This week, the world is noticing what happens when we ignore climate change. The alarms are (literally) ringing, and designers must answer the call. I am not arrogant enough to presume I know what to do to solve our issues of the day. But I know enough to suggest hundreds of things that can make …
Canada was recently taught a valuable lesson about networks and systems fundamentals when it lost nearly 1/3 of its telecom capacity in a single day. What this outage teaches us about networks and systems is worth paying attention to. What would happen if you couldn’t access your phone? What if you couldn’t withdraw money from …
Systems Thinking is a field that brings many different perspectives on science, philosophy, sociology and design, and while this diversity adds richness, it also sews confusion. You might have heard about something called Systems Thinking (and read about it among the many posts on Censemaking) but don’t really know what it is in practice. Let’s …
Systems thinking is something we can all learn to do. We discuss the fundamentals for starting your practice as a systems thinker.
Resilience is about ‘bouncing back’ and getting through challenges, but is it the right model to be considered when “back” isn’t what it was and many challenges are becoming endemic? Resilience has been a prominent term and theory invoked in the discussions of how we collectively respond to social, health, and environmental challenges we are …
As millions of people shift their work patterns back to offices and shops from their homes the chance for renewal is high. The risks of creating path dependencies that will cause harm is also high. The design choices we make now will determine what comes next. The anxiousness of heading back to the office is …
Design and the Cautionary Tales of Path Dependence Read More »
Earth Day provides us with an opportunity to reflect on our place on this planet. The planet needs action not just reflection. Lessons from psychological science can help us convert good intentions into planetary health. Beginning in 1970, much of the world recognizes April 22nd as Earth Day. The event was established as a means …
Attractors might be the most useful concept within complexity science for understanding practical change-making. By looking at how an attractor works we can better facilitate action and design more practical strategies in complex situations. We hear much about the concept of complexity when speaking about social systems. Complexity simply refers to a set of multiple, …
Using The Concept of Attractors To Facilitate Change Read More »
Re-opening and returning to some kind of post-COVID reality will require some healing. Where do we start? This post we look at laying the groundwork for designing a process for post-pandemic healing in your organization. The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on us all in ways that are both shared and …
Policies are meant to guide human behaviour and introduce constraints at a collective level and that means understanding how humans behave. On March 21st the Canadian province of Ontario (where I live) will no longer require people to wear masks while indoors. This is part of a growing trend toward the easing of COVID-related pandemic …
