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Tag Archives: permaculture+patrick whitefield
i disrupts the future of work
What does the future of work look like? Recent reports state that many jobs (42% in the USA) will disappear through machine to machine automation, IoT, and Artificial Intelligence. A terrible thing, or, a good thing? Continue reading
July 21, 2015
Adaptiveness / Epic (designing for transformation) / Technology
Tagged Artificial intelligence, Artificial neural network, Calexico, California, Cambridge, Deep learning, digital disruption, Facebook, future of economic growth, iot, KPMG, machine to machine disrupts work, Massachusetts, near term trends of disruption, the future of knowledge work, the future of work, the future of work in the european union
What's next for banking?
I have enjoyed Mosaic Ventures blog on the unbundling of the banks. Their observation that it is not a new bank that we need but a new way of banking. There is in my view an inevitability to the arrival of a new ecosystem, as our world evolves that will serve us even better. But to do so we have to have fundamental redesign of what a businesses looks like. Mostly its design is distributed, networked and peer to peer. Continue reading
July 17, 2015
Adaptiveness / Epic (designing for transformation) / participatory culture+tools / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Angels Den, banking, banking ethical alternatives, Crowd funding, crowdcube, Design, fintech, funding circle, Investment, London, Mosaic ventures, p2p lending, Seedrs, zopa
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
What can we learn from Shaker design?
William Morris once said, If there was ever a golden rule it was this. Have nothing in your house that was neither useful nor beautiful. These are the words of a Craftsman, dedicated to only bringing the good into the world. This quote came to my mind whilst looking recently at the elegance and craftsmanship of Shaker Design. The Shaker guiding principles were of simplicity, utility and honesty. Shaker design is so purposeful in concept and so economical in execution. That is meets William Morris criteria perfectly. And also I believe we have much to learn from the underlying principles of Shaker design. Continue reading
November 30, 2014
Tagged aesthetics in design, beauty and design, craftsmanship and leadership, cultures of creativity, gransfors bruks, nonlinear innovation, on beauty and organizational design, shaker design innovation, tashi mannox, the crafted organization, the purpose driven organization
Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid and Darwin
At the turn of the 20th century an exiled Russian aristocrat and anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, wrote a classic book called Mutual Aid. He complained that, in the widespread acceptance of Darwin's ideas, heavy emphasis had been laid on the cleansing role of social conflict and far too little attention given to the remarkable examples of cooperation. Even now, biological knowledge of symbiosis, reciprocity and mutualism has not yet percolated extensively into public discussions of human social behaviour. Continue reading
November 27, 2014
Education / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Charles Darwin, collaborative cultures, collaborative design, collaborative economics, collaborative learning, collaborative sociology, collaborative structures in media, cultures of collaboration, darwin and collaboration, i+we=why?, new thinking in economic philosophy, new thinking on cooperaton, nonlinear innovation, Peter Kropotkin, Political philosophy, technologies of cooperation
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
The future of learning from the LEGO Foundation
Curiosity is part and parcel of the creative process, and creativity is a key component of non-linear thinking. Creativity enables us to discover the new, the novel, to examine and evaluate its possibilities. Creativity in a No Straight Lines perspective is the means to also see the world and its context in a broader context, understanding its richer deeper narrative. A short video on the future of learning from the LEGO Foundation. Continue reading
October 15, 2014
Tagged creative learning, curiosity in education, education and creativity, narrative led education, the joy of craftsmanship, the modernday craftsman
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
Tim Jackson on investing for humanity to flourish
Powerful thoughts from Tim Jackson (professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey) on how the role of investment must be reconceptualised not to create more money or cater to a consumption based culture and economy but to instead create conditions for people to flourish. We currently exist in a system that systemically creates privilege says Jackson. Continue reading
July 3, 2014
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation)
Tagged beyond capitalism, Environment, ethical economy, ethical investing, green business, investing in humanity, Investment, Jackson, markets without morality, nonlinear innovation, Our Common Future, prosperity without growth, reimagining investment for the whole human, Rio+20, Sustainable Development, sustainable investment, the truth about markets, Tim Jackson, University of Surrey, Vimeo
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
Cory Richard innovation in the uncomfortable zone
