Archives: Openness
The Reformation of Capitalism
In June 2014, Clayton Christensen and Derek van Bever wrote in the June 2014 issue of Harvard Business Review (HBR). “The orthodoxies governing finance are so entrenched that we almost need a modern-day Martin Luther to articulate the need for change.” And they are not the only ones signalling we need a change of direction in how we think our economies work. In Vienna this year the Global Peter Drucker Forum gathered together the great and the good to explore what next for Capitalism looks like. We have arrived at a turning point,” says the Forum’s abstract. “Either the world will embark on a route towards long-term growth and prosperity, or we will manage our way to economic decline.” Continue reading
December 15, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged crowdfunding and financial capital, designing for transformation, failure of business schools, need for transformational change, people powered organisations, Peter Drucker conference vienna, Redesigning the banking system, reformation of business, systems design for business, the crisis of trust in business, the high performance business, the high performance organisation, the limits of growth, transforming organisations empowering employees, what next for business?, world economic crisis, zero employment contracts
Yeo Valley Farms, a masterclass in business transformation
The challenge: How do we remove the acute volatility and therefore risk of running a farm? How can we become more resilient and get to a better future? Yeo Valley Farms is the largest organic dairy farm in the UK, and is a great example of how to deal with economic disruption and create lasting transformational change – that delivers better business, without damaging the natural environment. Continue reading
December 11, 2014
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged 7 ways organic farms outperfom conventional farms, business strategy, business transformation, conscious capitalism, farming for our future, high performance business, innovation in urban farming, Joel Salatin, Myra Goodman, nonlinear design, nonlinear innovation, organic farming and biodiversity, organic farming systems build rather than deplete soil organic matter, the economics of organic farming, the future of business, yeo valley farms
NASA shows us our beautifully interconnected planet
Our nonlinear world understands everything is interconnected to everything else. This video is a wonderful demonstration of the interconnectedness of our oceans. We have much to learn from natures design models and understand our own limitations if we believe that organisations or economies work best when they are deconstructed to the point when we can no longer see nor comprehend the whole system. Watch and wonder. Continue reading
November 14, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / Technology
Tagged designing networked organisations, Lee Smolin, natural capitalism, nonlinear design, nonlinear economies, nonlinear innovation, on beauty, on beauty and organizational design, organisations designed as open systems, perpetual ocean, radical economics, radical redesign business, the interconnected planet, the life and death of nonlinear organisations, the overview effect, the radical redesign of business
Dickson Despommier innovating the vertical farm
This is how Dickson sees our future panning out. By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster? Continue reading
November 12, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged 2007–2008 world food price crisis, Agriculture, arbor house, Black Sea Region, Dickson Despommier, European Union, farming to save the planet, farming tools of innovation, Food and Agriculture Organization, future growing, gotham green, innovation in urban farming, lufa farms, natural capitalism, nonlinear innovation, Palm oil, Price index, restoration of farmland, Rome, rregenerative design model, sustainable urban farming, the failure the traditional farming, the greening of economics, United States, vertical farming
How do you rule the void once the party's over?
Earlier this year I read the late Peter Mair’s Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. It got me thinking, because as I observed in Chapter 5 of No Straight Lines, we are in a process of political transformation. A transformation of how we organise and run our societies. I ask the question, what should government look like in a non-linear world? Are we creating and running systems in the right way? Why is it that so many people are disengaged with the process of democracy and civil organisations? Continue reading
November 1, 2014
Adaptiveness / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown
Tagged absolute power politics and communications, environmental politics, euro scepticism, extreme far right politics, local politics+national government+credit associations+electoral turnout+politcal divide, media politics, media politics and the crisis of democracy, media+politics+identity construction, p2p political society, politics of participation, rejection of traditional politics, ruling the void, scottish rural parliament, study of local parliaments
LEGO cultures of creativity
The LEGO Foundation are creating and sharing ground-breaking research on the power of play and creativity in learning, to act as a critical resource for thought leaders, influencers, educators and parents all around the world. Continue reading
October 18, 2014
Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged cultures of creativity, cultures of innovation, cultures of transformation, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Lego, LEGO Group, Lego Ninjago, Minecraft, nonlinear innovation as play, Ole Kirk Christiansen, play as innovation, play pathways to creativity, transformation through play, United Kingdom, United States
The healthy society and preventative medicine
In recent years, scientific and technological developments have contributed to major progress in the health of individuals and for societies at large. What are the future roads to increased health in the world? How will science, technology and innovation contribute to this development? Where are the major challenges and possibilities? Continue reading
October 16, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / Technology
Tagged biodiversity+human wellbeing, centre for healthy aging, economic performance+happiness+wellbeing, EuroScience Open Forum 2014 Copenhagen, innovation in health care, lene juel rasmussen, preventative health care, preventative medicine, science and health, technology and the future of health, the future of healthcare, transforming health care, wellbeing and action for happiness
Tim Campbell on what makes a smart city
Our urban environments are under strain, whether that be, the birthplace of the Garden City Letchworth, or cities such as Odense in Denmark, larger one like Bristol, or megacities like Seoul (Taking the Seoul Train to the Sharing Economy Part … Continue reading
July 14, 2014
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged beyond the smart city, cities of the future, collaborative cultures, collaborative design, Garden City Letchworth, harnessing collective intelligence, IBM, Jane Jacobs, learning cities, Letchworth, Lina Bo Bardi, Marilyn Hamilton, Odense, participatory cutlures, Smart city, the city that learns, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Tim Campbell
Cradling the transformative economy
As we evolve for a linear model of economy. What we make and how we make it, what we do with our waste and how we waste that too. We start to see a new horizon where our obituary won’t be what we have sent to the landfill but something more elegaic and life affirming – as we become part of the circular economy. It has been described as cradle to cradle. Continue reading
July 9, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged adoption of sustainable technologies, Business, business benefits of c2c, c2c certification, c2c design, chemicals kind to the environment, Circular economy, cradle to cradle 101, Cradle-to-cradle design, ecology of economy, flute office, ford motor company green+sustainable, green business, Industrial design, innovative business models, Michael Braungart, natural business, nonlinear economy, nonlinear innovation, the access economy, Wikipedia, William McDonough
Waste to Waves a story from the circular economy
This a story about how we can think differently about material waste, upcycling, ans the circular economy. Sustainable Surf (sustainablesurf.org), and Waste to Waves. Sustainable Surf is a California-based 501(c)(3) non-profit charity organization founded by social entrepreneurs, located in the heart of the Southern CA surfing industry. Their Mission: Be the catalyst that transforms surf culture and industry into a powerful community that protects what they call, the ocean playground. Continue reading
July 5, 2014
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Business, carbon neutral production, Circular economy, designing for transformation, Environment, European Commission, flute office, green business, green economics, moving towards a circular economy, nonlinear innovation, sustainable surf, systems design in the circular economy, the carbon neutral economy, Upcycling, Vimeo, Waste, Waste Management, whole systems practice
Juliana Rotich on Ushahidi mapping humanitarian needs
Juliana Rotich’s talk on Ushahidi where it came from and where it is going. In talking about innovation Julia says, if it works in Africa it can work anywhere. Out of adversity comes innovation. I am proud to be part of the advisory board for Ushahidi. Continue reading
July 4, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Africa, Big data, creating open innovation, designing for transformation, designing with data, future of ngo's, innovation africa, Kenya, mapping humanitarian crisis, nonlinear innovation, Open innovation, rapid innovation, Technology, transformational design, ushahidi, ushahidi hacking the future, working for the collective good
Humanity's greatest gift, an awesome book of love
Yael Staav’s poignant and emotional interpretation of Dallas Clayton’s celebrated storybook, An Awesome Book of Love, shows us that love is truly humanity’s greatest gift. Continue reading
July 1, 2014
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Awesome Book of Love, compassion and the workplace, Dallas Clayton, goddess of selfless love, Lewis Hyde, love, love as wisdom, No Straight Lines, on beauty, Relationships, selfless love, shri radha, simon haas, smlxl, tashi mannox, the book of dharma, the loving organisation, wisdom as love, Yael Staav
Ex CIA spy says Open Collaborative Cultures Win
A fascinating article (The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1% – ex CIA spy) written by Nafeez Ahmed about Robert David Steele and his thesis that Open and Collaborative systems are the only means by which we will meaningfully move forward. Open Collaborative organisations remove the traditional constraints placed upon any organisation. It permits the asking of powerful framing questions. These framing questions enable us to see what others don’t. Open source regenerative business models and the decentralised organisation become mainstream. This allows the scale of the problems we face to be met by participatory and collaborative systems and cultures. These organisations work towards a higher order purpose. This higher order purpose delivers consistently higher performance with outcomes that are truly authentic, more resilient and relevant. Continue reading
June 28, 2014
Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged collaborative economics, conscious capitalism, future of democracy, Green capitalism, Lee Smolin, monumental change, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, nonlinear innovation, open cities, open democracy, open economy, Open Source, open source principles, open source revolution, Open-source intelligence, Robert David Steele, smlxl, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Steele, the 1%, the 99%, the commons based economy, the open organization, the restorative economy, the tragedy of the commons, United States, Wealth of Networks
Joel Salatin on the potential of large scale organic farming
Joel Salatin is America’s most celebrated pioneer of chemical-free farming. Here Joel gives a powerful talk on why our current industrial way of farming is so wrong in so many ways. Demonstrating the potential of how we can do it differently – better and more in step with the way of the natural world. Salatin says we can feed the world but not by industrial methods. Continue reading
