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.
The title of this post comes from Wilbert E. Fordyce, who worked with people in chronic pain. It fascinates me that professionals who work in life and death fields understand (and get frustrated by) the fact that when people need to change their behaviour to save their lives, it’s not Read more…
There are human analysts who can read a sample and tell you what the teller meant, but as I found out when I did that early in Narrate’s evolution, that only gives you the analyst’s interpretation of the individual story (often very different from the teller’s meaning) and you get any number of cognitive biases kicking in, so that you miss stories that show you important but rare information, you get blinded by what you expect to see, etc, etc. … In the past two years, we’ve run a number of major projects using Cognitive Edge’s SenseMaker™ software – collecting raw stories (in their badly spelled, ungrammatical, sometimes garbled or terse forms) but with the tellers adding meaning to their stories by showing us what they see in their stories.
Thanks to everyone at the Leeds Castle leadership event today – a whistle-stop challenge on communications, with an abbreviated Anecdote Circle thrown in. At the break a few of us were talking about The Future, Backwards and, naturally, I recommended Gary Klein’s Sources of Power. The slides are here: Download Read more…
On Monday this week, I spent the day with four smart people playing with Cognitive Edge’s SenseMaker software and a collection of just over 1500 stories. What was most encouraging was that, up to that point, most of us had used it and looked at material and wondered why we Read more…
I’ve recently come across two outstanding examples of customer service – in many ways elements that should be simple business-as-usual, but because of the rarity of such common sense practices they stand out in my mind. And, as direct results of those processes, the companies in question have won substantial Read more…
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s workshop at the KCUK conference. Various odds and sods off the back of the session: My presentation slides are here The basketball video I mentioned. The Harvard Business Review article on complexity/leadership/decision-making by Dave Snowden Dave’s in-depth article on complexity and its Read more…
In recent weeks I’ve spoken at or run workshops at conferences on knowledge management, employee engagement and change communications. Very few moments in those that excited, but one over-riding element that depresses me. The subtext of so many of the questions I get asked and so many presentations I sit Read more…
In the last couple of years, there’s been a lot of interest in social networks – and (somewhat belatedly) communications professionals are starting to look at greater use of informal networks and word-of-mouth. There’s still, however, the temptation to look at the model Malcolm Gladwell sets up in The Tipping Read more…
From Scarlett Thomas’ The End of Mr Y: "Newtonian cause and effect suggested that someone wound the original clock and set it ticking, and that every single action in the universe could be predicted – if you had something powerful enough to do the prediction. There’s no free will in Read more…
An interesting experience last week in one of my other identities as a school governor. There’s a debate going on regarding whether or not a Trust is formed in Mid-Beds under Samuel Whitbread Upper School and whether we join it or not. So, mindful of wanting to understand different perspectives Read more…