It's been a long day and I offer a little light relief in the shape of this YouTube video.

For those of you who like looking for metaphorical applications, well...you might take a look at how long it takes people to start to react to this totally unexpected happening - how they start to make sense of it - vague annoyance at the man in the fluorescent jacket/protective gear, incredulity at the "doo waps", but then smiles (almost) all round as something new and exciting comes together - but they're still not sure how or why. There are still one or two people who look like they just want to get on with their day (see 2mins 17seconds). The final "reveal" on the copy of the newspaper lets them know why what they've experience has happened.

There again, you might just want to enjoy it!

I’m just back from two days at Greenbelt, a Christian arts festival held every year at the Cheltenham race course with about 25,000 attendees.

There was a huge range of talks and two in particular that I went to that I’d like to blog about, one on what technology and social media are doing to society and the second intriguingly entitled “The English Civil War and the Future of the Church of England.”

Today I’ll confine myself to the talk on technology and social media given by John Bell, a member of the Iona Community.

Continue reading "Proverbs 2:6 " »

Hello, it's a pleasure to be Guest Blogger here on the Cognitive Edge site! To get my stint off the starting blocks, a little about me:-

My first degree was in Electrical and Electronic Engineering after which I did some postgraduate study into Electromagnetic Compatibility (during which time I was a Guest Scientist (AKA research student!) at the National Bureau of Standards, now National Institute of Standards and Technology at Boulder, Colorado, USA). I then worked for GEC Telecomms (which later became Marconi) for many years in a range of roles including being a UK representative on an international standards body (a test of skills in diplomacy as being the native English speaker it often falls to you to discern what people from many different nationalities are trying to say and express that in a form on which they will agree), being part of a central marketing team, and working with Marconi’s biggest customer to help identify business opportunities in their markets.

While studying for my MBA at the University of Warwick I heard Dave Snowden speak on Complexity, Narrative and Knowledge Management and knew immediately that whatever else I had learned on the course, this was worth investigating further - which has shaped my career from that moment. My dissertation was on the application of narrative-based research methods to corporate culture analysis and through it, I realised the power of the techniques.

I have been using these skills (and Cognitive Edge techniques) for the last seven years in organisations as diverse as Age Concern and the Church of England, and in situations from thinking about how to plan a lounge for patients in the NHS suffering from dementia (perhaps more of that in a later blog?) to increasing the effectiveness of sales presentations by using the power of stories.

More recently I am working as a Project Manager with Narrate and also as Programme Manager (Mediation & Community) with Coventry Cathedral.

On a personal note, I sing for pleasure (two weeks ago I was singing on BBC Radio 4 for the Daily Service - there’s nothing quite like a live broadcast to concentrate the mind!)

I look forward to blogging more (I have a list of topics which is growing by the day) and hope to hear from you.

Ive been an artist and designer all my life dabbling in drawing, paint, sculpture, animation, interaction, music, etc.., more recently turning to more traditional opposites of art, but have always found it interesting that I haven't run into many other artists or designers who are really well read or care too much about complexity science or anything of the sort... normally the space tends to be filled with "scientists" and "engineers" of many sorts.

I think the idea of what art is, and what it means to be an artist may have something to do with this, so I found some good pages on Wikipedia covering some of these. I think it may come down to a simple notion that an artist (painter, sculptor, musician, actor, storyteller etc...) must become chaos and complexity while at the same time respecting and honoring complication and order, while scientists and engineers and managers I don't think I have ever really heard them use language that they feel they must become the change, in order to no longer experience change... but moreso focus on employing principles from complexity or even art at a distance to achieve, to accomplish, to get somewhere, etc... But I may be a little too biased and over exaggerating or generalizing.

Continue reading "A "Work of Art"" »

I think Complexity Theory is great and is certainly a more relevant approach than how people have been treating human and dynamic systems, but I also think there is a confusion somewhere. The confusion I think exists is that complexity is in the system, where I would say complexity is in the mind.

I think some people may learn about complexity and then say, "oh ok, so human systems are complex, so therefore we should think, believe, and act in a different way in regards to them", while on the other side which I am on might say, "oh ok, so because humans think, believe, and act from the inside out, and no human can think, believe, or act for another, complexity emerges from an inherently uncertain and impermanent space".

Continue reading "The Emergence of Chaos, Complexity, Complication and Order" »

Maybe my best advice would be "Be the Chaos!"?

Or maybe according to the Cynefin framework, it would be "Be the Disorder!"?

Point being you want to always operate in the space of chaos and disorder yourself, while working to build emergent interpretants which people can believe in and "lead them out of" the chaos and disorder, to more secure pastures...

Continue reading "Be the Chaos! (social entropy)" »

So I was just at Bojangles... which by the way is an AWESOME Cajun/Southern fast food restaurant here in the Carolinas... and overheard some guy on the phone talking about money (which also reminded me of Snowden's blog on that issue)... he was talking about someone who owed him a large amount of money and that the guy just didnt understand that this is "real money" and that "this isn't monopoly!".

Continue reading "Money, "Real World", Pretend, Law and Order, Cops, Getting Fired, etc..." »

A lot of people might say that we act according to our culture, or that it is a part of us, or maybe that society is something larger than the sum of all the individuals and artifacts and such, or maybe that we have multiple identities...

Now, 5-10 years ago I probably would have agreed, and it would have sparked some interest in me... but the past few years especially for me have been very insightful.

I now would say that, culture is persisted, society is smaller than the sum, and we have no identity... and this is the kicker... in the present! or some variation...

Continue reading "Culture and Society and Identity" »

I heard this hinted on a few times before, but never a really good argument or reflection... How many people actually realize that science is only about and relevant to the past? The specific value of "empirical" or "evidence-based" science or theory should be enough to illustrate this key point.

Is it possible for any empirical science or evidence based theory to include the future? Therefore, wouldn't the use of any true science or theory in the present in regards to being truthfully and justifiably confident about the future be a "pseudo-science"?

Continue reading "The Science of the Past" »

I think that a lot of what people perceive as problems stem from a few simple notions regarding the confusion of ontology and phenomenology, especially concerning expectations, assumptions, and the believed approach to and value of epistemology.

Take note of the field called "knowledge management", whose major problems I believe could be reconciled if they simply switch to "understandings management". The word knowledge comes with baggage that implies externality, objectivity, absoluteness, truth, proof, "in and of itself", absence of bias, etc... which I guess people just can't accept that those are the complete opposite of what it is to be human, and what it is for multiple humans to exist together and interact.

Point being that "knowledge management" focuses on the nature of what is "out there" and the assumption that we can come to a "knowledge" of what it is that is "out there" in regards to it in and of itself.

Continue reading "Phenomenology - Epistemology - Ontology" »