addressing, containing and ultimately, reducing environmental turbulence, a fundamental difference is that scenario planning focuses on one actor (e.g. an executive, a policy-maker or a company) with the aim of helping this actor best address the turbulence it faces, whereas the SC focuses on one issue, upon which different stakeholders try to find a common ground from which to build a desired future — hence, mitigating turbulence. [pp. 40-41]

However. the major difference between scenario planning and search conference refers to the fact that the construction of scenarios is the visualization of possible futures according to what we have now and the drivers detected in the environment, whereas the search conference produces one desired future to be approached gradually in the next 10 to 15 years. Scenario planning can he thought of as a set of reference projections of what can happen in the future. The product of a search conference is, on the one hand, the image of a future desired by all the stakeholders present in the conference and, on the other, a set of courses of action that stakeholders will carry out to approach the desired future. [p. 41]

The above passage includes the term “reference projections”, which is better understood by the social system scientists than the scenarists.  Ackoff (1981) provides a definition:

A reference projection is an extrapolation of a performance characteristic of a system from its recent past into the future, assuming no significant change in the behavior of either the system or its environment.  Such a projection is, in effect, a glimpse of the future that implied by continuation of the system’s recent history. [p. 98]

The foundations of system design — for applications both in analysis of current state and the (mutual) future state — comes through to search conferences.  Opening up scenario work beyond a single organization to a wider variety of constituents may call for extended methods to encourage convergence.

The soft systems methodology (SSM) has been applied for some decades (e.g. Checkland 1981 (revised 1999), Checkland and Scholes 1990 (revised 1999).  In Chapter 4, Lang and Allen position scenario practice as a “hard systems thinking:

To be a ’systems thinker’ is to recognize the need to give an account of  the world as a perceived hierarchy of systems. It is also to ’set some constructed abstract wholes (often called ’systems models’) against the perceived real world in order to learn about it’ (Checkland and Scholes, 1990, p25).

Systems thinking is familiar to many scenario practitioners, particularly in their quest to understand deep, systemic changes in the environment. However. to date, much of the usefulness of a systems approach to scenario practice has come from a ‘hard’ perspective that assumes systems exist in the real world and that they can be described objectively.  Hard systems tools used by scenario practitioners include causal loop diagrams that are used to explore driving forces of change and scenario logics (see, for example, van der Heijden, 2005).  [p. 47]

While ‘hard’ systems thinking tools have their value, a ’soft’ systems perspective makes another contribution by proposing that human activity systems (a series of purposeful activities that exhibits emergence) may exist in the real world. but they exist only as ‘notional systems’ — that is, they only make sense through the perspectives. in the sense of worldviews (or Weltanschauungen) of the persons describing them. Therefore, by focusing on perspectives or worldviews. SSM offers an ‘organized way of tackling perceived problematical (social) situations’ through learning (Checkland and Poulter, 2006, pxv-xvii).  Learning occurs when individuals bring their different worldviews to the table, come to appreciate those differences and develop a new shared meaning and agree on ways forward through what Checkland calls ‘accommodation’. Checkland (1999) suggests that the enquiry process itself can be organized as a learning system.  [p. 48]

Trudi Lang and Lynn Allen describe a 2003 Deep Conversation in Australia with Peter Checkland and Kees van der Heijden that was summarized in a report, and seems to have evolved (by 2009) into the Ariadne program.  They suggest two key systems concepts that can inform scenario practice:

Boundaries as judgements

Scenario practitioners distinguish between two levels of the environment.  The first is called the transaction is is that aspect of the environment that managers feel the organization has influence over and in which it can be a significant player.  The second, the contextual environment, is that part of the environment that manages believe the organization has no influence over ….  Scenarios then focus on appreciating and illuminating possible developments in the contextual environment by mapping the major driving forces of change that could influence the future transactional environment.

Thus, scenario practitioners must make decisions about where to draw the boundary between the contextual and transactional environments before they can develop scenarios.  [....]  [p. 52]

Conceptualizing the contextual environment as a subject domain

The contextual environment in scenario practice is by definition a shared environment among a set of organizations that is delineated by an issue or subject (e.g. superannuation).  We would like to suggest that there are times when it is useful for organization so think of their contextual environment as a subject domain and to develop scenarios in reference to this domain rahter than more directly to the organization.  One time, in particular, would be developing scenarios for what Morgan (1997) refers to as ‘egocentric’ organizations.  [pp. 52-53]

Such organizations, says Morgan (1997, p259), have a ‘fixed notion of who they are or what they can be and are determined to impose or sustain that identity at all costs’.  This leads them to overemphasize the importance of themselves while underplaying the significance of the wider system of relations in which they exist.’ This means, as Morgan points out, that they potentially miss important environmental changes.  [p. 53]

They then continue to suggest five main contributions of SSM to scenario practice:

• conceptual modelling (including CATWOE: customers, actors, transformation processes, Weltanschauung/worldview, owner and environmental constraints);
• developing scenario narratives with CATWOE;
• separating the process subsystem (owned by the enquirer or facilitator) from the content subsystem (owed by the client);
• appreciating the social and political context (with roles, norms, values and power); and
• reflective scenario practice, with continuous redesign of their enquiry and a sense of which techniques work in which contexts.