National Geographic Creative photographer and North Face athlete Cory Richard talks about learning to become comfortable in the uncomfortable zone. How he found his voice through adversity – and developed his craftsmanship through the lens of a camera to share his vision of the world that has taken him to some extraordinary places. Adventure is anything that takes you outside of your comfort zone, Richards says. I like that. Continue reading
June 30, 2014
Adaptiveness / Ambiguity / Epic (designing for transformation)
Tagged Ambiguity, Cory Richard, Creativity, design thinking, Gasherbrum II, Innovation, mountaineering, National Geographic, National Geographic Creative, organizations stuck in ambiguity, Systems thinking
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
Tim Smit on beauty and purpose
Tim Smit – is a rare individual in the English landscape. A man born of passion, commitment who can make the impossible – possible. He recreated the gardens of Heligan in Cornwall and then went on to create The Eden Project. If anyone is ever interested in what it takes to make it happen – this talk will inspire you to do so. Continue reading
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation)
Tagged Cornwall, creating inward investment, Eden Project, England, Gardens, Heligan estate, Home, Lost Gardens of Heligan, nonlinear innovation, purpose driven organisation, Revitalizing a region, the importance of purpose, Tim Smit
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
Blitz motorcycles - love the work you do
You have to love the work you do. In our nonlinear world we have to wake up every day and want, really want to do the work we love. It has defined my life, and I always admire people who do the same. The care, the craft, the willingness to share knowledge, and, to give is the way of the craftsman. This is a wonderful film about two French men who are passionate about building bespoke motorcycles. Based in Paris they speak about collaboration, commitment, sacrifice, community and joy. Continue reading
May 11, 2014
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation)
Tagged blitz motorcycles, crafting innovation, motorcycle hack, nonlinear design, nonlinear innovation, paris, the craftsman, the craftsmans workshop, the joy of craftsmanship, the purpose of good work
Make your mark as a craftsman
We all have the capacity for creativity. To be able to express ourselves with confidence and believe in our worth makes in my view one of the most important contributions to society. Our dancer is highly gifted – yet his true expression is hard won. I cant imagine how many hours went into his practice to deliver such a powerful performance. How brilliantly he shines, how effortlessly he moves – yet as metaphor for a creative life it is more. The capacity to bring in the new, to imagine the impossible then create and execute it. And to create value. Continue reading
May 9, 2014
Tagged Arts, Craftsman, craftsmanship, dance as metaphor, Filmmaking, hacking the future, lessons in craftsmanship, love your work, Movies, music, Music video, nonlinear innovation, on beauty, Pillar Point Harbor, Polyvinyl Record Co, Short film, Tibetan calligrapher, Vimeo
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
The French Intifada and the crisis of modern identity
In No Straight Lines I explore the what is called the crisis of of the modern world. The crisis of identity. Who are we? Why do we exist? What makes meaning, identity, community and connection? This crisis impacts our communities our organisations (think The Office), our wider society and even nations. What have we become? I present a challenge I+We=Why? It touches every touch point in our lives and is having serious ramifications on how our societies are evolving. E.O Wilson wrote that we yearn to belong and to have a purpose bigger than ourselves. Without that purpose we lack meaning, and context, custom and tradition wane – yet we are meaning making creatures. Continue reading
March 6, 2014
Tagged Alan Moore, arab french identity, attachment theory+attention and loneliness, authoriarianism+religious fundamentalism, cognitive psychology, identity in modern france, integral psychology, Loneliness, made in france, Manuel Castells, Mohsin Hamid Ait-Ouyahia, muslim identity in the west, No Straight Lines, politics and religion, psychology of religion, religious fundamentalism and cultural identity, religious fundamentalism and social identity, seeking an authentic identity, the crisis of modern identity, the nature of human nature
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
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
Six types of ambiguity
Reading an article recently about Eliot Perlman who wrote what is considered a masterwork called Seven Types of Ambiguity. This has intrigued me, as Principle 1 in No Straight Lines is Ambiguity. How does one make sense of an ambiguous world. This question is important to ask when there is significant disruption, or change in our lives, in industry, and when we see catastrophic failure and cannot arrive at a true diagnostic. Continue reading
February 20, 2014
Tagged 7 types of ambiguity, Alan Moore, craftsmanship continuous improvement, creating value demand, future leadership in a networked world, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, organisations of the future, systems design, systems diagnostics, wasteful organisations
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
Creating the necessary conditions for a true economic renaissance
