http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/ en Copyright 2010 Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:40:12 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 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!]]> http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/09/nobody_expects_the_spanish_inq.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/09/nobody_expects_the_spanish_inq.php Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:40:12 +0000 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.]]> http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/proverbs_26.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/proverbs_26.php Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:11:42 +0000 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. http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/introductions.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/introductions.php Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:11:31 +0000 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. http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/a_work_of_art.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/a_work_of_art.php Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:19:31 +0000 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". http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/poetry_art_jazz_and_complexity.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/poetry_art_jazz_and_complexity.php Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:02:17 +0000 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... http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/be_the_chaos_social_entropy.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/be_the_chaos_social_entropy.php Thu, 26 Aug 2010 03:27:48 +0000 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!". http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/money_real_world_pretend_law_a.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/money_real_world_pretend_law_a.php Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:51:30 +0000 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... http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/culture_and_society_and_identi.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/culture_and_society_and_identi.php Wed, 25 Aug 2010 03:22:18 +0000 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"? http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/the_science_of_the_past.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/the_science_of_the_past.php Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:20:23 +0000 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. http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/phenomenology_epistemology_ont.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/phenomenology_epistemology_ont.php Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:58:54 +0000 http://c5corp.com/research/ontology.shtml I would recommend reading any research done by this group, but this article especially regarding "autopoesis" and "ontogeny"... Good quote: "A reliable way to get the attention of others is to produce information that meets the input conditions of their domain-specific competencies." -Dan Sperber and Lawrence Hirschfeld Also, I think one of the most interesting challenges out there might be, how many different subjects can you write only one paper about, with the least amount of words as possible, while it still remaining relevant and valuable to each subject individually? http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/ontology_as_system.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/ontology_as_system.php Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:37:39 +0000 Symbolic Interactionism (Herbert Blumer): 1. "Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things." 2. "The meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with others and the society." 3. "These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters." Semiotics (saussure, peirce, locke): * Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata * Syntactics: Relations among signs in formal structures * Pragmatics: Relation between signs and their effects on those (people) who use them Trivium (medieval education): Logic is concerned with the thing as-it-is-known, Grammar is concerned with the thing-as-it-is-symbolized, and Rhetoric is concerned with the thing-as-it-is-communicated. http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/the_emergent_interpretant.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/the_emergent_interpretant.php Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:42:43 +0000 "figure it out"... a sort of tag line... it includes both figuring things out as in you are the constructor and it is up to you to build and maintain your reality, while also figure it out as in you have to answer a question (the more passionately "prescribed" side of things)... Steve Holt provided some good momentum in the direction of "Freedom vs. Security", which I would agree is a HUGE deal regarding human sense-making, decision-making, and action-making.... so Ill explore my thoughts on it further. http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/freedom_vs_security.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/freedom_vs_security.php Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:36:59 +0000 Hello all, I hope to post at least an entry a day during my time on here... ive always thought this guest blog section was a great idea and myself try to read as much as possible from it. Its always nice to hear from and about so many people all over..... A little more about me... http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/introductions_and_a_little_bac.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/introductions_and_a_little_bac.php Mon, 16 Aug 2010 23:19:29 +0000 Reading David’s blog entry of August 12th on overhearing conversations, I thought about a kiwi take on this. If this happened in NZ, we would overhead these conversations and probably know the people they were talking about! People talk about 6 degrees of separation – in NZ we have 2 degrees of separation – that is two “degrees” to know someone. http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/2_degrees_of_separation.php http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/guest/2010/08/2_degrees_of_separation.php Sat, 14 Aug 2010 07:09:15 +0000