In service systems — particularly in initiatives led by systems engineers coming from a technical perspective — including social and human elements as well as environmental uncertainty into the design space may introduce unwelcome ambiguity into the process, but may produce more robust results.

D. Changing systems

Interests into social ecology and scenario practice generally aren’t just academic, but instead associated with change.  This theme is well represented in many chapters:

• in Chapter 5, “New forms of coherence for the Social Engagement of the Social Scientist: The Theory and Facilitation of of Organzational Change from the Perspective of the Emery-Trist Paradigm and the Ilya Priogine School of Thought”, by Mary Bernard;
• in Chapter 7, “Swarm Planning: A New Design Paradigm Dealing with the Long-Term Problems Associated with Turbulence”, by Rob E. Roggema;
• in Chapter 10, “Managing Disruptive Change and Turbulence through Continuous Change Thinking and Scenarios”, by John W. Selsky and Joseph E. McCann; and
• in Chapter 12, “From Causal Thinking to Predetermined Elements to New Realities in Scenario Thinking and Practice”, by George Burt.

The power of systems theory — crossing from physical systems to social systems — is brought to bear by Mary Bernard.  In Chapter 5, she provides a concise description of the work of Ilya Prigogine, that led to the 1997 Nobel prize in chemistry.

Prigogine (Prigogine and Stengers, 1984; Prigogine, 1996) presents a comprehensive theory of change that recognizes that most of reality is in a process of change and disorder as opposed to being orderly and stable. Central to this theory is the idea that order arises spontaneously out of chaos through a process of self-organization — islands of order in a sea of change. He considers that we live in a multifaceted world where there are some processes that are deterministic and reversible, and others that are irreversible with various degrees of uncertainty, randomness and fluctuation. Rather than being viewed as an exception to order and reversibility, randomness and irreversibility are beginning to be perceived as closer to normality.

The body of Prigogine’s work addresses two primary themes. The first theme is the apparent contradiction between two ways of seeing the world, both current in science, between what could be called the ’static paradigm of dynamics’ and, on the other hand, the ‘evolutionary paradigm of thermo-dynamics’. The first view considers reality expressible in terms of laws of nature, valid for all times, while the second view considers reality essentially related to and dependent upon time.

The second theme is the relationship between order and disorder. One view paints a picture of a world which evolves from order to disorder, with structures crumbling and everything eventually returning to dust. This is the sort of world described by the laws of thermodynamics and chemistry. Biology and social evolution. however, provide an opposing picture: the simple evolving into the complex. [p. 68]

Bernard blends a reading of Prigogine with Emery Trist, in the sociological paradigms of Burrell & Morgan.  This are described in a series of tables, with the following summary:

Source: Adapted from Bernard (1999), p440

This understanding of science leads us to ask about the value of chaos.

Many contemporary chaos theorists tend to present a view of chaos that is value free. Prigogine is not one of them; he, like Trist, adds values — and hope. Prigogine’s fundamental insights bring forth a new culture that is relevant across disciplines. Prigogine describes himself as having always been concerned with the ethical problems of human freedom (Prigogine, 1996). Similarly, the work of Eric Trist and many of his colleagues is value laden. ln particular, Trist’s work reflects great concern for the betterment of humankind, its organization and its environment. The articulation of affinity between the Trist-Emery systems paradigm and the Prigogine school of thought entails an ideology as much as an understanding of turbulent conditions.  [pp. 82-83]

Talking about systems — and service systems, in particular — the layman may initially take a static perspective, assuming an equilibrium state and order.  In a different view of chaos, a system can still exist and described without the assumption of order.

In Chapter 7, Rob E. Roggema describes spatial design paradigms, in a case of the province of Groningen, The Netherlands.  He extends ideas on swarms coming from complexity theory.

In order to prepare society, with its endless interactions, for the future, it is necessary to bring the regional spatial design to a higher level of complexity that it is able to adapt better to future and unforeseen changes.  In the long term, a region of higher complexity is better capable of adjusting itself to a new circumstances than an inert one.  In order to reach this higher level of complexity, new crucial interventions must be discovered that can change the entire regional spatial system and make it more robust.  A new design paradigm, which focuses on these interventions, is therefore required. The new design paradigm can be called swarm planning (an analogy of a swarm of birds).  [p. 117]

A swarm is transforming constantly, influenced by external impules and directed by one a few, very simple rules.  The swarm is changing its pattern suddenly by apparent impulse: it alters its form and direction.  The question is which interventions bring the swarm to a higher degree of complexity, which can be characterized as above average and which as ‘multilayered thinking’.  [p. 118]

Roggema suggests that changing the approach, area by area, can be done to “steer the swarm”.  For a service system, the result at a large scale might appear chaotic, but self-organized order could emerge at the local levels.

