Sophometrics — ideas 2003-2004

 

Good Day! --- from Seattle, Washington.

3/25/2004: Tracing the Connections between People, Place and Economic Vitality

This Web log entry offers thoughts about people, place and the part that business plays in the urban context. I suggest that businesses, especially business development organizations, are shifting to a viewpoint that connects regional vitality with the ability to compete globally.

Theory and practice do not often follow the same time line. For one thing, observers developing theory are observing the results of past practice. In the area of urban design it takes many years for a new practice to have a significant impact on urban context; thus, new observations about a theory cannot be reviewed immediately. Even so, theory and practice are not independent --- neither in urban studies nor in business management.

Years ago, visionary writers connected people and place on the one hand with healthy regional economies on the other. Two books in particular make this startlingly clear. Jane Jacobs published “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” in 1961. In her book Jacobs proposed a mixed-use, ground-up approach to urban renewal. Her approach celebrates the vitality and persistence of people and flew in the face of urban renewal practices of the time. Christopher Alexander published “A Pattern Language” in 1977. In his book Alexander describes a design language --- a layered set of guidelines spanning a wide range of dimensions --- that reinforces human dimensions and supports richness in human experience by bringing buildings alive. These two writers relate people and place to economy and experience.

Gradually, more and more people recognized a web of connections between a region’s natural economic advantages, the stewardship of these advantages, the quality of experience in the region, the vitality of people in the region, and business performance.

Recent books about the city tie the notion of successful urban places to respect for and celebration of people and their individual choices. Read, for example, “Toward the Livable City,” edited by Emilie Buchwald. The work of business writers, e.g., Edgar H. Schein, Peter Senge, William Isaacs, and more recently Ralph D. Stacey all rely on respect for individuals within an organization and depend on their individual choices for the organization’s success. This is no coincidence. And the most recent work (Stacey) draws a strong parallel to the discipline of chaos theory, which talks about emergence of patterns in energetic systems. We now have the language, working models, and a new view of natural systems that prepare us to understand and accept what Jacobs and Alexander said so long ago. We no longer accept the notion that one factor determines the rest; rather, each factor is related to each of the other factors in a give and take that tends to reinforce vitality or fail to support growth.

If we step back in history again, beginning in the 50’s and 60’s, we observe that the imperative toward profit that drives enterprise eclipsed the wisdom of Jacobs and Alexander. A business acting within its imperative to be profitable exhibits two trends. First, it gets bigger. Second, it involves itself less and less in the lives of individuals, especially as it gets bigger.

Business is not to blame since the power of connectedness between people, place, and economic vitality was difficult to measure for two reasons. First, business did not have models for these relationships in their economic-based way of looking at the world. Second, the connection is absolute; there are no examples of successful economies that are independent of the human spirit. In the last few decades large business organizations have begun to rediscover that we must invest in our human spirit as well as manufacturing equipment and intellectual property in order to sustain economic vitality.

So, today, with regional competition for global businesses reaching new levels, business development organizations are suggesting that we support the vitality of people because they see the value in terms of regional economic health. Thus, the issues concerning people and place are being addressed head-on by economic development organizations like Innovation Philadelphia and Oregon Business Plan.

Innovation Philadelphia has built a powerful collaboration of public and private organizations and helps direct their collected energies toward developing business in a three state region. Innovation Philadelphia recognizes the power of Philadelphia’s history, culture, and educational resources in the context of business development and markets these resources along with a package of business-focused initiatives.

The Oregon Business Plan eschews reliance on any one aspect of business development (e.g., tax incentives) and instead identifies the necessity to balance many interrelated aspects of a region’s economic health. Creating a balance of attention between direct business incentives, the quality of place, and the experiences available to people increases the odds for sustaining economic vitality.

I think that business people have not given themselves enough credit on two counts. First, they are able to delve into areas of great complexity, when they choose to, and they can both understand and deal with sophisticated, context-rich relationships within their communities. Second, they have a significant impact on their context --- their actions help to define the communities they live in.