June 22, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown
Tagged 12 permaculture design principles, 7 ways organic farms outperfom conventional farms, animal welfare, carbon futures, diary farming, economics of food miles, farm hack, future british farming, investing is sustainable agriculture, Joel Salatin, lady eve balfour+organic farming, Myra Goodman, nonlinear innovation, organic farming and biodiversity, organic farming methods, sustainable agriculture, the resilient community, zero budget farming+the lightweight farm
John Mackey CEO of Whole Foods on Conscious Capitalism
What is the purpose of business, or an organisation? In No Straight Lines, I ask this question – How can we create better for our economies, organisations and societies – all at the same time. As currently it seems we always have to make a choice of one over the other, at the expense always to us. John Mackey CEO of Whole Foods demonstrates it does not have to be that way – and that better much better does not have to cost the earth. Continue reading
June 18, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged a better capitalism, better for people and planet, concious capitalism, earthbound farms, future agriculture, future food economies, green business, Green capitalism, John Mackey, Myra Goodman, natural capitalism, nonlinear innovation, organic ilford, polyface farms, purpose in business, regenerative economics, riverford organic farms, Systems thinking, the purpose directed organisation, the theory of moral sentiments+adam smith, Whole Foods Market, whole foods uk
Myra Goodman on organic food systems as common sense
Myra Goodman runs the largest organic food production company in the USA. In this video she explains why organic farming makes sense. Makes sense, economically, for communities, and of course to help build a regenerative society. She makes the point that nature works at scale – so why cant farming? It is more of how we frame the question and what type of world we choose to live in. Continue reading
June 11, 2014
Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / Technology
Tagged alice holden, Bangladesh, connecting food to people, diy farming, Earthbound Farm, farmers' markets, farming for the community, innovating food economies, Iowa, Myra Goodman, nonlinear innovation, Organic farming, organid ilford, rebecca hosking, Todmorden, United States, Vietnam, yeo valley farms
De Hogeweyk dementia village
De Hogeweyk or Hogewey is a gated model village setting in Weesp, in The Netherlands. It is notable because it has been designed specifically as a pioneering care facility for elderly people with dementia. The major advances achieved by the approach of all-day reminiscence therapy at Hogewey, compared to traditional nursing homes, is that the residents with dementia are more active and require less medication. Carers, doctors and nurses work around the clock to provide the 152 residents the necessary 24-hour care. Continue reading
June 10, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alzheimer's disease, De Hogeweyk, Dementia, future health care, hacking healthcare, healthcare innovation, Hogewey, Holland, Netherlands, nonlinear innovation, reinventing the NHS, Weesp
Healthcare innovation Integrated Neurological Services
Integrated Neurological Services (INS) was founded in 1999 by Liz Grove and Ellie Kinnear. Its purpose to help patients with Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke and other neurological complaints that affect movement, memory, balance and communication, everything essential to a normal life. The charity works to make a real difference between a life devastated by severe illness and a life that makes the most of the opportunities still available. Continue reading
June 9, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged disease, human centric healthcare, innovation healthcare, INS, Integrated Neurological Services, Multiple sclerosis, National Health Service, nonlinear innovation, Nordic walking, Parkinson, Parkinson's disease, Patient, physical therapy
Shan Williams what do you do when your town is dying?
Up and down the country, our towns are dying. When convenience became the precedent over local, we opened the doors for the conglomerates and they made themselves at home. Our highstreets now consist of the big names, charity shops and abandoned units that reek of recession. You can practically see tumble weeds. In one of the most humbling and emotionally driven DO Lectures, Shan Williams spoke of her organisation 4CG, a group of people that are solely dedicated to the regeneration of their town, and how it all started in a council meeting when a prime site came up for sale in her beloved town of Cardigan. Have some tissues near to hand. Continue reading
May 23, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Cardigan Bay, cocreating culture, collaborative economies, communities and locality, creating vibrant towns and cities, david Hieatt, forced economic migration, forced migration, future local economies, future of towns and cities, local food economies, low carbon economy, nonlinear innovation, Odense, people power, people powered innovation, resilient energy, revitalizing rural economies, shared purcharse agreements, the do lectures, wales
Ani Chudrun, a beautiful walk with integrity
This a beautiful film about life transformation. One of the things I have always believed in is that if you want to create transformation in the world – then you too have to go on a journey of transformation before all the other things happen. In this way one is able to see and perceive the world differently. This is also a story about purpose and meaning. A story about that which fulfills us and sustains us. Continue reading
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness
Tagged communal identity+meaning+belonging, culture+meaning+identity, Ethics, god+identity, happiness+work+meaning+identity, identity, identity and the workplace, identity as a journey, purpose as transformation, tibetan buddhism, transformation, transformation of self
Odense working on an innovative template for civic centric systems
Place and community as social and economic networks: Last week I was in Odense, a municipality of Denmark, working with a team of people who are knee, elbow, neck deep in system change. My task was to help this team of wonderful people explore how they could address that change as it presents significant challenges in how people embrace transformation, and work meaningfully with it. This team had healthcare as a key concern. So we went on a journey exploring how one can create powerful systems change inside an existing organisation and, at the same time explored innovative practices that can reduce the significant financial burden of healthcare and more importantly change its purpose to one that was more preventative inspired by reinvigorating the sources of health. Continue reading
May 21, 2014
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged A restorative economy, civilizing the economy, cocreation civic innovation, denmark, Ecuador, healthcare innovation, Helene Bækmark, Innovation Lab Denmark, nonlinear innovation, Odense, peer to peer society, Scotland, six steps to transformation, Stanford Social Innovation Review, the open society
Lessons from Patagonia's Founder Yvon Chouinard
Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia strikes me as a true Craftsman. The civilizing craftsman uses his tools and his labours for the collective good. Chouinard wants us to stop being consumers and start being thoughtful global citizens. His work to make us think more deeply abut the world we inhabit. Continue reading
May 8, 2014
Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness
Tagged Business, Consumerism, Craftsman, green economy, nonlinear innovation, Patagonia, regenerative economy, responsible economy, Richard Sennett, South America, Travel, Yvon Chouinard
The human need to transcend
Kenan Malik writing in his excellent article about the sacred in art, explores the capacity of the sacred to go beyond religion to become a necessary part of what makes us human. Continue reading
April 20, 2014
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Divine Comedy, God, Holocaust, Human, human centered design, Kenan Malik, nonlinear innovation, Nova Scotia, participatory cultures, participatory leadership, Stanford Social Innovation Review, the sacred in every day life, Transcendence, trust based leadership
The journey to a commons based economy
When astronauts go into space and looking down at the earth, an image we all know, but in another way do not know at all. They find themselves having a deep spiritual connection with the earth, within themselves that is shocking and beautiful. Theirs is a profound moment of epiphany – a realisation, of the inseparable relationship between the cosmos, the Earth and humanity. This is not a ‘oooh woow’ moment, it is in fact a moment of transformation, of catharsis, an irreversible cognitive shift. Continue reading
April 9, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, commons based economy, designing for the collective good, designing for the humanOS, edgar mitchell, humanizing our economy, living systems economy, nonlinear innovation, open government, overview effect, p2p society, participatory leadership, salva corpus amanti, single consciousness, the restorative economy, transformation, transformation economy, transformation society, unity of everything
Lina Bo Bardi shaping the world through a love of humanity
When we design around the the needs of humanity, when we put humanity at the core of our process – we have the potential to create extraordinary things. Not to design humanity an culture out of the process of creation but to weave it in. Sounds obvious does it not? But the truth is we have created too many systems, organisations, buildings that do not acknowledge our humanity. Lina Bo Bardi an Italian who moved to Brazil is an example of someone that believed profoundly in designing and creating buildings around the needs of human beings. Continue reading
March 8, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Bo Bardi, Brazil, commons based economy, Design, designing for the human, future architecture, human directed architecture, Italy, Lina Bo Bardi, Milan, new perspectives on architecture, nonlinear innovation, São Paulo, the human operating system, values based architecture, working with architecture and nature
Farm Hack, hacking the future of agriculture
A short film that explores an alternative approach to agriculture and food economies. The organisation is called Farm Hack. Founded in 2010, by what the narrator calls startup farmers, who were motivated to create a model for resilient agriculture. Continue reading
March 7, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness
Tagged a farm for the future, code for america, common cause organization, designing for transformation, farm hack, food+supermarkets+agriculture+yeo valley+organic+defra+soil association+do lectures+dan saladino+supermarkets+volatility+complexity, international federation of organic agriculture movements, joel salatin farming innovation, modern organic movement, no straight lines in nature, nonlinear innovation, Open innovation, open source farming, Organic farming, organic farming and biodiversity, organic farming+sustainability, Polyface Farm, power of participatory cultures, resilient agriculture, soil association, the economics of organic farming
Leadership in a commons based economy
the problem of our current economic debate is that we are trying to solve 21st century problems with 19th and 20th century economic thought. That is: our discourse is stuck between “more markets and free enterprise” (2.0) and “more regulation and government” (3.0). In reality, neither of these approaches will suffice. This new philosophy is something that I explore in No Straight Lines -the means by which we can transform. Continue reading
March 4, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged A restorative economy, Activism, Alan Moore, American Enterprise Institute, capitalism 4.0, commons based economy, Environment, leadership in a participatory economy, Michael Sandel, natural capitalism, No Straight Lines, nonlinear economy, nonlinear innovation, Otto Scharmer, p2p economy, participatory organizations, participatory society, six principles no straight lines, the new civic engagement, the new leadership