In Chapter 10, John W. Selsky and Joseph E. McCann look at the recognition and experience of managers in change.  They describe three kinds of disruption:

We suggest there are three broad kinds of disruption — operational, competitive and contextual (Bouchikhi and Kimberly, 2003).  Managers need to cope with each kind in distinctive ways.  [p. 170]

Operational disruption is the normal fluctuation in demand, supply and price for an organization’s goods and services over time.  This type of disruption occurs in placid environment textures.  [....] [pp. 170-171]

Competitive disruption is characterized by jostling for superior position and sustainable advantage among players within and even between industries (see Bower and Christensen, 1995).  this kind of disruption occurs in disturbed-reactive environmental textures.  [....]  [p. 171]

Contextual disruption is less predictable as it falls in the category of ‘unknowns that we don’t know’.  As such, it poses potentially damaging consequences much more broadly — but also potential opportunities.  These are the truly surprising exogenous changes that buffet all firms in an industry and disturb their well-crafted plans and strategies.  This kind of disruption occurs in turbulent environmental textures; they are intrusions of the new and unexpected L22 relationships into the shared transactional space of organizations.  [p. 171-172]

In the 2006 survey on “Agility and Resilience in the Face of Continuous Change” for the American Management Association and Human Resource Institute, McCann, Lee, Morrison, Selsky & Vickers found that managers recognized increased frequency of disruptions, and most saw them as exploitable opportunities.  To prepare for this Selsky and McCann recommend a shift in perspective.

In sum, shifting mental models from episodic to continuous change leads to several understandings that can help managers to cope with high levels of contextual disruption:

• An awareness that one’s strategic situation is (merely?) a part of fields (i.e. whole systems in environments) that are emerging over time.  In a turbulent environment, contextual forces intrude upon the shared transaction space of firms int he same industry or value constellations.  These forces drive the emergence of fields.
• An awareness that fields are in continuous change and that longing for, or trying to return to, a state of normalcy or stability is future. Here the strategic task is to improve effective action [....]
• An awareness that collaboration endeavours with other organizations must be a much larger part of strategy.  This is in order to have much of a chance of dealing effectively with contextual disruption.

In thinking about service systems, not only do the operations of functions need to be more agile, but the mindsets of managers of the system need to shift.

In Chapter 12, George Burt addresses “predetermined elements” as issues surfaced by Pierre Wack.

Wack suggested that within the environment, predetermined elements could be identified as:

• events that are already in the pipeline and will emerge in time;
• a series of interrelated actions that will together be co-producing a particular outcome; and/or
• inertial forces within the wider contextual environment, which are slow to change.  [p. 212]

In a case study, Burt describes predetermined elements as generative (reinforcing) and/or negative (balancing) feedback loops that help to capture and structure managers perceptions of contextual elements and their behaviour in the environment.  This resulted in the identification of a new situation not immediately obvious from the current state.

In a systems view of the future, planners can anticipate changes resulting from decisions made today, yet still recognize uncertainty.  In service systems, the impact of both emergent and planned changes should be taken into account.

E. Shared values and engagement

Experiences involving constituents towards co-creating a future can inform the practice of establishing a shared vision.  This theme is described in a series of chapters:

• in Chapter 6, “Turbulence in the Industrial Agricultural Sector: A Scenario Analysis”, by Kees van der Heijden;
• in Chapter 8, “Designing More Effective Political Governance of Turbulent Fields: The Case of Healthcare”, by Niklas Arvidsson;
• in Chapter 11, “Scenarios that Provide Clarity in Addressing Turbulence”, by Rafael Ramirez;
• in Chapter 13, “Conceptions of Fairness and Forming the Common Ground”, by Shirin Elahi; and
• in Chapter 14, “Turbulence and Corporate Social Responsibility: Is There a Role for Scenarios?” by Andromache Athanasopoulou.

In Chapter 6, Kees van der Heijden in Chapter 6 describes a case about agriculture in India, resulting in four scenarios:

In summary, each of the four scenarios explores a different value set. In broad terms:

1. valley: justice-based ethics sacrificing wealth for equity;
2. edge: utilitarian ethics sacrificing equity for self-reliance and personal choice;
3. mountains: rights-based ethics centralizing power in the light of major catastrophe;
4. hills: communitarian ethics decentralizing individual responsibility for the joint project.

The results of the scenario project strongly suggests that, following Emery and Trist’s argument, Indian society will eventually evolve a set of institutionalized behavoural codes based on traditional Indian values, but remoulded for the global environment of the 21st century. [p. 98]

If/when a similar approach is taken with service systems, there are two implications:  (1) the description or understanding of a system may or may not converge of a single worldview, given the variety of backgrounds to a conversation and/or differing values associated with the “conventional wisdom”, and (2) even if concrete elements of a future system attain an accord, the underlying values and subjective interpretations of parties will still be at play.  In a changing world, the ongoing challenge will be to maintain coherence among the parties as a system naturally has to adapt in response.

In Chapter 8, Niklas Arvidsson sees the inclusion of more stakeholder groups as a way of improving governance in setting policy.  Scenarios can improve collaboration, but may also result in challenges if not conducted properly.