There is a view that the recovery of our economy in the UK is underway. This, however, is not entirely true, because true regeneration is investment-led, not consumer-driven. In fact, new companies generate 80% of growth, new jobs, and inward investment, despite the contradictory message from the financial press. It is these innovators, through sheer entrepreneurial endeavour, that are largely building the future rather than trying to protect the past. Yet the ratios for capital formation in this country are terrible; broadly-speaking the percentage of GDP that is invested each year. We have the lowest ratio in the OECD and our capital formation rate was 14% last year. China's is over 50%. Our companies are sitting on some £284 billion of cash. We may as well just be sitting on it like Smaug in The Hobbit. Continue reading
February 3, 2014
Tagged Business, China, contract law for sme's, crowdcube, crowdfunding the law, democratising the law, investing in legal services, law as a platform, law for smes, Lawbite, legal document checking, lexis nexis, Matthew Hancock, Matthew Hancock MP, nonlinear innovation, secure esigning legal documents, Small and medium enterprises, startup loans, the future of legal services, the future of the law, Venture capital, Wassily Kandinsky
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
Kano: helping make creators of the future not consumers of the past
thought of Lewis Hyde who wrote in The Gift, "we've witnessed the steady conversion into private property of the art and ideas that earlier generations thought belonged to their cultural commons". When reading Miranda Swayers piece on the computing company for kids – Kano. Essentially Kano is plug and play coding making computing and the creation of things via coding and computing accessible to all comers. Hydes observation also resonated, when Alex Klein one of the Kano founders tells a story from an experience from Zuccotti Park when as a journalist he was covering the Occupy Movement, he asked the Occupy-ers why, if they hated big business so much, they all used iPhones and Samsungs. Continue reading
January 5, 2014
Craftsmanship / Education / Epic (designing for transformation) / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Alex Klein, changing the way we think about computing, coding for beginners, coding in education+why every child schould code, coding innovation, coding literacy, coding the future, creative coding, creativity and coding, diy computing made easy, ethics of craftsmanship, future education+raspberry pi+tinkering+play, future of education, future of learning, Hacker ethic, hacking the future, how to build your own computer, Kano, learning to code made easy, lessons in coding, Lewis Hyde, Life as craftsmanship, maker movement uk, miranda sawyer, No Straight Lines, Occupy Movement, principles of craftsmaship, Rewired State, smlxl, teaching coding, Zuccotti Park
Schaft: humanoid robotics and its implications
Robotics is on the cusp of reshaping our world – in every aspect of our lives, from the waiting rooms of our hospitals to our battlefields, disaster prone world and our everyday lives. For good and for bad. Continue reading
January 2, 2014
Ambiguity / Epic (designing for transformation) / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Boston Dynamics and google, cambridge university robotics, disaster relief robotics, ethical dimensions of technology, future japanese robotics, google robots replace humans, humanoid robotics, japanese robotics, law+technology, nonlinear innovation, robotic warfare, robotics and warfare, robotics implications for healthcare, technology and culture, technology and human behaviour, technology society and historical change
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
Flute Office business, design and manufacturing innovation
Flute Office is a pioneering company that is producing an entire suite of products along with a ground breaking business model to change the way we think about what we sit on, what we work on, what perhaps we do other things on (Do its all verb). Continue reading
October 14, 2013
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Andy wood+adnams, Business model innovation, cradle to cradle, customer centric design, design thinking, future of furniture, future of the office, future of work, green business, human centered design, Hunter Lovins, innovative business models, iterate+design principle, Lean manufacturing, Local Motors, manufacturing innovation, mary dorrington ward, natural capitalism, No Straight Lines, nonlinear innovation, renewable fibres, resilient design, rod fountain, service design, systems design, Systems thinking, Work
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
Welcome to the Shoreditch Village Hall
Last night I was invited to the official opening of the Shoreditch Village Hall, accessed via Hoxton Square. Because of my age and my interests, I am very familiar with Hoxton Square, over 25 years I have watched it rise … Continue reading
October 11, 2013
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, anthropology+cultural studies+networked identity, community and place, community innovation, crowdfunding, culture+meaning+identity, ferdinand tönnies, gift community+value of gift exchange, heimat, Hoxton Square, human identity+society, lewis hyde and the erotic life of property, London, modern identity+collective identity, narrative+place, No Straight Lines, participatory cultures, politics of place, power of place, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Village Hall, social innovation, tech city, Village Hall
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?