Broke
I have been reading David Boyle’s new book Broke. How to survive the middle-class crisis. Gonzalez de Cellerigo was a lawyer and an economist living in 1600 Spain. He writes, the riches which should have brought wealth have brought poverty. Cellerigo understood that the flood of money coming into Spain, over the last 4 decades had caused the value of money to fall. Boyle makes observation that in modern Britain today we have suffered the same, ‘the cascade of wealth into the City of London, instead of financing production, it was frittered away on interest payments for debt, buying luxury goods from abroad, raising prices and, in the case of sixteenth century Spain, on the purchase of Eastern luxuries from the Portuguese Empire’. Continue reading
March 2, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged aston reinvestment trust, boots the chemists and unions, british business bank, david boyle, demise of the middle class, designing for humanity, dorset, economic systems thinking, economics as if it mattered, failure uk public services, fall of spanish economy, future house prices in britain, future local economies, Gonzalez de Cellerigo, Innovation, International Labour organisation, KKR the barbarians at the gate, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, london rebuilding society, new values in new economy, nonlinear innovation, private equity capitalists in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, rethinking uk economy, rise of the p2p society, school dinners and education, school for social entrepreneurs, shareable cities, systems thinking in economics, the reinvention of the middle class, tim crabtree, west dorset food and land trust, west dorset food links, what to do about british economy, why the middle class matters
The art of living together and the art of dying
James Mitchell used this phrase ‘the art of living together’, recently in Edinburgh. A phrase he articulated to mean what politics at its best and most basic should be about. Think of the component parts and what they mean: ‘art’ and ‘living together’: they denote craft, non-scientific discipline, emotional insight, and an awareness and understanding of differences and transcending them. Continue reading
February 12, 2014
Adaptiveness / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / System breakdown
Tagged future economy Scotland, future leadership, future society, George Harrison, Gerry Hassan, hacking the future, new political institutions, No Straight Lines, political innovation scotland, Politics, Poverty, restorative economy, Scotland, social innovation in scotland
Rethinking how we build homes in the UK
Here are 10 ways of taking a more humane and commons based approach to how we could live. Continue reading
February 2, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged A common sense approach to building, Affordable housing, Alan Moore, Alejandro Aravena, Borneo-Sporenburg Amsterdam, building and the commons economy, community housing innovation, Community land trust, diversity in design, Horsmonden, Ijburg, innovation in architecture, innovation in housing, Iquique, land economy, margaret thatcher, Newton Community Land Trust, No Straight Lines, open commons region, openness is resilience, renewable buildings, restorative economy, self build innovation, self organising communities, Stroud, the cost of land, the low carbon economy, the new economics of building, Torre David Caracas
The revolt against traditional education
Last year I was working with an extraordinary group of people in Salzburg – where we had come together to explore the potential of systemic transformation. In one exercise we worked collaboratively on an idea that each individually intrigued us. Mine was education. After many rounds of questioning – we were asked to write from the heart, intuitively what we felt. This is what I wrote. The Revolt Against Traditional Education: Continue reading
February 1, 2014
Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, creativity and orginal thinking, educating the reflective practitioner, educating the world, education and values, education frees the world, education innovation, embracing change in our learning landscape, finalnd pioneers in education, Henry Jenkins, learning and poverty, learning and religious education, learning poverty and fundamentalism, learning reimagined, methods and theories of education, mobile education, nonlinear innovation, participatory learning, sir ken robinson, systemic change in education, talent and education, teaching creatively, technology and learning, what is creativity?, world reader
Zaid Hassan: sensing, and connecting to a whole reality
I am came across this lovely insight by Zaid Hassan, in The U: A Language of Regeneration. As Russ Ackoff said a hole is spelt with a W. In my journey this reality that others cannot see the whole, happens 99% of the time in organizations, as Deming points to the 94/6 rule, where 94% of problems can be traced to the process and only 6% to the person – when systems are fixed. Therefore sensing the entire system is key. Continue reading
January 8, 2014
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, art of hosting, chaordic process leadership, collective sensing for collective truth, Deming 94/6 rule, emergent leadership, finding collective truth, human systems of leadership, leadership and deep democracy, Lee Smolin, No Straight Lines, opening the heart of an organization, participatory decision making, participatory leadership, philosophy of logic, practices for regeneration, The U: A Language of Regeneration, the struggle between efficiency and creativity, toke moller, transformation scotland, working with complexity, working with openness, working with power of complexity, Zaid Hassan
The restorative economy
Need to rewrite the foundations of economics: The need for a root and branch rewriting of economics produced a book last year called What’s the Use of Economics? Teaching the Dismal Science after the Crisis. Of course it is much much harder than anyone realises to bring into the world a truly viable alternative economy to an existing dominant model. There are many vested interests, and shifts of power that create vacuums’ generate the necessary conditions where waves of multiple dissonance; social, religious, economic combine to make people fearful of change and reactive to perceived threats real or otherwise. Opportunism trying to outflank those that seek a more ambitious goal. Continue reading
December 30, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, closed loop economics, crafting a new economy, david simon two americas, economic philosophy, economics of nature, economy of the commons, embracing a complex world, john fullerton the capital institute, lessons open commons region, natural capitalism, networked economic theory, new thinking in economic philosophy, new tools for a new economy, nonlinear innovation, open science commons, rise of foodbanks uk economy, systems thinking in economics, teaching the new economics, the carbon neutral economy, the dismal science, the open economy, the p2p economy, the Post-Crash Economics Society, the resilient economy, the shareable economy, what's the use of economics
Time to reimagine and recreate our state says Marianna Mazzucato
“The important thing for government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all.” was the advice of John Maynard Keynes. Continue reading
December 15, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, civic innovation, designign for the humanos, east coast train-operating franchise, economy as a system, economy of the commons, eddy izzard for mayor, entrepreneurship the future of the eu, failure privatisation public sector uk, financing the innovative state, how to make britain great, Marianna Mazzucato, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, nuclear economics uk, private equity investment tax breaks, privatising public goods uk, problem with big government, reinventing medicine, reinventing regional government, reinventing the state, religion+identity+spirituality+john stuart mill+charles handy+the hungry spirit, resilient economies, startup britain, startup uk, the furture of britain, UK government subsidises privatised utilities, uk tax expenditures, US National Institutes of Health
Lego's new business model: Pleygo
LEGO has always fascinated me, because of its journey from small to great to almost has been to a company designed for meeting the demands and challenges of a non-linear world. LEGO is launching LEGO The Movie next year and they have also been exploring the idea of building a service / rental style model called Pleygo is like a Netlix-like rental service that allows families to swap Lego sets instead of purchasing new ones and creating more plastic waste in the process. The Lego swap service enables kids to try out and play with lots of different sets. Continue reading
December 12, 2013
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged adaptive business models, Alan Moore, business as a service, business as a service+business as a platform, designing the smart organization, history business model innovation, Lego business model innovation, Lego Pleygo business model, Lego the movie, lesson in business model innovation, new tools for a new economy, No Straight Lines, non-linear innovation, resilient business models, Transformation Labs, transformation workshops, what's next for business
Crowdfunding, everyone funding startups
Crowdfunding changes the rules for investing: In many ways Crowdfunding has come about because the Venture Capital market for startups has failed. So it is not surprising that a wide variety of startups are now finding their initial capital from crowdfunding platforms. It is predicted that by 2014 $5.1bn will have been raised through crowdfunding platforms. Continue reading
December 5, 2013
Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, angel investing, best crowdfunding in UK, crowdcube, crowdfunding, crowdfunding manchester, crowdfunding nordics, crowdfunding scotland, crowdfunding UK, Equity crowdfunding for SMEs, evolution of venture funding, failure uk vc market, funding circle, future local economies, george osborne working until 70, innovation through smes, JOBS ACT, Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, Lawbite at google campus, Matthew Hancock MP, mosaic solar crowdfunding, National Crowdfunding Association, No Straight Lines, people powered innovation, Small and medium enterprises, startup britain, Startup company, syndicate room, uk crowdfunding association, United States, Venture capital
Exploring the future potential of Scotland
This was first posted at the Art of Hosting Scotland What kind of future do we want for Scotland? Today has been a special day. This morning 50 strangers, more or less, came together to begin a journey of, the … Continue reading
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, art of hosting, civil society systems transformation, collective intelligence, community of purpose, Crofting, designing people powered organisations, harnessing collective intelligence, innovation eco-systems, innovation in healthcare, jo confino, lasting legacy for civic society, management systems, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, nova scotia+participatory leadership+Tim Merry+art of hosting, participatory leadership, participatory policing, rural parliament scotland, Scotland, Scottish Government, scottish government white paper independence, tim merry, toke moller, what next for scotland
Lee Smolin and Robert MacFarlane seeing the power and potential of a chaotic world
One of our obsessions is to see chaos as uncontrollable, primordial, dangerous which we as a species must strive at all costs to eviscerate from our lives. As physicist Lee Smolin wrote in Time Reborn, “No living system is an isolated system. We all ride flows of matter and energy – flows driven ultimately by the energy from the sun. Once enclosed in a box (in a prefiguration of our eventual internment), we die”. Continue reading
November 26, 2013
Ambiguity / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged a complex world demands non-linear thinking, Alan Moore, art of hosting scotland, chaos theory, designing people powered organisations, Energy, enterprising futures schumacher, High performance organizations, Lee Smolin, Logical consequence, Mathematics, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, nonlinear world, Nova Scotia, open systems design, openness new model society, openness resilience, Organization, Philosophy, six steps to transformation, Smolin, the power of chaos, transformational design