For many people, a drawback when using scenarios is that they increase anxiety since they underline that there are no easy answers to a contentious (Rittel and Webber, 1973) or complicated (Ackoff, 1974) situation in a turbulent context.  Since scenarios may not single out one ideal and preferable policy, creating, instead, a learning process through which improved policy-making may emerge, they do cause anxiety.  [...]  [p. 138]

I argue that future-oriented stakeholder engagement may improve political governance’s ability to respond to Ostrom’s (1990, p7) call for studies that ‘address the question of how to enhance the capabilities of those involved to change the constraining rules of the game to lead to outcomes other than remorseless tragedies’. Instead of being stuck in a prisoners dilemma where a superior power — whether it is the district attorney or the policy maker — sets the rules of the game, my chapter aims to describe a policy approach in which concerned individuals may actually co-create the rules of the game before (or simultaneously) playing it.  [p. 138-139]

In a case of designing a healthcare field in Sweden, idealized design was a tool to stimulate ideas, with scenarios used to identify restrictions on the path from the current state to the future state.

A service system not only has a current state — and future state, as many with an interest in redesign will emphasize — but also a history.  Governing transitions from the past to the present to the future is often an art.  Over time, there may be some questions as to whether the system is maintaining its identity and fulfilling its original purpose.  Governing through evolution is expected; governing through revolution should not be taken for granted.

In Chapter 11, Rafael Ramirez proposes clarity as an aesthetic in scenario work.  Clarity can be a challenge, as understandability is often predicated on simplication, which is difficult (if not impossible) in turbulent environments.

Atlan (1991) had found that simplification works in addressing ‘complicated’ systems where components are known, and where relations among these can be mapped.  The degree of complication in such systems had to do with how simply one could map or model the system in question — the more elements in the map or model, the more complicated the system.  But Atlan discovered that such conditions are not found in the ‘complexity’ of turbulent conditions, where some components remain unknown; the relations among them remain hidden and/or changed; the dimensions of both components and the relations among them are contingent upon othe factors; causality is non-linear; and the systems the constitute are thus ‘messy’ (Ackoff, 1970) or ‘wicked’ (Rittel and Webber, 1973).  [p. 188]

In a Singerian inquiring system, as described by C. West Churchman, the guarantor is progress.  This means that an inquiry should continue until progress stops, i.e. we cease to learn more about the phenomenon or conditions.  Ramirez makes a direct linkage between the design of inquiring systems and clarity:

Churchman (1979, p192) suggested that clarity should be considered to be an aesthetic category.  [p. 190]

I have proposed that the measure of performance for scenario effectiveness rests on clarity.  [p. 192]

Ramirez describes a 2002 workshop in which participants reflected on the aesthetics of scenario work.  The purposes of scenario work were brainstormed, and then organized.

We then organized the clusters into a triangle that follows Vicker’s (1968) idea of the elements needed to make judgements — instrumental (action oriented to direct, conclude and close), coupling (creating relations and their norms) and appreciative (sensing what the context might hold in the future).  [....] [p. 197]

We then returned to the original clustering of scenario purpose and attempted to distill what the scenario addressing that type of purpose would feel like for a participant — if aesthetic quality were the single most important purpose of a scenario intervention.  [p. 199]

… one of the most experienced participants … [made a comment]: ‘I now really know why these people have been stuck.  They are stuck in one of the clusters, and I must move them into another one if we are going to get their situation unblocked.’  [p. 199]

If a group of people are unable to reach an accord on their own, a facilitator may be introduced to mediate communications.  That facilitator should generally try to remain neutral, with a focus of maintaining forward motion.  The question of which direction or vector should be seen as “forward” should not be biased for any one party or another.  If that direction is set as “clarity” — as opposed to convergence — the facilitator has a measure by which to guide his or her actions in the interests of the group.  The parties to a conversation may or may not achieve an accord, but if clarity is achieved within the group, they may recognize areas where they “choose to disagree”.

How will we know when adequate effort has been put into the design of a service system?  Clarity could be proposed as a major criterion for assessment.  This could drive group interactions beyond the level of “facts”, to “interpretations”, and potentially to “values”.

In Chapter 13, Sharin Elahi provides a concise outline of ideas associated with fairness.  In any group interaction, there are implicit — if not explicit — perceptions about whether the process and/or outcome going forward is fair.  Turbulent environments can drive groups who previously have not had a motive to engage, towards working together towards attainment of a common ground.

… the formation of the common ground creates a climate of cooperation and social adaptability and thereby enhances the possibility of a positive response to … challenging environments.  [p. 223]

Conceptions of fairness have long and deep roots in philosophy.  The concise categorization of three (or more) doctrines guides thinking through what might be considered “fair”.

Fairness as we have come to understand it in the West falls into two basic categories.  The first attends to method and the second to results.  Procedural or process fairness is achieved when the method by which a decision is reached is fair, while outcome or substantive fairness is the result of a decision that is intrinsically a fair one.  Undoubtedly, achieving outcome fairness is more desirable than achieving process fairness as the result is (generally) more important than the means.  However, there are instances where no outcome will be fair for all parties ….  [p. 226]

There are three major philosophical doctrines on which the concepts of fairness are based — equality, equity and priority ….