Alice in wonga land, how payday loans make a profit
Payday loan company WONGA reported £1m profit per week for 2012. Charging 5500% APR on each of its 1m loans last year it's now the biggest payday lender in the UK. It's not alone with many other payday firms reporting increases in turnover and profits over the last 3 years. Errol Damelin the CEO of WONGA states that he hardly thinks a £200 loans get people into trouble. He's right, cry the campaigners, it's the thousands of per cent interest you charge on it, so lets cap it. Actually he's right and the campaigners are wrong, on both counts. Continue reading
Tagged alice in wongaland, banking, business ethics, Certified Public Accountant, christian law on lending, Civil society, CPA, credit uniions, Errol Damelin, Ethics, fair finance, getting rid of payday loan debt, islamic law on lending, Maria Nowak, moral capitalism, No Straight Lines, open democracy+civil society+ethics, pay day loan victims, Payday loan, payday loans online, Payment, social innovation in finance, the idea of social justice, the joyless economy, things you should know before you take a payday loan, why do we need pay day loans?, Wonga
Contract law for SME's in Plain English
For the last few months I have been working with, and, advising a company called Lawbite. My reason for engaging with the company is that they are offering a viable alternative to legal advice for SME's and start ups which is sorely needed. It is disruptive to the existing legal profession, but that is no bad thing. Lawbite is well overdue. Britain is sustained by SME's yet their need of the law and the service they get from the law is not always evenly matched. Continue reading
September 18, 2013
Adaptiveness / Epic (designing for transformation) / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, angel investing, business ethics, Clive Rich, Confidentiality agreements, Contract, contract law for sme's, creativity impeded by copyright law, e-signing, employee law, english copyright law, eu copyright law, federation of small business, google campus, google+patents+copyright+mobile+data, Law, Law firm, law for start ups, law music, law+technology, Lawbite, lawbriefs, Lawyer, Legal advice, legal advice for sme's, lessons in law, metro bank, mums net, No Straight Lines, Plain English, property law, Pros and cons of using solicitors, shareholder agreements, shareholder law, start up britain, tech city, ten things i hate about lawyers, top 10 tips for negotiation, top tips for start ups, trade mark applications, trade marks, understanding the Law for SME's, virtual law firm, women in business, women in law
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
People embrace what they create in Istanbul
It was Jamie Lerner the Mayor of Curitiba who when he took office and facing many challenges decided to galvanise his citizens into life to make Curitiba work. Lerner said the work they undertook should be fun, fast and above all non-expensive. The idea that we own, or have ownership over our civic spaces is very important. Home, hearth, kith and kin are all about belonging and identity. So this is a small story about those things. Continue reading
September 12, 2013
Epic (designing for transformation) / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, alliance for community media activism, architecture of authority, city planning, civic engagement, civic engagement in a networked society, collaborative media, Community media, consequences of power and participatory media, Curitiba, government as servant to the people, Huseyin Cetinel, informed citizenry+democracy, Istanbul, Jamie Lerner, Jane Jacobs, Lerner, Letchworth Garden City, Mayor, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, No Straight Lines, non-linear innovation, p2p society, participatory cultures, people power, power of social innovation, public man+dead public space+public roles in cities+limits on public expression+man as actor+life in the 19th Century+industrial capitalism and public life+localizing the city+personality in public, Richard Ross, social innovation, the country and the city, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Turkey, Welwyn Garden City
Love your work
Below is a beautiful simple film about the craft of making sake. Why did I think it to be relevant? Because the 'engaged' craftsman brings the full power of humanity to bear upon his work. His hand is guided by his eye, informed by his creative mind; his productivity the act of unique creation. Indeed, the master craftsman is adept in using a values based philosophical framework, as well as tools and materials, to deliver useful things to the world. Continue reading
September 11, 2013
Tagged Alan Moore, antonio genovesi+mark granovetter+guilds, beauty, collective craftsmanship, common good, craft+beauty, craft+craftmanship+meaning+work+identity+hand+heart+mind+open+explore+curious+makie labs+practice+play, craftsmanship+innovation, design thinking, ethics of craftsmanship, future of work, gransfors bruks, How to create an innovative and sustainable company, Japan, key words of craftsmanship, Life as craftsmanship, Local Motors, maker movement, making sake, Master craftsman, No Straight Lines, organisational design, principles of craftsmanship, richard sennet, Seamus Heaney, the crafted organization, the smart organisation, values based system
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
Seamus Heaney remembering a great craftsman