High performance organizations through respect for people
Openness is resilience, leadership with purpose: Whereas one can see what happens when people exist in an open culture, which is led by purpose rather than a kpi. Two very different stories spring to mind, [1] the organisational systems change that was delivered through a process of participatory leadership in Nova Scotia for public health, [2] in Japan with Toyota. If you start to think about designing for whole systems with real human beings operating in those systems – I believe we see a very different organisational design emerge. Continue reading
November 17, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, art of hosting scotland, designing for humanity, designing healthcare systems, designing high performance organizations, future healthcare, future manufactuing, higher performing organizations, innovation nova scotia healthcare, innovation people power, innovation systems thinking, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, north staffordshire hospital system failure, Open innovation, Otto Scharmer, radical redesign business, the greatest asset of an organization, theory u, transforming peoples lives
From a mechanistic to a natural philosophy of science
Rupert Sheldrake takes us on a journey to stand in a different place and look at science from a natural perspective rather than a mechanistic one. Whether we think about science, management, organisational design. Our machine age: Newtonian determinstic thinking has permeated all aspects of our daily living lives. Sheldrake represents a broader philosophical evolution of reappraising how we see our world, universe and cosmology. Continue reading
November 3, 2013
Adaptiveness / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged A new science of life, Alan Moore, business transformation, connected dynamic organism, new design for life, new models of business, No Straight Lines, nonlinear design, nonlinear innovation, Philosophy of Science, science and dogma, science universal possession of humanity, the transformation management, theology of science
Russ Ackoff, a system is a hole with a W
a talk by Russ Ackoff – which is both funny and profound. His quote that a system is a (w)hole, spelt with a W was fantastic – his insight that a system is not a sum of its parts but a sum if the interactions that take place – genius for its clarity. He made the point that to understand this concept write a note with your writing hand, then cut it off and see what happens. He is known as the father of systems thinking. Continue reading
October 31, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Business, Clare Crawford-Mason, constraints of design, Continual improvement process, Deming, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, effectiveness vs efficiency, John Seddon, Lloyd Dobyns, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, quality as effectiveness, quality of life, stafford beer, systems design, Systems thinking, the vanguard method, toyota way, true knowledge exists in a network, w edwards deming
The engaged organisation outperforms the disengaged organisation
a recent Gallup poll pulled up some interesting insights. Companies with engaged workforces achieve higher earnings than organisations that fail to engage their employees. Engaged organisations have 3.9 times the earnings per share growth rate compared to an organisation with lower engagement in the same industry. Continue reading
October 30, 2013
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, art of hosting, Barbara Ehrenreich, designing the smart organization, employee engagement, Gallup, Generation Y, green business, humanos, Job Growth, John Seddon, lean business, No Straight Lines, non-linear innovation, nova scotia+participatory leadership+Tim Merry+art of hosting, participatory leadership, radical redesign business, Richard Sennett, the engaged organization, toyota way, United States
Lessons in craftsmanship: Tashi Mannox - Tibetan Calligrapher
Tashi Mannox Tibetan Calligrapher, says, it is commitment that gives you freedom, which reminds me of the truth that, the committed craftsman is the engaged craftsman. And that craftsman is always curious and happy to share the work and their knowledge. Continue reading
October 13, 2013
Craftsmanship / Openness / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Beijing, Buddhism, craft+ethics, crafted life, craftsmanship, Dalai Lama, design thinking, hand heart mind, Local Motors, Mike Friton, Nicholas DiChiara, No Straight Lines, poetry of craft, principles of craftsmaship, Seamus Heaney, Systems thinking, ten steps to being a better craftsman, the craftsman+innovation, Tibet, Tibetan, Tibetan alphabet, Tibetan culture, ushahidi
Those Incredible Edibles from Todmorden and further afield
A couple of weeks ago I headed north to a place called Todmorden, or Tod for those in the know. This is the homeland, of a particular beast called Incredible Edible. Incredible Edible has a mission to inspire and educate the world about food, local food, local food systems, locally gown food, local food economies, and how to lead a more resilient life that is also more fun. Continue reading
October 12, 2013
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, allotments, business in the community, coherent systems of meaning, communal identity+meaning+belonging, cooperatives and civic community, design thinking, designing resilient food systems, England, Food, food tourism, France, future food economies, gift community+value of gift exchange, green business, Incredible Edible, Jarvis Cocker, Local food, local food economies, localism, narrative+place, New World, No Straight Lines, ordinary+organic+orginiality, organic, Pam Warhurst+incredible edible+defra, participatory cultures+participatory tools+designing for transformation+design+transformation+ambiguity+scenario planning+creativity+openness+adaptiveness+narrative+storytelling, reconnecting capital to place, social innovation, soil association, systems thinikng, Systems thinking, The Life and Death of Democracy, Todmorden, transformational design, urban and town planning, urban farming, West Yorkshire, yeo valley farms
Rupert Sheldrake: science more non-linear than we appreciate
Rupert Sheldrake talking about how science, that great bastion of exploration, still has its mechanistic head on. Mechanistic science, top down, and hierarchical. Sheldrake argues science as an idea still wears the mindset that everything is machine like, fixed like Newtons concept of cosmology. That there is no mystery in this world, all can be ordered and measured, indeed his story about the variations in light speed are compelling, and the attempts to regulate its speed at a constant, when in fact it varies, as does gravity. Continue reading
October 4, 2013
Tagged Alan Moore, Anomalies and Alternative Science, asymmetry+string theory_dynamic systems+swarming+mesh theory+non-linear logic+theirmal dynamics+aharon Farkash+complex networks+instability+internal dynamics+per bak, Cosmology, dogmas of scientific materialism, Evolution, Lee Smolin, lone frank, myths of science, nature as a network, Newton, No Straight Lines, Open innovation, open science, Philosophy of Science, rupert sheldrake, Speed of light, speed of light measurement, Systems thinking, Ted, theory of the universe, time reborn, Universe
Ecuador planning a commons based economy
They also say that disruption never comes from the centre, it always comes from the edge, from places where thinking and doing differently has greater flexibility. Perhaps it will not be the power houses of the industrial order where real and meaningful change comes from but elsewhere. So it was no surprise that the Government of Ecuador has launched a major strategic research project to “fundamentally re-imagine Ecuador” based on the principles of open networks, peer production and commoning, Continue reading
September 26, 2013
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged commons based economy, Creative Commons, David Bollier, design thinking, designing for transformation, Ecuador, FLOK Society, green economy, IAEN, Latin America, Michel Bauwens, Ministry of Human Resource and Knowledge in Ecuador, national plan for good living, National Plans, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, open commons region, open finance, open hardware, open networks, open science, p2p foundation, participatory cultures, peer production, Quito, Systems thinking, the regenerative society, World Bank, world bank+criticism
To the people that 'build stuff'
What makes work meaningful? Why do we go to work? Why should we work? For whom do we work? Is work about meaning and identity more than money? Should our work be meaningful? What fulfills us and what gets us out of bed on a Monday morning? It does not matter whether you are a coder, or a metal fabricator like Nicholas DiChiara, work is something that in my mind has always been about purpose and passion. Continue reading
September 25, 2013
Craftsmanship / Openness / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, American Craftsman, coherent systems of meaning, Craftsman, designing the smart organisation, ethics of craftsmanship, granfors bruks, happiness+work+meaning+identity, human identity+society, identity as a journey, innovation workshop, life of craftsmanship, Master craftsman, modern culture bankruptcy of meaning, moral identity, Nicholas DiChiara, No Straight Lines, principles of craftsmanship, purpose and the organization, purpose and work, Richard Sennett, six principles no straight lines, ten steps to being a better craftsman, the crafted organization, The Meaning of Educational Quality
What happens when organisations no longer fit reality
In my previous post on Scotland exploring a different reality, I wanted to share Tim Merry’s views on the need to create better systems more in tune wit the nature of humanity. Tim talks about meeting change with dignity. In No Straight Lines the core philosophy is we can do better and we need to deschool ourselves from a linear and mechanistic way of thinking and doing. Here is Tim expanding on his philosophy on systems change at a human scale. Continue reading
September 24, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown
Tagged Alan Moore, design thinking, designing for humanity, economic systems thinking, how to create transformational change, innovation at a human scale, No Straight Lines, nova scotia+participatory leadership+Tim Merry+art of hosting, participatory leadership, Scotland, six steps to transformation, Systems thinking, transforming economies, transforming education, transforming health care
Participatory Leadership and transformational change in Scotland
How can we create better, much better? Where we can create better functioning societies, that are regenerative, more resilient. How can we shape the future of a country to be better prepared for a more uncertain and perhaps more challenging world?
An invitation to learn how to lead change at a systemic and human level Continue reading
September 21, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged A green deal for Scotland?, Alan Moore, an architecture of participation, art of hosting, Better together?, citizenship+participation, civic humanism+civic virtue, co-creation+open+openness+participatory leadership+language, Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill, community innovation, complexity theory, designing for humanity, designing the smart organization, Edinburgh, Elinor Ostrom, enterprise innovation, future civic society, future local government, future of scotland, future scottish business, future scottish healthcare, Glasgow, healthcare innovation, human capital, human centered design, humanistic psychology, Jim Mather, jim mather minister for enterprise, Ken Cloke, KPMG, Mariana Mazzucato, markets are conversations, No Straight Lines, Nova Scotia, nova scotia+participatory leadership+Tim Merry+art of hosting, p2p society, participatory innovation, participatory leadership, Regeneration Strategy, Scotland, Scottish Government, Scottish green party, Scottish national identity, social capital, Straight Lines, Systems thinking, the ash centre fordemocratic governanc, the support economy, the tragedy of the commons, Up Helly Aa, what makes a healthy civic society?