Equity (proportionality)

[....] With equity, resources (rewards such as honours, public property or profits) or burdens are meant to be distributed proportionally to relevant contributions (inputs).  [p. 226]

Equality (egalitarianism)

[....] This implies that all parties should receive an equal share of rewards and burdens, irrespective of their needs, differing resources and contributions.  [....] [p. 227]

Priority (compensatory or redistributive justice)

… most famously studied by Rawls (1972).  It maintains that one cannot achieve fairness by using the system of equity between contributions and gains (which will usually rewards those already well endowed) until resources have been divided so as to improve the well-being of the worst-off members of society, up to a bare minimum level of well-being to meet basic human necessities.  [....]

Other principles of fairness

Precedent has sometimes formed the basis for outcome fairness — and it is a particular feature of common law countries.  [....]  So-called super-fairness or envy-free distributions are based on the principle that no party should prefer the portion of another to his own (Baumol, 1987).  [p. 228]

On the first category, of fair methods, the emphasis is on process:

Procedural fairness or fair process refers to the ability of all parties to take part in the decision-making process, and it concerns the methods for arriving at an acceptable decision in law.   [p. 228]

[....] Many argue that even when a fair outcome cannot be achieved, a fair process will go a long way to ensure acceptance, linked to perceptions of respect and fair treatment (Lind and Tyler, 1988).  [p. 229]

Attendance

A most critical aspect of fair process is whether all stakeholders affected by, or who affect, the situation are represented in the process and that they have a genuine opportunity to participate.  [p. 229]

Initiation

[...] In order to be fair, all parties require an equal chance to formulate and agree upon these structures and codes.  [....]

Discussion and decision

Open and frank discussion without repercussion is a feature of procedural fairness.  In practice, this means ensuring that all parties are heard and multiple issues are part of an integrated whole …  [p. 229]

Achieving

Information and access to knowledge are currencies of power: if withheld or manipulated, no decision will be considered fair.  The quality and extent of information available affects fairness.  [p. 230]

The second category emphasizes the fairness of outcomes.

Substantive fairness means a fair outcome.  In essence fair outocmes will be those that enlarge the group within which there is a shared identity.  Fair outcomes enable stakeholders or actors to find a means of co-existing without conflict by establishing a new shared set of beliefs and values, working out a modus vivendi or building a community of trust (i.e. creating the ‘common ground’).

[....]  There are a number of mechanisms used to distribute goods and liabilities ….

• Division:  the value of environmental goods is seldom equal; but in some case a fair division can be achieved based on reciprocity.  This can take the form of equal sacrifice, tit-for-tat, split the difference or an exchang ef equal concessions.   [....]  [p. 231]
• Destruction or delegation to a third party: when parties cannot agree on how to distribute a resource, it might be fairest to destroy it or give it to a third party.  [....]
• Random chance: when an asset cannot be divided simply, random chance can be used to share an asset or liability.  This could take the form of a lottery ….
• Rotation: sometimes joint custody or rotation is a fair solution to the decision-making process.  [....]
• Ownership in common: when an area is indivisible, it can be possible to achieve a fair decision by sharing ownership.  In 1959, the Antarctice Treaty was signed by the 12 powers who had all made claims on the continent ….  [p. 232]
• Sale: there are cases when the value of an asset is realized and the proceeds shared among the parties.  [p. 233]

Attaining perceived fairness in both the process and outcomes with a group — particularly in a time of turbulence — can be a great challenge.  If the problematique is intractable, then the group may have to give up fairness either in process or in outcome.  Failing on both dimensions would probably result in disintegration of the group into irreconcilable factions, potentially adding to the environmental turbulence already at hand.

In designing service systems, there may be an assumption that commitments towards voluntary agreements are “fair”, because they’re voluntary.  This assumption may not only be challenged by the parties directly involved in the service system, but also others outside who may be impacted by externalities.

In Chapter 14, Andromache Athanasopoulou addresses issues in corporate social responsibility (CSR) by describing cases in two different contexts.

… two case studies  — a recently privatized public-service utility and a multinational tobacco company …  CSR can serve as a stabilizing mechanism for mitigating environmental turbulence by producing a ‘common ground’ among a firm and its various stakeholders.  Evidence when the opposite occurs — that is, where CSR practices become a destabilizing mechanism further contributing to environmental turbulence — will also be discussed …. [p. 243]

Issues of corporate social responsibility can be contributors to, as well as antecedents to the causal texture that an organization faces.

One of the key challenges associated with CSR is an ongoing lack of agreement on its fundamental scope and content.  Basu and Palazzo (2008, p122) identified three main lines of CSR enquiry prevalent in the academic literature:

the stakeholder driven (where CSR is viewed as a ‘response to the specific demands of largely external stakeholders’);

the performance driven (which ‘emphasizes the link between external expectations and a firm’s concrete CSR actions’, focusing on CSR performance measurement and selection of the activities that can best deliver the requisite performance); and

the motivation driven (which examines either ‘the extrinsic reasons for a firm’s CSR engagement’ or the ‘intrinsic rationales’ of the associated obligations and responsibilities).  [p. 244, editoral paragraphing added]

… in the management literature … Andrews (1973, p59) sorted out these views into two categories …

The social interventionists view CSR as extending beyond the minimum legal requirements and give emphasis to companies’ voluntary engagement in activities that would advance societal well-being.  On the other hand, the economic isolationists’ view is best represented by the well-known CSR definition provided by Milton Friedman in 1962: ‘there is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits as long as it … engages in open and free competition, without deception or fraud’ (Friedman, 1962, p133)  [p. 245]

One one side, CSR can serve as a stabilizing influence to bring parties together.