Today we are seeing the formation of a coalition of civic, community and business concerns. Our continuing exploration will yield insights and allow us to reach new levels of vitality and commerce as we enhance our urban commons. This is just the beginning of another two decades of exploration and action to enhance the connections I have identified above. Celebration is in order.

You might also enjoy Doug Bors' Book List.

 

10/11/2003: Moments in Management

In her book, Changing Conversations in Organizations: A Complexity Approach to Change, Patricia Shaw invites us back into the moment. She contrasts the habitual desire to plan our interactions with an observation about human interaction that acknowledges the difficulty of predicting progress whenever two or more of us meet. She does a great job of contrasting the planned meeting with the spontaneous exchanges that occur when humans meet to "make sense" together. (You will find an introduction to this school of thought at The Complexity and Management Centre.)

I have seen this in my own work many times. My line of work involves a gathering of professionals working together to create something that is not there. This gathering of professionals is paradoxical in many ways stemming from the contrast between planning and spontaneity.

For example, we see a paradox in planning the shape of a meeting. Meetings go much better (for me) if I anticipate what I need to discover and when I do my "homework." By homework, I most often mean two things. First, the research I need in order to best understand the project and its context. Second, the early estimates I make as a professional to identify systems and describe how big they might be.

But, the shape of a particular meeting, and what its content will be, is rarely predictable. Worse, a rigid meeting structure, planned to the minute, nearly always prevents team members from getting to their real work; i.e., from creating their real value. That value is found in the space between their respective professions --- in the ideas that occur to individuals in the midst of conversation about other parts of a project. That value also resides in each professional's recent discoveries.

So, project managers plan meetings in order to make them more effective, but the most valuable meetings tend to exhibit spontaneity. Thus, we see a paradox.

The solution, you might suggest, is in planning meetings better; to accommodate the content closely related to value. And I will allow that some meetings are planned better than others. But, another aspect of the same problem lies in how team leaders respond to the immediate needs of the team. Everyone is more or less aware of what they are doing. In particular, professionals working within their own disciplines usually know what they need to do next to provide a complete description of their systems. But, project teams are seldom aware of "what they are doing" as a team. It is the act of conversing about the team's progress, about where the valuable conversations have got to be, that makes for the most effective project teams. Further, in many cases, unplanned conversation leads to new discoveries, new information exchanged, and new awareness by the team as a collective.

That brings us back to the moment. In order for a team to hold an awareness about what they are doing, they must operate in the moment. There must be a willingness to work in the void, amidst the unknown, and respond to new information from the rest of the team in order to change direction efficiently. And the project manager most of all, must live the moment, must invite the unknown, must invite the hard issues to the fore, in order to capture the best of his team.

In my work, I no longer hope for a preplanned path. Instead, I develop a path that could work and then test the path's viability each step of the way. Being willing to toss out the preplanned path, or to modify it, each time we learn more about the project is necessary to success in today's business environment. We are looking for a balance between structure and energy --- between predictability and discovery --- a balance that yields the most value, specific to the project at hand.

This is what keeps me in the moment.

 

9/21/2003: Thinking About Design Theory.

I went back to an article from 2001 by Wolfgang Jonas, “A Scenario for Design” found in Design Issues: Volume 17, Number 2 (Spring 2001).

Jonas is working the idea that design can become a discipline on equal footing with, say, economics. He concludes his article by describing a means by which the (necessary) research on behalf of design can be accomplished. He appears to be describing the notion of “Action Research” that I suggested in the context of the Institute for Collaborative Building. Jonas writes:

“It turns out that there is a strong interrelation between the process of design and the process of design research; sometimes the two are hard to distinguish. And there is a further problem: neither practitioners nor most theoreticians like this connection. Practitioners want instant-to-apply recipes (if at all), while theoreticians prefer to stay in their protected niches because practice could spoil the purity of their preferred approaches. But this combined effort is necessary to become a discipline.”