The lean green business system
The authors argue that things that are good for the planet are also good for business. Studies from the the Economist Intelligence Unit, Harvard, MIT Sloan, and others indicate that organizations that commit to goals of zero waste, zero harmful emissions, and zero use of nonrenewable resources clearly outperform their competition. Continue reading
September 15, 2013
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Adnams Brewery, Alan Moore, bio engineering, Business model innovation, design thinking, designing for the collective good, designing resilient food systems, Economist Intelligence Unit, environmental management, green business, green economy, green engineering, holistic design, Hunter Lovins, John Seddon, Kanban, Lean manufacturing, Manufacturing, natural capitalism, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, organizational design, quality of life, radical redesign business, systems design, theory of constraints, Toyota, toyota global vision, toyota way, United States, value based systems
Adaptability: inspiring generations
I don’t want to have an impact on leadership in current organizations. I want to inspire young people. And when a child is two or three and starts farming mushrooms on the coffee waste of mum, then that child will never ever accept that there is real hunger in the world. The child will only believe that there is ignorance in the world. Continue reading
September 10, 2013
Tagged adaptiveness, Agriculture, Alan Moore, david attenborough, economic systems thinking, Environment, firm of the future, food security, future of food, green commerce, Hunter Lovins, natural capitalism, No Straight Lines, organic evolution, pattern building+adaptiveness, Population, Population growth, Poverty, Pro-Population Control, Systems thinking, United Nations, urban farming, urban forests, World population, yeo valley farms
The Almonte horsemen community and craftsmanship
Why do people work hard, and take pride in what they do? A short film about the Almonte horsemen. The narration is very simple but eloquent, that talks philosophically about meaning, identity, nature, belonging, ethics, community and the joy that comes from being committed to ones craft. Continue reading
September 8, 2013
Craftsmanship / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, Almonte horsemen, American Craftsman, business ethics, collective craftsmanship, craftman, craftsmanship, design thinking, designing resilient food systems, environmental policy+social science+ethics+biology, ethics+sequence of generations, future of society, human nature, life of craftsmanship, maker movement, natural capitalism, new systems of ethics, No Straight Lines, nonlinear design, openness+resilience, organizational design, Paul Hawken, principles of craftsmanship, Richard Sennett, sustainable communities+sustainable economies, Systems thinking, the crafted organization, the fitness of human nature, the nature and the structure of the self, the nature of the firm, The total, the total+what we take+what we make+what we waste, the wholeness of nature+bortoft, understanding the constructed nature of community, values system
Openness the new model for society
It has been said that privacy is dead. Not so. It’s secrecy that is dying. Openness will kill it. Writes Jeff Jarvis, he goes on, Openness is the more powerful weapon. Openness is the principle that guides, for example, Guardian journalism. Openness is all that can restore trust in government and technology companies. And openness – in standards, governance, and ethics – must be the basis of technologists’ efforts to take back the the net. That said its not just about the net, its about the future direction of our societies, what does an open society looks like? Continue reading
September 7, 2013
Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, bruce schneier, Charles Handy, christopher soghoian, Creative Commons, dan auerbach, designing for transformation, electronic frontier foundation, Elinor Ostrom, eva galperin, exploitation of common internet encryption technologies, future business, future democracy, future of society, jeff jarvis, journal social issues, karl popper, leadership, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, nonlinear thinking, open academic journals, open book, open business models, open civic society, open commons, Open Data, open democracy, open economics, open education, open enterprise, open genome, open government, open health+open data+open data records, Open innovation, open journalism, open manufacturing, open media, open organisation, open science, Open Society Foundations, open society institute, open society+architecture, open source movement, open source+open access, open systems, open to new ideas, open will, openness, organizational design, p2p society, Systems thinking, the commons, the open society, theory u, Tony Judt
Lone Frank asks big questions around data and genetics
Since genetic information does not determine you, it does not in itself tell you anything really important. It won’t be very important to not have your genetic information in the public domain. It won’t seem very important to people to keep it private. Our sense of privacy is evolving; our pictures, out personal data our views of what needs to be kept private change. So why would our genetic data be different? Continue reading
September 6, 2013
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / Technology
Tagged BigData, biology, consumer genetics, crafting resilient healthcare, data policy+future data policy+future IT policy, deCODEme, designing a lightweight healthcare system, disease risk, Eukaryotic, future genetics, future health, genetic data, Genetics, Genome, genomics+big data, health innovation, health monitoring, Human Genome Project, medicare, My Beautiful Genome, Navigenics, No Straight Lines, Nucleic acid sequence, open health+open data+open data records, personal data, personal identity+modern selfhood, Personally identifiable information, preventative health care, psychology+community+mental health+communication, Public domain
If data is the new oil where are its wells?
John Naughton in his recent column for The Observer, wrote that in 2006 or thereabouts, a phrase that data was new the oil came into public consciousness. At the time I was sitting on the board of a company specialising in large scale social data analytics (in those days mobile networks were large scale social networks), And I liked to use the term raw data has no value but refined data is the black gold of the 21st Century. Continue reading
September 5, 2013
Openness / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Bradley Manning, cloud providers working with big data, cyber security, data, data analytics, data fear, data policy+future data policy+future IT policy, data the individual and the state, data+society, edward snowden, future social media, IBM, john naughton, Manuel Castells, meaning and data, monitory democracy, national security agency, No Straight Lines, open democracy+civil society+ethics, open health+open data+open data records, Slavoj Žižek, the open society, United States, wikileaks
The engaged craftsman is a committed craftsman
A great, short film about a man committed to his craft and how that shapes his life. What can we learn from that? Continue reading
September 3, 2013
Tagged Alan Moore, business ethics, craft+beauty, craft+ethics, craftsmanship, craftsmanship+innovation, firm of the future, green economics, Hephaestus, Life as craftsmanship, natural capitalism, No Straight Lines, poetry of craft, principles of craftsmaship, the craft, the crafted organization, the crafted society
The overview effect and a pioneering spirit
Our nonlinear world is about connectedness, our connectedness to each other and in fact to a wider universe. Something I explore in No Straight Lines. I am deeply interested in our humanity and the human spirit. I am interested in humanities capacity for a higher yearning, which inspires us to work towards a greater good. Our pioneering spirit today should be more about the quality of life, and better governance of this planet. When we see the world as a deeper system, we see the world differently as this moving film explains. Continue reading
August 30, 2013
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, blue marble, coherent systems of meaning, culture+meaning+identity, design for humanity, Earth, frank white, interconnectedness of life, meta-level systems thinking, modern society frameworks of meaning, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, open systems, overview effect, sharing meaning in a networked world, smlxl, space exploration, Systems thinking, transformational experience
True knowledge exists in a network
Lee Smolin describes our universe at an atomic level as curved, open, diverse and highly networked, Manuel Castells describes our society as evolving into a networked one which as significant cultural and political implications, Janine Benyus talks about nature as a highly networked open, diverse eco-system from which we as humans have much to learn revolutionising how we invent, compute, heal ourselves, harness energy, repair the environment, and feed the world. Continue reading
August 26, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired By Nature, designing for transformation, designing resilient food systems, firm of the future, holistic design, human centered design, Janine Benyus, knowledge, Lee Smolin, living systems, Manuel Castell, multi-disciplinary design, natural ecosystems, Network Society, networks and disruption of traditional organization, networks as power, Open system (systems theory), open systems design, organizational design, power of networks, systems based design, systems vision of the world
Open systems evolve to states of higher organization
I am almost finished reading Lee Smolins book Time Reborn, which is as fascinating as it is challenging. This book is about time and cosmology. A little out of my remit in some ways but I find that at times reading at the far edges of ones knowledge can lead to some interesting insights.