With regard to the company’s external environment, clearly CSR became the common ground to which the company and its stakeholders can come together.  The way in which a CSR project was communicated across different contexts and different audiences indicated how CSR could help in creating ‘areas’ of common ground.  [p. 251]

On the other side, CSR could also be destabilizing.

… CSR may become a destabilizing mechanism.  The evidence suggests that this is because:

• CSR implementation serves as an idiosyncratic change agent that can alter the balances of power within an organization.
• When CSR is not effectively communicated, the CSR implementation may end up destabilizing (rather than stabilizing) the environment in which a company operates.  [p. 252]

Corporate social responsibility may originate in action initiated from inside an organization, in either a responsive and proactive mode, or a reactive one.  Turbulence introduced from outside an organization can be actively engaged, or else the causal texture will permeate the system internally.

Service systems may require a greater acknowledgement of corporate social responsibility.  In public service systems, the political process tends to drive continual awareness of the interests of constituents.  In commercial service systems, the inclusion or exclusion of external parties is a matter of mindsets.

F. Cross-appropriating ideas for describing and designing service systems

Let’s recap how these ideas should inform activities describing and designing service systems:

The problem: an addiction to prediction. Service systems should not be viewed as permanent.  A description of a service system may be expected to change with evolution (or revolution).  Similarly, after a service system has been created (or reformed or transformed), the future reality may diverge from the expected trajectory set at the point at which defining decisions will have had to have been made.

Sustaining organizational systems in turbulent environments. Service systems — if they are expected to endure — should be constructed to withstand the forces of turbulent (or vortical) environments.  Since these conditions are essentially unforeseeable, the ability for service systems to learn and adapt are necessary.

Techniques for envisioning future systems. Approaches — of which search conferences and soft systems methodology are examples — draw in larger communities and perspectives which can improve the (re-)design of service systems.

Changing systems. Evolution and redesign of a service system may take into account new ideas since the days of Emery and Trist (e.g. complexity theory).  The propensity for a system to change may be influenced by its state of (in)stability, mindsets of episodic versus continuous change, and decisions made in the near-future that will have ripple effects in the longer term.

Shared value and engagement. Service systems emphasize a view of coproduction (i.e. as an alternative to producer-product).  That view may need to recognize the voices of external or peripheral parties, who could either encourage or inhibit the goals of the directly involved coproducers as initially described as within the system.

The intersection of authorship in this work (i.e. Rafael Ramírez) and earlier work in service systems (i.e. Normann and Ramirez) makes me reflect deeper on how service systems can and should be described and designed.  There’s a lot of implicit ideas to be worked out.

References

Ackoff, Russell L. 1981. Creating the Corporate Future: Plan or Be Planned For. John Wiley and Sons, 1981, preview available at Google Books.

Emery, Fred E., and Eric L. Trist. 1965. “The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments”. Human Relations 18, no. 1 (2, 1965): 21-32, DOI:10.1177/001872676501800103,  reprinted in The Social Engagement of Social Science, Volume 3: The Socio-Ecological Perspective (Eric Trist, Fred  Emery, and Hugh Murray, editors), University of Pennsylvania Press 1997, reproduced on moderntimesworkplace.com

Emery, Fred E. 1967. “The next thirty years: concepts, methods and anticipations”. Human Relations 20, no. 3 (1967): 199-237, DOI:10.1177/001872679705000802 , reprinted in The Social Engagement of Social Science, Volume 3: The Socio-Ecological Perspective (Eric Trist, Fred  Emery, and Hugh Murray, editors), University of Pennsylvania Press 1997, manuscript available at moderntimesworkplace.com .

Emery, Fred E. 1997, “Introduction to Volume III”. The Social Engagement of Social Science, Volume 3: The Socio-Ecological Perspective (Eric Trist, Fred  Emery, and Hugh Murray, editors), University of Pennsylvania Press 1997, reproduced on moderntimesworkplace.com .

Perlmutter, Howard V. 1965.  Towards a Theory and Practice of Social Architecture: The Building of Indispensable Institutions, Tavistock Publications, Pamphlet No. 12, preview available at Google Books.

Ramírez, Rafael, John W. Selsky, and Kees van der Heijden. 2008. Business Planning for Turbulent Times: New Methods for Applying Scenarios. Earthscan, 2008, preview available on Google Books.

