Complexity and Random Overlaps

In this episode, Angie interviews author of Embracing Complexity: Strategic Perspectives for an Age of Turbulence, Jean Boulton, who is also an academic and management consultant, specializing in complexity theory. Boulton talks with us about many different concepts including: how complexity thinking compares to systems thinking, change management, organizational strategy, complexity as a worldview, and even how this field is shining a light on climate change.

In an interview at Singularity University’s Global Summit in San Francisco, Adene Sacks discussed how social impact leadership is evolving in today’s world.

Place & Date: 9am – 4:30pm, Nov 14th, 2017 at Clark Center S360, Stanford University.

Registration link: https://goo.gl/forms/rfb9S4jNQmsuKetf1

There will be three focusing questions for the Symposium:

What is “Complexity Science”?
How is Complexity Science integrated into various disciplines?
How does Complexity Science affect how we solve scientific, social, or philosophical problems?
All proceedings of the Symposium will be professionally video recorded and uploaded to our Youtube account, https://www.youtube.com/user/StanfordComplexity

Think like a network, act like a node. At IISC, we continue to emphasize that networks, not organizations, are the unit of social change. Part of the reason for this is that networks at their best …

Applying network theory to medieval records suggests that historical events are governed by “laws of history,” just as nature is bound by the laws of physics.

Self-organization refers to natural processes of human relating, that are similar at all scales of order in the natural world.The dynamics of self-organization are much more rich and complex than the simple patterns we use to model them.Being able to make sense of these dynamics enables us to build new potentials in teams. The level of trust rises when we recognize our basic human capacity to collaborate with each other. Narrative-based applications can visualize some of the subtle patterns that shape a team’s potential for acting in certain ways (and not others) over time.
There isn't one specific pattern that emerges from self-organization. The processes are so deep and fundamental to human interactions, that you cannot enforce any specific hierarchical or non-hierarchical pattern with rules.  Trust between people is an outcome of allowing people to freely self-organize. Complex networks of trust emerge and change as people continuously negotiate their relationships.

Worth a read!

"Third, we’re seeing the spontaneous rise of collaborative production: goods, services and organisations are appearing that no longer respond to the dictates of the market and the managerial hierarchy. The biggest information product in the world – Wikipedia – is made by volunteers for free, abolishing the encyclopedia business and depriving the advertising industry of an estimated $3bn a year in revenue.

Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Parallel currencies, time banks, cooperatives and self-managed spaces have proliferated, barely noticed by the economics profession, and often as a direct result of the shattering of the old structures in the post-2008 crisis.

You only find this new economy if you look hard for it. In Greece, when a grassroots NGO mapped the country’s food co-ops, alternative producers, parallel currencies and local exchange systems they found more than 70 substantive projects and hundreds of smaller initiatives ranging from squats to carpools to free kindergartens

What's the secret to unlocking the creativity hidden inside your daily work, and giving every great idea a chance? Harvard professor Linda Hill, co-author of "Collective Genius," has studied some of the world's most creative companies to come up with a set of tools and tactics to keep great ideas flowing -- from everyone in the company, not just the designated "creatives."

As readers of my blog may have noticed, I've mentioned Liberating Structures more and more over the past two years. I've used them extensively with clients, but