In No Straight Lines I use Openness as a principle, arguing that it can lead to a number of outcomes which are far more beneficial than closed systems; from accelerated innovation, to new ways of organising and providing a more invigorating cultural context for organisations to exist in, even new business models. Continue reading
August 22, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Openness
Tagged Alan Moore, closed systems, complex systems, Conservation, dynamic systems, economic systems thinking, Energy, firm of the future, future healthcare, Lee Smolin, linux+open society, networks the fundamental pattern of life, No Straight Lines, non-linear design, open business models, open democracy+civil society+ethics, open health+open data+open data records, open manufacturing, organisational design, Organization, p2p society, Principle of sufficient reason, radical re-design of business, self-organized systems, Smolin, Systems thinking, Technology
Open source manufacturing
I picked this up from the wonderful p2p Foundation wiki about open source manufacturing, interesting to me as principle 3 of No Straight Lines in Open and Openness – Openness is resilience. I came across the idea and practice of open manufacturing when writing the book, exploring how far openness as a principle and practice can take us, and how it can play a key role in the transformational re-design of business Continue reading
August 16, 2013
Tagged Advocacy, Alan Moore, Articles, common pool resources, Design, Directories, Elinor Ostrom, Local Motors, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, open democracy+civil society+ethics, open education, Open innovation, open leadership, open organization, Open Society, open society institute, open source manufacturing, opensource, Organization, p2p foundation, Project Hosting, smlxl, the success of open source+weber
Humanness of network knowledge
when we see things really scale up on the net, as we do with Wikipedia or some of the large collaborative projects like Linux and Debian and the like, the decision making changes, and rather than thinking, oh, we’ll find one person who’s smart enough to make decisions, no, we have a network, let’s do this in a networked way. And what are networks good at? Well, if a decision can be kept local, the person who knows most about the thing is the person who is dealing with it every day, the local decision. Continue reading
August 11, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Business, co-creation, compexity, Corporation, crowdfund, crowdfunding, Debian, Decision making, Hacking, harvesting natural systems, kevin kelly, leadership, Linux, natural systems, No Straight Lines, participatory cultures, participatory tools, systemns design, Systems thinking, the biology of machines, ushahidi, values based organization, Wikipedia
Seeking authenticity and a nonlinear life
I am a big fan of David Boyles work, and this book is one I think is as relevant today as it was when he wrote it in 2004. In this book he writes about the determined rejection of the fake, the virtual, the spun and the mass-produced, in the search for authenticity. Continue reading
August 9, 2013
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness
Tagged Alan Moore, Charles Handy, david boyle, future agriculture, holistic design, Incredible Edible, localism, Michael Schuman+local living economies, micro breweries, natural capitalism, No Straight Lines, p2p economies, p2p society, Paul Hawken, scale, slow food movement, Social science, the ecology of commerce, the new economics, urban farming
Crowdfunding, goteo, localism, and non-linear innovation
Goteo demonstrates a people / community centered design approach to getting stuff done, bottom up networked, where everyone has something to give and something to gain. If we are looking for a pattern one can also point to Mosaic Banking on the sun, a community investing in sustainable energy. Collective crowdfunding is also part of a global movement to go around those institutions that people believe have failed them. Embedded in such design is a philosophy of networked sociability, and trust. As none of this works without it. It points to an alternative model of funding local projects which also mitigates risk. Continue reading
August 7, 2013
Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, community production, crowdcube, crowdfund, design literacy, economy 2.0, Entrepreneur, future, IndieGoGo, Kickstarter, mondragon, New Economy, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, open hardware, Open innovation, organizational design, p2p economy, p2p society, participatory cultures, participatory tools, RocketHub, seeders, smlxl, spain, systems design, the commons
Rupert Sheldrake and the dogmas of scientific materialism
TED banned this talk, I wonder what was so controversial? Of particular interest to me was the idea of variations in light-speed and gravity the big G. Sheldrake goes onto talk about the big idea that the laws of nature at an atomic level are never set, are not constant as Newton proposed but are in a permanent state of evolution. Continue reading
August 5, 2013
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Education / Openness / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Alternative, cern, Collapse: How societies choose to fail or survive, elementary particles, general relativity, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Graham Hancock, Gravitation, laws of nature, Lee Smolin, light-speed, natures laws, networked identity, networks and disruption of traditional organization, Newton, No Straight Lines, open to new ideas, Phenomenology of Perception, Physics, quantum mechanics, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, rupert sheldrake, smlxl, Speed of light, Ted, the atlantic, The Network Society, the process of evolution, time reborn, variations in light speed
6 steps to transform the way we do business
Published in The Guardian Sustainable Business. Our institutions, organisations and economies were conceived, designed and built for a simpler more linear world. Overwhelmed by complexity, these have become disrupted and unsustainable. There is an urgent need to transform our societies, organisations and economies by better design to thrive in what I call a “non-linear world”. Continue reading
August 3, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged 1010, Alan Moore, Business, Business model innovation, business models, Design, designing for transformation, dynamic adaptive systems, Earth, Economic model, economic systems thinking, enterprise open innovation, firm of the future, Guardian, Math, No Straight Lines, Nonlinear system, Open innovation, Organization, participatory cultures, participatory tools, Systems thinking
Where do big ideas come from?
Recently I was participating a workshop that was exploring the question, where do big ideas come from? We were a group of 20 people and asked to bring with us 2 ideas each that we found intriguing, ideas that we were undecided about but wanted to explore. Then through an intense collaborative process over 2 days we explored those ideas, digging deeper into them, exploring their emergence, their context, their potential for good and also disruption. We explored patterns, connections and looked systemically at these ideas. Continue reading
July 30, 2013
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged co-creation+open+openness+participatory leadership+language, Copernican heliocentrism, design innovation, Galileo, Galileo Galilei, holistic design, Johannes Kepler, Kepler, learnign as collaborative process, learning process, Lee Smolin, No Straight Lines, organisational learning, participatory cultures, participatory leadership, pattern recognition, Salzburg, Scientific Revolution, smlxl, Systems thinking
Are we naked with or without data? Edward Snowden asks a big question
As the shape of our world evolves, we are also in political transformation, both in terms of the political relationship between the individual and commercial organisations and the large Politics of how we organise and run our societies. What should government look like in a non-linear world? Are we creating and running the right systems in the right way? How does data change/impact the process of democracy and civil organisation? Continue reading
July 10, 2013
Tagged Alan Moore, Big data, Brickstarter, Creative Commons, data analytics, data mining, data protection act+uk, data the black gold of the 21st century, data+democracy, edward snowden, future data, meta data, national security agency, New York City, News of the World, No Straight Lines, Open Data, Ordnance Survey, policing+crime+data, Politics, Prism, rupert murdoch, San Francisco, smlxl, social network analytics
Is it solutions or transformation that we seek?
This where I think organisations need a more nuanced approach to Transformation – being able to describe a new destination, with if necessary new organisational capability. They need innovation to be interwoven into the organisation to deliver business model innovation Continue reading
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, Business model innovation, business transformation, crowdfunding, Donald Schön, firm of the future, Henry Ford Clinic, leadership, Lego, Local Motors, Organization, Patients Know Best, six principles no straight lines, smlxl, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action
On beauty
In No Straight Lines, I talk about the Human-OS, the human operating system and argue that these are the fundamentals of what we need to think about when we design for the needs of humanity. The last point is beauty. Continue reading
June 16, 2013
Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness
Tagged aesthetics, alan moore+no straight lines, co-creation, complexity, craftsmanship, Design, firm of the future, Health care, human nature, Local Motors, No Straight Lines, nonlinear, Nova Scotia, openness, optimum complexity+beauty, participatory leadership, Philosophy, the human-os, trust, what next for business?
How big data can help better understand social risks and opportunities
‘Black Swans turn Grey’: The risk landscape is undoubtedly shifting. PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), invoking Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s recent book, posit that ‘Black Swans’ are increasingly ‘turning grey’. By this, they mean that previously catalytic and unforeseen events are becoming more regular; betraying an increased level of uncertainty faced by the global community in the face of growing connectivity and dependency. Continue reading
June 3, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Amnesty International, arab spring, BigData, Black Swan, crisis mananagement, enterprise risk management, No Straight Lines, non-linear thinking, political risk, predictive analytics, risk analysis, risk management, social data, social dynamics, social network theory, social networks, World Bank
Old World New World, connections, networks, pathways
Pilgrim paths, green roads, drove roads, corpse roads, trods, leys, dykes. drongs, sarns, snickets, holloways, bostles, shutes, driftways, lichways, ridings, halterpaths, cartways, carneys, causeways, herepaths. In Holland there are doodwegen and spookwegen – death roads and ghost roads. In Spain … Continue reading
May 30, 2013
Adaptiveness / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Big data, camino, communication based theory, communications media+political expression, disruption of the industrial age by networked world, global governance and the networked world, networked world, networks, No Straight Lines, richard long, sense making, sharing meaning in a networked world
No Straight Lines keynote @PINC
Alan Moore keynote at PINC: Today’s and tomorrow’s executives and leaders face a complex design challenge, in transforming existing organisations and economies from a linear to a non-linear economy. Executives and leaders must be able to thrive in a world of constant change and be able to create and lead agile organisations that deliver higher performance with lower input costs. No Straight Lines has six framing principles that teach the philosophy and practice of how to design organisations and economic models for a non-linear world. Continue reading