Over the past few months, you may have noticed some changes in this Coevolving Innovations blog, or the Distractions, Reflections blog. It’s been two years since I wrote “the why and how of establish your web persona“, and “installing and customizing Wordpress on your own domain“.  Those reflected the state-of-the-art in 2007, which is a long time in technology.  To explain these changes, I’ll relate my thinking in three parts:

• 1. What do I want with my web persona?
• 2. How has the technology changed (in ways that I didn’t foresee)?
• 3. What have I done with my web activity?

These topics are described from the viewpoint of an “advanced blogger”.  New technologies emerge continuously, and I try many of them out.  I use some tools that novices find cumbersome, but that’s the way that I continue to learn.

1. What do I want with my web persona?

My first blog entries date back to October 2005, and they’re still available on the web.  In December 2006, I split my professional persona (mostly serious writing) from my photoblogging (easier on the eyes and brain), particularly for readers who subscribe via e-mail rather than using an RSS reader.  During this period, my perspective on my web persona has been constant in three ways:

(a) I want people to find appropriate information about me

In the test of “googling myself”, I’m pretty satisfied that people can find me.  Actually, a searcher will find me in multiple places, and should be able to navigate to his or her specific interest.

(b) I want to post durable content that reflects my personality and style

A major complaint of people who don’t read blogs is that it seems that people blog about their cats, or what they had for lunch.  I try to minimize that.

I do use Twitter and Friendfeed for short commentary, Google Reader Shared Items for popular news, and Diigo and Delicious for social bookmarking.  Since I travel a lot, I use Brightkite to give people some sense of which city I’m in, and Dopplr for which cities where I have travel planned.

On my professional blog, I post content that isn’t appropriate for publishing in journals or ideas that I’m working out.  On my photoblog, I take care to crop and edit each photograph, rather than just uploading snapshots.

(c) I want clear ownership of (and access to) my content

I have a wordpress.com blog where I list the MP3 audio recordings — mostly lectures and interviews — that I believe are worth noting. However, for content where I want to retain copyright, I post to my own domains.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to share content — in fact, there’s a Creative Commons license at the bottom of web pages on my domain.  However, I’m just not comfortable storing lots of content on a hosted service where I might have issues accessing it some day.

Most people don’t pay attention to the terms they sign (e.g. on Facebook).  With photographs, Flickr is good with explicit Creative Commons licenses, but I’ve had some subjects who don’t want their faces on the web, so I respect that, and have a complete private archive hidden away.  The buck stops with me.

2. How has the technology changed (in ways that I didn’t foresee)?

Before I write about what I didn’t foresee, I’ll take credit for one trend that I got right: choosing open source software platforms.  Wordpress (for blogging) and Drupal (for my publications content) have turned out to be architecturally stable, and rich with plugins.  My time isn’t spent writing code, it’s spent selecting existing plugins compatible with the way I use the technologies.

(a) The frequency of content approaching near-real-time

Twitter only dates back to 2006, and hit the mainstream media in early 2009.  I never would have thought that I would resort to using instant messaging tools — my favoured tool is Pidgin, with a plugin for Twitter — to keep up with streams of social content.

(b) Mobile devices and browser frameworks have advanced rapidly

In October, I joined the mobile-connected world with a Blackberry Curve.  Beyond e-mail, my greatest use of the device is for Google, and Google Maps Mobile in particular.  It has made me sensitive to web sites that don’t perform well on mobile devices.

Also, since I prefer “fat clients”, I hadn’t really considered the advances that would be made in frameworks such as Ajax, so that people can effectively work on the web through a browser.

3. What have I done with my web activity?

I read web content as much as a write web content, so it’s hard to decouple one from the other.

(a) I participate in online communities with linkages back to my web sites

I tend to avoid online communities that aren’t as good connecting outwards as inwards.  As an example, I prefer Urbanspoon over other restaurant review sites, because it recognizes that content is sometimes located elsewhere.  I’ve been sufficiently bold to post links on Wikipedia back to my web sites, not because I need the traffic, but because I think that other people might appreciate the pointers.

(b) I’ve rethemed my web sites to accommodate mobile devices, and leverage new technologies

In a major effort, I started with the Wordpress Vita theme, and heavily modified it to be somewhat similar to my prior theme.  My prior theme wasn’t widgetized, making the addition of sidebar plugins a significant effort.  In addition the strange behaviour with IE drove me to write an entirely separate style sheet.

I’ve installed the Wordpress Mobile Edition plugin to take care of small screen devices.  Most recently, I’ve been able to leverage the Wordpress Shadowbox-JS plugin to create spectacular slide shows.  (This is really an advanced function, so the hint is most useful to readers who would otherwise “View … Page Source …”) to figure things out.

I’m going to close with a fourth point, which is paths not chosen for my web persona.

4. What don’t I want for my web persona?

Any decision has consequences, so I’ll be explicit about them.

(a) I don’t want my blogging to become a chore

I already have a day job, so more time on the computer is almost like more work.  However, my blogging is mostly related to (a) academic research, and (b) photography, which are activities on my own initiative, rather than driven by someone else.

The net result is that I’m not blogging every day, or even every week, as some of my colleagues do.  My photoblog on travel is 9 months behind.  Still, I’m satisfied that I can keep up with distant friends and people I’ve met along the way in virtual way … and the microblogging and social bookmarking syndicated onto my personal web sites let people know that I’m still active.

