Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, meaning there is no reasonable higher instruction to define the various possible interactions.
A colleague in an organisation I partner with recently asked me for a CV for the website. So far, so normal. Then they asked for a list of presentations – something I've never really pulled together before. So I delved through the conference folders to find those times when I've Read more…
I'm on the train to Gatwick Airport for an interesting conference over the next three days. The topic's going to be interesting – covering social media, behaviour change and, one of my current interests, how you work with a group who have a fixed narrative – a conspiracy theory of Read more…
The other week, while researching this post, I came across some fantastic additional resources stemming from the GlobalGiving project. This video is great Even better yet, the GlobalGiving team have been very generous in putting up a complete overview of the project – from how they worked, to how they Read more…
Interesting article from the New York Times surfaced yesterday – “In New Military, Data Overload Can Be Deadly”. It paints a picture of a difficult situation in Afghanistan where 23 Afghan civilians died as a result of a mistaken attack by US helicopters. In some ways, it reminds me of Read more…
For the rest of this week and next, I’m going to be guest-blogging over at Cognitive Edge’s guest blog, as well as here. I’m going to try to keep the blogs different, but I’m sure you’ll understand if I just say – “I stand by what I said over there…” Read more…
Great conversations at a two-day meeting in Miami. On the flight on the way over, I finally got around to starting Joshua Cooper Ramo's The Age of the Unthinkable (subtitled "Why the New World Disorder constantly surprises us and What we can do about it"). It looks to be an Read more…
The standard response of many people is that they know what others need/want. It's an easy trap to fall into – it requires less effort on our part to go and find out (which can seem expensive and time-consuming), it allows us to continue in thinking that we know them Read more…
John Kay's column in the Financial Times today chimes with a quote that struck me recently: "Rules are good. They define the edges of things" It made me think, specifically, about how rules are used in different domains of Dave Snowden's Cynefin framework. In the Simple (Known) domain, rules dominate Read more…
Catching up and closing down some of the tabs I opened a while ago, I came across this piece from the FT. The interesting bit is the first few paragraphs: Few Tories are followers of Dostoevsky. He could have added a word to the title of his great novel: Crime Read more…
On the GOOD website today, this fantastic new mapping of Great Britain (i.e. the UK without Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man). Using phone records (excluding mobile phones), he’s built the map of what areas interact with each other – and colour-coded areas that interact. Researchers redraw the map Read more…