May 19, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, antifragile, business innovation, civil society and cultural power, communications innovation, design thinking, designing for humanity, designing organizational platforms, Financial Capital, freedom lab, healthcare innovation, keynote, leadership, LEGO CUUSOO, Local Motors, mobile commerce, networked society, No Straight Lines, Nonlinear system, Open Society, p2p economics, p2p society, participatory leadership, Patients Know Best, Social justice, technological revolution and financial capital, think tank, transformation lab, Worldreader.org, yeo valley farms
I don't see these things as risk, I see them as trust
I came across Amanda Palmer and was compelled by her story. In fact her entire life is non-linear, and through that life she has explored a different way of seeing, and through that a different type of wisdom. It resonated with me and with No Straight Lines. In her words, when we really see each other we help each other – and, Continue reading
May 12, 2013
Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, Amanda Palmer, beth noveck+participatory culture+crowdsourcing, collapse of trust in political elites, crisis+hope+faith+trust, crowdfunding, fan community, Grand theft orchestra, leadership in the digital economy, Muhammad Ali, No Straight Lines, nonlinear, organizational culture and leadership, participatory cultures, risk management, rules of participatory culture, transformation+trust, trust, trust+business, trusting connections
Consciousness, logic and mysticism in a non-linear world
In a complex non-linear world we have to open ourselves to exploring alternative realities and possibilities. Pushing to the edge of scientific thought we bump up against the unknown, the super-connected perhaps even the mystical. How do we make sense of that? Continue reading
May 11, 2013
Tagged Alan Moore, nature of reality, No Straight Lines, Phenomenology of Perception, science and mysticism
Society, organisations, economies reshaped by mobile communications and big data
A few weeks ago I was in Miami, at the invitation of Blackberry giving the opening keynote based on the No Straight Lines project on how mobile technologies are reshaping and transforming our world. From the living breathing communications eco-system that is wrapping itself around the earth, to… Continue reading
May 5, 2013
Adaptiveness / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, augmented reality, bemobile 2013, Big data, BlackBerry, blended reality, chronic healthcare, chronic healthcare+innovation, cloud computing, collective intelligence, crisis maangement, data security, driverless cars, google glass, healthcare, m2m, machine to machine, mit media lab, mobile technologies, networked society, No Straight Lines, p2p society, Patients Know Best, pin wheel, rio de janerio, ropits, smart cities, ushahidi, world reader, Worldreader.org
una breve introducción sin líneas rectas
En una sociedad mediática, las unidades básicas son las grandes “masas” colectivas. La sociedad red, sin embargo, está formada por individuos que establecen conexiones voluntarias con otros individuos, sea cual sea su ubicación. En una sociedad red, la red se convierte en la unidad básica de organización a todos los niveles (individuos, grupos u organizaciones). Las redes sociales virtuales, las redes de medios de comunicación y las redes tecnológicas actúan como catalizadores de la sociedad red. Continue reading
April 22, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged ¿qué sigue para América Latina, Alan Moore, ciudades inteligentes, comunidad, culturas participativas, de igual a igual la sociedad, economía, economía verde, educación futura, empresa como comunidad, futuros negocios, grandes volúmenes de datos, identidad, medios de comunicación, móvil, natural para los negocios, no lineal, No Straight Lines, organización narrativa, pensamiento de diseño, pensamiento sistémico, red economía, sin líneas rectas, tecnologia
Big data and the sentient world
Chapter 5 of No Straight Lines addresses this emerging issue of data. The reason is that the fastest data set revolution is being created by you, every time we text search travel buy we add to the data mountain some 2.5 billion gigabytes a day we, that’s all of humanity are collectively writing a new consciousness into existence. In fact the architecture of our own brain suggests the future of sentience may reside in a different kind of BIG. The question is how do we make meaning out of this data? How can data help us meet the challenges in our daily lives, challenges for our cities, for our changing climate, the ever increasing demand to better manage the resources we have? Continue reading
April 7, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, BigData, cloud computing, cloud providers working with big data, control data institute, crowd aid exchange, data analytics, data architectures+social interaction, data meaning, data mining, data networks, data+democracy, data+health, data+marketing, data+prediction, data+society, Databases, designing with data, Environment, foursquare+girlswalker+sony+softbank+data+geo location+matrix+mixi+social networking+mobile business+mpesa, future data, Google, gps receivers, Hal Varian, Hurricane Katrina, location based data, machine to machine, meaning and data, No Straight Lines, Open Data, open regions+data, p2p+data, peer to peer networks, policing+crime+data, predicting crime, rio smart city, sentient world, smart cities, United States, unstructured data, wellness
Nothing is sacred + the meaningless cosmos = the hungry spirit
In No Straight Lines, Charles Handy takes us on a journey of what he calls The Hungry Spirit. Handy introduces us to the African idea of the lesser and greater hunger. The lesser hunger is for the things that sustain life; the goods and the services, and the money to pay for them, which we all need. The greater hunger is for an answer to the question ‘why?’, for some understanding of what that life is for. Richard Tarnas argues You could say that a cosmology shapes everything that happens in a civilisation. You know, when Dante created in ‘The Divine Comedy’ the whole cosmology that combined the ancient Greek and the Christian universe into one, and that really reflected the whole civilisation’s sense of what it was about. The cathedrals aspiring to the heavens that were moved by the angels and God was looking over all and hell was down below. And we were poised between good and evil, between God and Satan. And you have native American cosmologies that are very different from the Hindu cosmology, etcetera.
Continue reading
April 3, 2013
Ambiguity / Openness / System breakdown
Tagged Alan Moore, Anomalies and Alternative Science, C. Wright Mills, Charles Handy, consumer psychology, Cosmology, future of the consumer, hindu cosmology, J. G. Ballard, Joseph Stiglitz, Joyless Economy, Lizabeth Cohen, No Straight Lines, the divine comedy, Tibor Scitovsky, United States
Upgrading civic infrastructure for a non-linear world
Michael Sandel argues there’s a role for governments, for companies, for civil society, for religious institutions, for educational institutions, for the media. He says all of these institutions can contribute toward forming values and strengthening civic virtue. But so many of these institutions, are in disarray or discredited, that they are not all in very strong health. And that’s part of our challenge. Continue reading
Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / System breakdown
Tagged Alan Moore, Cairo, Civic virtue, Civil society, design challenge, design literacy, ego to eco, enterprising futures, firms of the future, future commerce, future education, future government, future healthcare, future literacy, future religion, Government, leadership, legal systems, Michael Sandel, No Straight Lines, smart cities, Social justice, social justice achieved through innovation, Sustainability
Democratising legal documents for SME's
LawBit is an online legal service which provides “simple contracts for small companies”. Lawbit are operating a 10 day trial and are looking for SME’s to join in a small revolution. Continue reading
March 19, 2013
Adaptiveness / Openness / Technology
Tagged 10 things i hate about lawyers, chamber of commerce, contract law, Dispute resolution, fair law, helping sme's, Law, law 2.0, lawbit, Legal advice, legal advice for sme's, legal documemts, legal documents, Legal instrument, legal services, No Straight Lines, putting clients first, Service Providers, Services, uk business, United States, virtual law firm
Lessig on Aaron's Law, the law and justice in a non-linear world
Lawrence Lessig, inaugral lecture gives his perspectives on the Aaron Swartz, and where we go from here. Continue reading
February 24, 2013
Education / Openness / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, cory doctorow+open book, Creative Commons, digital free speech, future copyright law, future education, Lawrence Lessig, No Straight Lines, open democracy, open innovation+open region+open commons+open data+open society+p2p society+open api's+, open science, open society institute, open source+open access, p2p, sharing economy, Sharing+Openness+Decentralization+Free access to computers+World Improvement, the open society
The Gestalt Switch to the Human-OS
In The Life and Death of Democracy, John Keane points out that when democracy takes hold of people’s lives, it gives them a glimpse of the contingency of things. They are, he says: ‘injected with the feeling that the world can be other than it is – that situations can be countered, outcomes altered, people’s lives changed through individual and collective action.’ Do people feel this today? Democracy, says Keane, ‘thrives on humility and a shared sense of equality among citizens needs to be visceral’. Continue reading
February 17, 2013
Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Amartya Sen, arab spring, Benjamin Barber, consumer politics, consumer society, Democracy, democracy 2.0, George W. Bush, J. G. Ballard, life and death of democracy, Lizabeth Cohen, No Straight Lines, one nation, open democracy, open democracy+civil society+ethics, political economy, pussy riot, SOCAP, social capital, the joyless economy+tibor scitovsky, Tibor Scitovsky, twitter+democracy, twitter+protest, United States, ushahidi
Competing to innovate in the open society
An aspect of open collaboration literacy which may seem counter intuitive is that of competition. Competitions can attract people passionate about solving real world problems; these need to be open access attracting a true divergence of knowledge, and have a fine pedigree. The Longitude Prize was an act of Parliament (the Longitude Act) of the United Kingdom passed in July 1714 during the reign of Queen Anne. It established the Board of Longitude and offered a monetary reward for anyone who could find a simple and practical method for the precise determination of a ship’s longitude. Continue reading
February 8, 2013
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Board of Longitude, company of the future, Competition, enterprise open innovation, firm of the future, Innovation, innovation performance, innovation platforms, Longitude Prize, NASA, No Straight Lines, Open Society, radical redesign business, Space, stsyems thinking, Technology, technology strategy board, TopCoder
Open science part of our non-linear world
Science like other industries faces significantly interlinked challenges; how is science going to be funded in the future, and how does one accelerate scientific breakthrough? Who has the right to access? Because many innovative ideas that have changed society have arisen from the combination of curiosity and academic freedom. Continue reading
February 4, 2013
Education / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Elsevier, Fab lab, identity, Lawrence Lessig, networked research, No Straight Lines, Open access, Open research, open science commons, Open Source, Oxford University, San Diego, science+society, Timothy Gowers
The promise of an open innovation platform
The promise of an open innovation platform is that it has the ability to create value writes Jack Hughes of TopCoder. Indeed Chapter Seven of No Straight Lines, devotes itself to exploring the open society which offers better ways of sharing knowledge, power and wealth. In fact it is my belief that Openness as a principle and practice is resilience and that there is indeed a more sustainable approach to the varied and many challenges we face. Continue reading
February 3, 2013
Adaptiveness / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Business, business school, collaborative design, company as community, company of the future, Crowdsourcing, curatiba, design thinking, Elinor Ostrom, enterprise perfomance, firm of the future, Kenya, Kenyan, Knowledge management, No Straight Lines, open government, Open innovation, Open Source, participatory cultures, Patients Know Best, radical re-design of business, Straight Lines, Systems thinking, TopCoder, ushahidi+ngo+networked