It was terribly sad to hear the news of the passing to Seamus Heaney, a craftsman if ever there was one. As not only was he a master craftsman of the English language he embodied the other important characteristics of granite like integrity, and a deep empathy of the world around him and the people in it. A quest for truth is always core to the purpose of a poet, to seek that which others do not see and to express it in a way that we can all understand. Continue reading
September 1, 2013
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation)
Tagged Art, Bill Clinton, bloody sunday, business ethics, civil rights, Death of a Naturalist, douglas hume, ethics of craftsmanship, good friday agreement, Heaney, Ireland, Irish poetry, life of craftsmanship, new systems of ethics, No Straight Lines, open democracy+civil society+ethics, poerty and culture, Poetry, Poetry Foundation, principles of craftsmaship, Seamus Heaney
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
Crafting a new pursuit of happiness: re-ordering work and play
One of my interests is how and why we work, what motivates us, and how can a values based systems help us make meaningful work. Here is an excerpt Chapter 6 of No Straight Lines: Continue reading
August 24, 2013
Tagged Alan Moore, always in beta, Artisan, chaordic design, collaborative design, Craft, Craftsman, creative commons+design, customer centric design, design as process, design innovation, design thinking, designing for the collective good, designing for transformation, designing resilient food systems, designing with data, engineering design centre+cambridge, human centered design, iterate+design principle, Letchworth Garden City, Life as craftsmanship, No Straight Lines, non-linear design, organisational design, pattern language, permaculture+ecological design, Philosophy, principles of craftsmaship, radical re-design of business, Richard Sennett, Sennett, Social Sciences, Straight Lines, systems based design, universal design philosophy
A handcrafted particle accelerator
Patrick Stevenson Keating created a handcrafted glass particle accelerator in what I would describe as an act of true craftsmanship. The piece consists of a series of organically-shaped hand-blown glass bulbs – each attached to a pump via a tube to create a vacuum. When the button is pushed, a voltage of 45,000V is applied across two electrodes. Continue reading
August 22, 2013
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / participatory culture+tools / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Anatoli Bugorski, Doctor of Philosophy, Glass, hacking culture, hacking the future, hacktivism, hand made, Institute for High Energy Physics, Joule, maker movement, No Straight Lines, non-linear innovation, open hardware, open science, open source+open access, participatory cultures, Particle accelerator, Proton beam, Protvino, science commons, systems hacking, visible light
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
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
Smart meters, data, cyber security
John Naughton raises an interesting point about the proposed installation of data monitoring smart meters in 26 millions homes and its security implications in his Observer column. Continue reading
August 18, 2013
Ambiguity / System breakdown / Technology
Tagged Big data, control data institute, cyber security, cyber war, dark data, data fear, data policy+future data policy+future IT policy, data the individual and the state, data+democracy, data+society, digital warfare, g4s, Gas meter, homeland security, john naughton, Kim Jong-un, meta data, Middle East, mobile data security, No Straight Lines, Public utility, Ross J. Anderson, Russia, Smart meter, smart metering, Wireless Data
Monitor me, data, health and technology
This Horizon documentary called 'Monitor Me', is an intriguing journey into what the future of medicine may look like, with blends of cutting edge medicine, technology and data that monitors all and everything, we can imagine entirely different ways in which we can manage our daily health like weight to high performance sport to discovering at its very earliest stages serious medical problems. Continue reading
August 17, 2013
Adaptiveness / Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Alternative, bbc, better sleep, Brittany Wenger, brittnay wenger, design thinking, digital health apps, england rubgy elite performance, Eric Topol, Fong, future cancer, future healthcare, future medicine, Ginger.io, Health, health apps, health innovation, health monitoring, health+data, healthcare, heart monitoring, Innovation, Kevin Fong, Larry Smarr, london air ambulance, mhealth, mobile health, No Straight Lines, Patients Know Best, preventative health care, self tracking transforming health, top 10 health apps, United States, wearable technology, weight loss
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
Austerity: the history of a dangerous idea
Mark Blythe gives us a lesson in austerity economics Continue reading
August 4, 2013
Tagged austerity, banking crisis, citi bank, european central bank, european central bank+euro crisis, google tax, hyper inflation, ireland sovereign debt, irs services, monetarism+compared to Keynesianism+constant-money-growth rule+evidence against+federal reserve policies+growth of money stock+influence+in japan+monetary neutrality and nonneutrality+quantity theory , monetary policy, monetary unions+benefits and costs, money laundering, sovereign debt, systemic risk, too big to fail, toxic debt+banking crisis, warwick comission
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
What do we know about participatory cultures?