Unlike the implicated practitioners above, I see many practitioners that include a reflective aspect of research (if not theory) in their practice. Further, they demonstrate a relationship between expanding the scope of considerations (i.e., the stakeholder group) and stronger results. It is this expansion of context that Peter Senge described in his talk at Environdesign 6.

It appears to me that development of thinking about interaction in the design process and the development of the need for change from the business sector have coincided in this cycle of years. This is good news from the standpoint of attention --- change is likely to occur. This is dangerous news from the standpoint of control --- if current business practice controls the process of design (and thinking about design), then design is likely to lose its foundation within a broader range of stakeholders.

So I side with Senge. We must strive to expand our inclusion of stakeholders. This has the effect of improving the globe’s chances for survival. But, in many cases, it also provides better results for business. The examples of success involving multiple stakeholders must become our focus for celebration.

 

9/16/2003: What if?

I noticed that my Web log entries below often end with, "we have a lot to do," or ". . . we must change many things." So I wondered if my inquires were overenthusiastic for change.

So, I ask: What if we were to stay the same as today. What if we were to continue to do things the way they are done now, without seeking better ways, larger context, and broader goals for our work?

 

9/16/2003: Electric Power Reliability.

I offer this note as a reliability expert working in the data center industry.

The New York Times has run an impressive series of articles about electric power reliability since August 14th. And the Federal Legislature has moved the energy bill to committee. But both The New York Times and Congress are missing the point regarding reliability.

Most of the popular conversation and the congressional investigation focus on the search for a problem to fix or for someone to blame. Reliability, on the other hand is best described with the trite expression, “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

Reliability depends on several factors.

First, every network has a shape --- a relationship between components that generate and distribute power. The simplest way to understand a network's shape is to consider the question, "what happens if a component fails?" Reliable systems are designed to withstand several independent component failures.

Second, every electrical system must be maintained. Past a useful age, many electrical components are significantly more prone to failure. And, a component in disrepair is much more likely to fail than one in good repair.

Third, every electrical system requires the attention of operators. Very little is automated when it comes to deciding which generators to start and which lines to close to deliver electrical energy. The rules governing system operation and the design of the systems used to monitor and control the network both impact reliability.

In order to make the US electrical system more reliable we need to reverse conditions leading to reduced reliability. This requires a collection of actions and aggressive cooperation from many stakeholders. Some examples:

1. Reinforce agencies that administer reliability rules and enforce accountability for reliability at the level of energy traders, i.e., every energy trade must meet basic reliability criteria with respect to transmission.
2. Reinforce transmission systems to meet reliability criteria. This requires sufficient return on investment for transmission components, or alternative incentives for transmission system investment.
3. Increase the generating capacity of every regional (local) system to reduce the dependence on long-distance transmission.
4. Establish new aging procedures consistent with reliability curves. This requires sufficient funds for component replacement.
5. Plan generator maintenance across regions. Modify maintenance plans based on changing conditions and unexpected failures. For example, expedite maintenance of components that are essential for reliability.
6. Integrate alternative energy systems into the power generation scheme so that the level of control and predictability supports reliability as the capacity of alternative energy systems is increased.
7. Expand regional cooperation between utilities for all planning processes.
8. Reward investors, operators and administrators for reliable operation.

Our challenge is not necessarily to increase reliability, but instead to maintain reliability in the face of an ever-expanding system. I know this message is over simplified, but my advice to Congress is to build a solid and predictable framework for the economic transactions surrounding the electric power system, plus an articulation of the goals for maintaining the reliability of the system, and then let the experts go to work. We have a lot to do.

 

9/15/2003: Thinking About Thinking.

In Marvin Minsky's book, The Society of Mind, a thought is, in some contexts, allowed to be treated as an object. Further, Minsky writes, “There is a simple sense in which thinking about thought is not so different from thinking about an ordinary thing.” (p.151)

This idea allows us to describe the process of thinking on two fronts. First, it allows us to accept the notion that perceptions of reality are “things.” Thus, a perception and a state of reality are paired items, conceivably having the same weight in the context of our relationships.