How language shapes our thinking that then shapes us
In my journey of looking at how we create new, invigorating and regenerative ways of being, working, learning, I have increasingly become aware that the way that the language we use shapes our thinking and how we ultimately engage with the world. Continue reading
February 2, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Openness
Tagged Alan Moore, Business, company of the future, Creative Commons, design thinking, enterprise innovation, firm of the future, French Revolution, Language, Linguistics, Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, No Straight Lines, organizations of the future, pattern recognition, Social Sciences, Systems thinking, Vannevar Bush
Henry Jenkins interview No Straight Lines
Henry Jenkins interviews author Alan Moore: Through the years, we have remained in touch. Moore remains one of the most thoughtful people I have met — someone who reads broadly, who asks challenging questions, who is willing to explore alternative perspectives, and who is trying to construct his own theoretical model for the changes that are impacting our contemporary society. Continue reading
January 30, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Cambridge, collective craftsmanship, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, craftsmanship, engagement marketing, hand+heart+mind, Henry Jenkins, human os, identity, Innovation, Marketing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, No Straight Lines, Participatory culture, six principles no straight lines, smlxl, system upgrade, Systems thinking
Ushahidi: a story of non-linear innovation
As described in No Straight Lines – what we face in a complex challenging world is a design challenge. Here is a story of how without spending any money a group of highly motivated people came together from around the world with multiple-design skills and capability, to create what has become the cutting edge in crisis management, and a new radical design of NGO. This organisation is called Ushahidi. Continue reading
January 21, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, complexity, Connectivity and the Diffusion of Power, crisis manangement, design thinking, future ngo, Innovation, inovation workshop, mobile, Mobile Web, No Straight Lines, Open Data, Open innovation, Open Source, participatory cultures, Systems thinking, ushahidi+ngo+networked
The No Straight Lines Yearbook 2012
2012 was the year No Straight Lines was launched. It felt like a very hard year after hardly taking a breath between the research, writing and production and then onto bringing an idea into the world. But the sum of the parts adds up to quite an interesting year. Continue reading
January 9, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, complexity, future of business, future of the organization, hacking the future, Innovation, No Straight Lines, Patients Know Best, smlxl, the social enterprise, transformation
Austerity will not get us to the future we deserve, but creative entrepreneurial expression will
Britain socially and culturally has been shaped by our responses to successive technologies, harnessing their potential to enable us to play a significant role on the worlds stage. This moment in time really does feel like a turning point in our collective approach to the organisation of the economy and society. If we want our towns and cities to hum along, if we want to educate our young to be truly part of the 21st Century, if we want to create jobs and meaningful work, create breakthrough science and pharma projects, a healthcare system that really works, if we want factories of the future that can create value globally then is time for us to be as great as our finest engineers, industrialists, innovators who sought ways of getting things done that were transformational for our society and our economy. A mindset of austerity will not get us to that place. It is time for us to use one of our greatest assets creative entrepreneurial expression and design for transformation. Continue reading
January 2, 2013
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged alan moore+no straight lines, Andrew Haldane, complexity theory, Eastman Kodak, future britain, future education, future health, future manufacturing, future of business, human os, open innovation+open region+open commons+open data+open society+p2p society+open api's+, participatory cultures+participatory tools+designing for transformation+design+transformation+ambiguity+scenario planning+creativity+openness+adaptiveness+narrative+storytelling, systems design, Systems thinking
A sociedade a e economia no straight lines
An interview with HSM in Brazil about No Straight Lines. It is in Portuguese and you can download it here Continue reading
November 24, 2012
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged adaptatividade, assistência médica, capitalismo moral, co-criação, complexidade, comunicações móveis, concepção da empresa, concepção da empresa do futuro, concorrência e inovação, cultura, democracia aberta, desenho, economia colaborativa, educação, empresa do futuro, espiritualidade, espiritualidade do homem, ética, habilidade, humanidade conduz a tecnologia, identidade, inovação aberta, inovação automotiva, inovação cuidados crônicos de saúde, inovação cuidados de saúde, inovação financeira, movimento criador, mundo complexo, negócio, negócios sociais, negócios sustentáveis, organização, organização em rede, redesenho radical dos negócios, saúde, significado, sistemas de pensamento, sociedade, tecnologia, transformação, transformação de negócios
How to design for business transformation
Speaking at a number of events recently I have been asked, repeatedly whether large existing organisations can truly evolve and adapt sufficiently in volatile business conditions, and whether an organisation needs to be in deep crisis before they take the necessary radical steps. Continue reading
November 21, 2012
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, complexity, design thinking, Detroit, future business, future health, Kodak, Lego, LEGO CUUSOO, Local Motors, No Straight Lines, Nokia, nova scotia public health care, Open innovation, Organization, participatory healthcare, Patients Know Best, systems design, Systems thinking, transformation, ukti
The Radical Re-Design of Business
This week I was invited to Shanghai to speak about the transformational design of businesses at Radical Design Week – Shanghai.
In the Heavy Metal Seminar (heavy industry rather than a debate about Metallica), my topic was car manufacturing and how with state of the art 3D fabrication tools, combined with networked participatory cultures and tools, insights into rapid innovation and build practices, a car company Local Motors can build cars five times faster at one hundred times less the capital cost and sell its first production vehicle The Rally Fighter at $79,000. This is radical transformational business design. Continue reading
November 2, 2012
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged 3D printing, alan moore+no straight lines, Automotive industry, BMW, crowdfunding, DARPA, design thinking, designing transformational organization, Detroit, fabrication, innovation workshops, Local Motors, Nova Scotia, Open innovation, participatory cultures, radical venturing, Rally Fighter, shanghai, the lean organization, transformational design, World Food Programme
Waterstones Cambridge hosts No Straight Lines
On the 7th November 2012 starting at 5.30pm I shall be giving an introductory talk about No Straight Lines at Waterstones in Cambridge.
Humanity shifts gear when it demands fundamental change to its real world circumstances and this moment in time really does feel like a turning point in our collective approach to the organisation of the economy and society as a whole. So what does humanity want, and, how is this aspiration driving systemic change? Continue reading
October 9, 2012
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Cambridge, complexity, design thinking, designing for humanity, future business, future innovation, future nhs, Innovation, nature of business, networks, No Straight Lines, smlxl, Systems thinking, talks+cambridge, Waterstones+talks
No Straight Lines: insanely ambitious?
Insanely ambitious – or as Tony Judt asked why do we experience such difficulty even imaging a different sort of society? Why is it beyond us to conceive a different set of arrangements to our common advantage? Continue reading
August 22, 2012
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged alan moore+no straight lines, book review, designing resilient food systems, Diane Coyle, non-linearity+adaptive systems+complexity+innovation+networked leadership+managing complexity+adaptive management+resilience+maladaptive systems+maximum sustained yield+presistence of relat
Diane Coyle reviews No Straight Lines
I met Alan earlier in the week to talk about the book, which is about redesigning business models taking into account both the dramatic effects of digital technologies and the multiple crises – financial, environmental, social – crashing over western economies at present. It seemed quite an apt choice of reading material, having seen Danny Boyle’s brilliant vision of a Britain socially and culturally shaped by our responses to successive technologies. This moment in time really does feel like a turning point in our collective approach to the organisation of the economy and society. Continue reading
July 29, 2012
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged adapt, alan moore+no straight lines, Alison Hastings, craftsmanship, Danny Boyle, Diane Coyle, Economic, future business, Open Society, systems design
Constructing an open society
This is an extract from No Straight Lines about the need for an open society.
Context: Tony Judt in his small but powerful book Ill Fares the Land explains the imperative to embrace an open society should be blatantly obvious: that freedom and equality should be available to all, and especially now. For example how can a man be sentenced to 10 years in jail for possessing 5,5grams of cocaine, whilst HSBC and other banks laundered billions of drug cartel money. You get the point. Continue reading
July 24, 2012
Tagged Charles Handy, civic empowerment, civic engagement, collective society, culture, Education, erotic commerce, gift economy, Hyde, I + We = Why?, ill fares the land, illfares the land, knowledge, Lewis Hyde, making democracy work, Open Society, sharing economy, social cohesion, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World (Vintage), Tony Judt, trust
Spanish reviews of No Straight Lines
Es difícil encontrar visionarios de esta calibre que sean capaces de plasmar con tal sencillez el cambio de paradigma actual que estamos viviendo. Continue reading
July 10, 2012
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged alan moore+no straight lines, betterness+social divide+industrial divide+occupy+co-op capitalism+natural capitalism+alan greenspan+the end of work, collaborative economy+collaborative enterprise, complejidad, crisis del euro, culturas participativas, de crisis en el crecimiento, democracia abierta, design thinking, design+diversity, diseño para la humanidad, economía de la colaboración, el capitalismo moral, ética en los negocios, futuro de la banca, hackear el futuro, innovación, innovación sanitaria, innovation+design+architecture, la co-creación, la educación del futuro, partido popular+el mundo, santander, sistema de actualización
upgrading business to a human OS
This is a short story about a long journey, which explores the need to upgrade business to a human OS (human operating system), and maps out a navigation guide to a better business future. Continue reading
July 8, 2012
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Openness / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged #tdc12+#dolectures+#likeminds, a consumers republic, agroecosystem, alfred marshall+principles of economics, banking ethical alternatives, banking evolution+piero basetti+bolgna+emilio romagna, banking+corruption, banking+institutional investors, brands, business model innovation fro growth, business+creating sustainable future, campaign for rural development, civitas, community memory project+berkeley, community of practice+learning, community reinvestment act, community+collective survival, community+resistance identity, demos