Same and Different
Our ability to affect change in organizations and systems is based heavily on our assumptions about similarities and differences between
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health
Futuring the Past
In the first month of 2019 the United States saw more measles cases than it did in all of 2010.
Read moreConfusing change-making with actual change
Change-making is the process of transformation and not to be confused with the transformed outcome that results from such a
Read moreDevelopmental Evaluation and Mindfulness
Developmental evaluation is focused on real-time decision making for programs operating in complex, changing conditions, which can tax the attentional
Read moreDesigning for Empathy and Health
When does common sense make little sense? How do we sense-make evidence when it seems to make little sense? The
Read moreHandbook of Systems and Complexity in Health
A brilliant and comprehensive new book has been launched that brings together the best scholars working in the area of
Read moreMarketing the Narrative of Complexity
Complexity, by its very nature, is not a simple concept to communicate, yet it is increasingly becoming one that will
Read moreSocial Media and Health: Leaders(hip) and Followers(hip)
Systems thinking, design thinking, developmental evaluation, creativity, networks and innovation: these are the keywords for health in the coming years. They are as author Eric Topol calls the dawning of the creative destruction of medicine. The public is already using social media for health and now the time has come for health (care, promotion and protection) systems to get on board and make the changes necessary to join them.
Read moreDisruption by Design
If we are to expect that the fields most connected to social action and the promotion of wellbeing are to contribute to our betterment in the future, they need to change. Disruptive design for programs, services and the ways we fund such things is what is necessary if these fields are to have benefit beyond themselves. Long past are the days when doing good was something that belonged to those with a title (e.g., doctor, health promoter, social worker) or that what we called ourselves (e.g., teacher) meant we did something else unequivocally (e.g., educate). Now we are all teachers, all health promoters, all designers, and all entrepreneurs if we want to be. Some will be better than others and some will be more effective than others, but by disrupting these ideas we can design a better future.
Read moreThe Complexity of Planning and Design in Social Innovation
Both developmental design and evaluation work together to provide data required to allow program planners to constantly adapt their offerings to meet changing conditions, thus avoiding the problem of having outcomes becoming decoupled from program activities and working with complexity rather than against it. For example, developmental evaluation can determine what are the key attractors shaping program activities while developmental design can work with those attractors to amplify them or dampen them depending on the level of beneficial coherence they offer a program. In two joined processes we can acknowledge complexity while creating more realistic and responsive plans.
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