Over the past 28 years, the International Federation for Systems Research has hosted a meeting that has become known as the Fuschl Conversation. The conversation was designed as an “anti-conference” by Bela H. Banathy. Rather than centering on presentations of completed papers, small groups meet in a low-stress setting to engage in generative conversation, creating new knowledge. To focus and energize the conversations, position papers are developed by each individual before the meeting, and proceedings are published following.

For 2008 — my third Fuschl Conversation — I was privileged to spend four days with Gary Metcalf, Jennifer Wilby, Allenna Leonard and Leonie Solomons. Here’s an abstract of our conversation:

For this Fuschl meeting in March 2008, a group was formed based on a call for individuals with experiences in both (a) systems research and practice, and (b) applications in industry, academia and/or public policy. All of the participants in Team 2 have exercised systems thinking applied in the social sciences, both in research/educational contexts and in applied/practice contexts. In the discussion, we shared a rich base of collective experiences working in multiple countries across four continents.

In retrospect, the conversation drew out insights in three areas:

• 1. Where does systems knowledge figure into the practice of social science practitioners?
• 2. How is systems knowledge applied with domain-specific knowledge?
• 3. When are domain-specific issues providing entry points into which systems knowledge becomes valuable?
• 4. How is the nature of systems knowledge coevolving with institutions (public, private, not-for-profit) and technology (wikis, blogs, voice over Internet)?

This report concludes with a reflection on the conversation process itself, in the setting of Fuschl.

A 7-page summary of the conversation is published in the downloadable proceedings of the meeting. As a teaser, here’s an outline.

1. Where does systems knowledge figure into the practice of social science practitioners?

• 1.1 A systems perspective can help in understanding how individuals and organizations do and don’t change
• 1.2 A systems approach can be applied for problem-solving, in moving from current practices
• 1.3 Systems theory can be a foundation for finding patterns that may be reapplied elsewhere
• 1.4 Systems thinking can aid in formation of a desired end, with reflexivity into premises
• 1.5 Systems relations can enable integrating multiple perspectives
• 1.6 Across social science practitioners, systems theory may or may not appear explicitly

2. How is systems knowledge applied with domain-specific knowledge?

• 2.1 When integrated with domain knowledge, systems knowledge can be categorized in levels of explicitness
• 2.2 The appropriateness of articulating systems knowledge can vary by the role played in engagement

3. When are domain-specific issues providing entry points into which systems knowledge
becomes valuable?

• 3.1 Continuing professional development of systems knowledge was difficult from a conceptual entry point, and easier as history of science
• 3.2 Developing a curriculum for a new science of services systems leans on systems science as an entry point apart from existing disciplines
• 3.3 Facilitating multi-faction negotiations on regional ethnic conflict has presented systems models as an entry point for sustainable resolution
• 3.4 The development of skills and methods for analytical business professionals uses systems as an entry point to bridge hard and soft approaches

4. How is the nature of systems knowledge coevolving with institutions (public, private, not-for-profit) and technology (wikis, blogs, voice over Internet)?

• 4.1 Messy social-economic-political issues are an opportunity for continuing development of systems knowledge
• 4.2. Presenting systems knowledge to a new generation of thinkers represents a potential for another rebirth of the systems movement

Interested readers can refer to the full proceedings. Being together in Fuschl am See is a personal experience, and the written summary doesn’t do full justice to the shared learning. Our report ended with a reflection on the experience:

Epilogue: Our appreciation to the IFSR and the continuing Fuschl conversation

With all of the preceding points on a changed world, these participants of Fuschl Team 2 acknowledge the continuing value of the Fuschl conversation, and its sponsorship by the IFSR. The Fuschl conversation, both in its setting and its style, represents an enduring institution in the continuing development of systems research.

As the world becomes faster, face-to-face communications in a loosely structured agenda has proven to be effective for post-graduate learning — both at the level of individuals and in groups — in an unstructured / emergent way. A large degree of diversity in participants is helpful in evolving ongoing work, and generating new directions and collaborations.

In addition, artifacts of prior conversations are helpful as references for ongoing research. Ideas from a conversation in 2000 (i.e. on aporetic conflict) resurfaced in 2008, and are being revisited in current research. The path from idea generation to initial documentation to published research to application is ambiguous in its direction and duration. The combination of easily-accessible proceedings and in-person availability of prior participants improves the transmission of knowledge.

Interactions within small teams, with periodic reports and visits to other teams, represents an effective inquiring system where new ideas can be combined with an emerging network of ideas that continues to regenerate and refresh the systems movement.

In addition to this topic, three other groups worked in parallel on other interests, including:

• Informing the Development of Systems-Oriented Curricula at the University Level: The Systems Education Matrix
• Disseminating, Accessing and Communicating Systems Knowledge
• Quality & Excellence in Systems Research

Most recently, the pattern for meetings has been an invitation to an event every other spring, following the European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research . If I’m fortunate, I’ll be invited to attend again in spring 2010.