In changing times its important to recognize both the words change and time if we want to understand systems. On a social and economic level we’ve never seen more transformation of everyday life come or affect systems as we have with the global COVID-19 pandemic. What it provides us is an opportunity to learn, contemplate, […]
Systems Thinking About Time and Motion Read More »
The most visible systems lesson from virus spreads are related to networks if we know how to see them. In the early 1980’s Faberge Organics Shampoo (the stuff Steve, the character in the Netflix show Stranger Things uses to get his hair so ‘perfect’) ran advertisements that used network theory to serve as a prop
Systems Thinking and Networks Read More »
The global pandemic situation has provided us with a lesson in complexity by giving us much to see, learn, and do if we pay attention. It’s been said that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the second best time is today. Our personal, social, and organizational preparedness plans are
Systems Thinking About Action: Complexity Read More »
Events like the COVID-19 pandemic provide us with examples of how to think about systems and why, when, and how to prepare, panic, do neither or both. A Thursday evening trip to the neighbourhood supermarket was anything but ordinary. The first sign was the lack of parking spots and no shopping carts outside. Inside it
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Systems thinking is essential for managing complexity – if done well. These guides for systems theory, practice, and evaluation can help. Systems thinking is natural for people when given the freedom to contemplate their world around them. While simple to do in general terms, systems thinking can be difficult when applied to specific problems, particularly
Better Systems Thinking Read More »
Although Innovation is about producing value through doing something new or different than before, the concept is far from simple when applied in practice by individuals and institutions. This second in a series of articles on innovation ecology looks at the way we speak of innovation and how what we talk about new ideas and
The Ecology of Innovation: Part 2 – Language Read More »
The Toronto Star, Canada’s most widely read newspaper known for its investigative reporting gifted anti-vaccination audiences armament by using poor science to point to a spurious connection between an HPV vaccine and illness. The issue points to journalism’s power to shape the discourse of health issues and it points to the power, promise and peril associated
The Power, Peril and Promise of Health Journalism Read More »
Some fields stagnate because they fail to take the bold steps into the unknown by taking chances and proposing new ideas because the research isn’t there to guide it while social innovation has a different twist on the problem: it has plenty of ideas, but little research to support those ideas. Unless the ideas and
Seeing the lights in research with our heads in the clouds Read More »
Information is everywhere (and if you live in cities, people might be everywhere, too) and yet the volume of information we see is overwhelmed by what we do not see. Zombies are among us like information and because of that information might be less attuned to what is going on around them. This has enormous consequences and most of it is not good.
Systems thinking involves taking account of where you stand, what you’re doing, and where the bounds of your influence and influences are. By learning how to think about systems, we are better able to design strategies to ensure that our engagements are producing the most beneficial results for our efforts and when combined with design
Systems Thinking Perspectives on CQI and Public Health Read More »