Henry Jenkins interviews Aaron Delwiche and Jennifer Jacobs Henderson about their new book The Participatory Cultures Handbook. This is of great interest to me because Principle 4 of No Straight Lines is Participatory Cultures and Tools in a recent article for The Guardian (Six steps to transform the way we do business) I briefly explained the principle and why I believe it is a key component to our non-linear world, Continue reading
August 2, 2013
Adaptiveness / Epic (designing for transformation) / participatory culture+tools
Tagged Alan Moore, co-creation, co-design, collaborative design, Guardian, Henry Jenkins, Human, human centered design, human os, No Straight Lines, Nova Scotia, Open innovation, organisational design, p2p society, Participatory budgeting, participatory cultures, participatory tools, Patients Know Best, Straight Lines
Time, space, place, love, reflection, nature, craftsmanship
Sometimes, we need to feel something rather than analyse it. To feel time, to feel space and pace, the feel love and to reflect, to touch and go into nature and revel in the crafting of of something unique. Sometimes we need to be open to a new experience, to take its crooked path to a deeper meaning about who we are, and perhaps where we belong. Sometimes its good to feel humbled by nature and reflect on how we only exist within her nurture, as much as we might abuse it. Sometimes its good to feel the mystical as it as much a part of our non-linear world as our current obsession with technology. We have not harnessed the cosmos. Continue reading
August 1, 2013
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation)
Tagged Alan Moore, craftsmanship, Creativity, culture, film, hand+heart+mind, identity, jo quail, music, nature, No Straight Lines, smlxl
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
Edward Snowden and the battle for internet freedom
Who would have thought even in 2005, that consumer politics and societal politics would revolve around data, who has it, who owns it and how it is used, combined with the legal frameworks that protect us as citizens. our destiny with data is complex. There are legitimate concerns about who actually owns this information, and when our identities can be pieced together via data flows, privacy becomes a key battleground. And there will be a pressing and increasing need to respect the sovereignty of the individual whether that be in a commercial or civil context. Continue reading
July 29, 2013
Tagged Alan Moore, Apple, booz hamilton allen, center for digital democracy, cloud security, cyber-surveillance system, data, data security, Democracy, digital democracy, edward snowden, Facebook, gchq, Google, national security agency, No Straight Lines, smlxl
True craftsmanship is total commitment to the moment of creation
Principle 5 of No Straight Lines is Craftsmanship. Here artist Miyoko Shida demonstrates the idea of what it means to be fully engaged in an act of creation. Continue reading
July 18, 2013
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation)
Tagged 21st Century Enlightenment, Artisan, code academy, collective craftsmanship, Craftsman, Creative Commons, Creativity, designing for complexity, Henry Jenkins, Hephaestus, Knowledge Creation, Knowledge management, Lego, life hacker, life navigational guide, Local Motors, maker movement, makielabs, Miyoko Shida, No Straight Lines, Patients Know Best, pattern recognition, Raspberry Pi, Richard Sennett, smlxl, Systems thinking, transformation lab
Doug Englebart and what world he was trying to create
In No Straight Lines, technology plays an important role, it must do. Because to deny our umbilical relationship with technology is to deny ourselves. But it always seems a struggle to get people to reconcile the important philosophical, anthropological and societal relationships to technology that we indeed have – where it comes from, what drives our longing (on a large scale) which consequently affects what we imagine, create and make. Doug Englebart died recently, Continue reading
July 16, 2013
Craftsmanship / Epic (designing for transformation) / Technology
Tagged Alan Moore, Bill Bailey, Bret Victor, collective intelligence, design literacy, Douglas Engelbart, Engelbart, Hacker ethic, hacking the future, Hypertext, Innovation, No Straight Lines, philosophy of innovation, smlxl, Straight Lines, Technology
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