Second, consider one way that a person might live with the “things” that reside in the mind. Say, an object is established --- the object being a thought --- and held as an overlay of reality. It holds a singular place, not to be removed. If that object is challenged --- by a contradicting object --- then it either “wins” (and stays), or “loses” to be replaced by a new object. The new object then holds a singular place.

If this pattern prevails in a person's thinking, then holding multiple interpretations about a situation or multiple options for a problem solution may be very difficult. This conclusion, that some people think best via serial thoughts, suggests that formal methods (for example, good graphic depictions) are needed in order to help manage an effective solution process in complex situations --- especially situations with multiple stakeholder groups. Thus, obtaining a change in thinking sought after in the previous entry (below) may be difficult.

 

8/10/2003: Managing Communication & Meaning.

I am working my way through a book titled, “Complex Responsive Processes in Organizations: Learning and Knowledge Creation” written by Ralph D. Stacey. Stacey is carefully developing a new way to look at communication between two or more people based on an analogy to discoveries in the complexity sciences.

Midway through the book Stacey refers to work by Dalal (published in 1998) that discusses how people assign meaning in their lives. One of the methods for assigning meaning, especially in the context of collective action, reads as follows:

“Categorization of experience into binary opposites that become entrenched as ideologies, which make behavior seem right and natural.” (p. 155)

If we accept that this method of creating meaning is commonly true, then we need to know if alternative ways of thinking would change understanding and the outcome of the actions of a collective. For example, what if people practiced one of the following:

• Categorizing experience into three distinctly-described bins.
• Localizing experience as a position on (within) a range residing between two binary positions.
• Recognizing experience as a temporal location on a time-dependent system --- allowing that the system has many loops running at (often) independent time scales.

That is to ask, is this method (categorization of experience into binary opposites . . .) the best lever to push in order to help people expand their context for understanding and taking action?

The language I used in the paragraph above is similar to the language used in the Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. That is because this inquiry helps me explain why Senge’s ideas are so successful. Senge’s use of system diagrams, including explicit notation of time delays, precludes the assignment of experience into binary opposites.

As if that were not enough to get me thinking, the work of William Isaacs (in his book, “dialogue”) explains how to create a container for dialogue. The action of creating this container is an act of breaking down binary assignments within a carefully limited range of concerns.

This line of inquiry is critically important to helping people do a better job of working together. It stems from the question, “why is it so hard to get some things changed?”

And yet, we must change many things.

 

8/7/2003: Decisions.

During the month of August, the Financial Times is running a series of articles collected under the banner of "FT Summer School." The general topic is "How to thrive in a harsh business climate."

The first few articles focus on the broad view. Disasters can be avoided by avoiding old habits. Innovation can be had for less cost by sharing ideas across corporate boundaries. New ventures must be tried, even in the tightest of times. These themes all require decisions based on uncertain information, that is, we must project the future to plan our actions.

In our effort to understand our world, people tend to oversimplify, except, perhaps in the scientific community. In our efforts to make decisions, people create a wide variety of responses. Again, some scientifically-minded people are the exception, depending on a formula comprised of benefits, costs, risks, and probable outcomes for decisions making.

The art of deciding is not so simple. Sometimes we do not even know how to decide how to decide. A Financial Times article from last year, written by John Kay, describes this dilemma clearly. It seems the art of deciding is one of the areas where we have the most to learn.

And, we have a lot to decide.

 

8/6/2003: Beginnings.

Everything has a start and a source; thus a history. Welcome to my Web Log. I follow a bit of news --- Financial Times to New York Times. I read a few magazines --- Assemblage to Wired. And I catch a book or two.

These sources, plus experience in the design profession invite me to comment --- to have my own opinion about business, about working together, about the future. So, like many people before me, I'll tap the resources of the Web to publish my thoughts and collect links to other's records in order to record my history as it happens.

See an MIT site listing most accessed links on the net.

And so this log is started.