Cognitive Edge News
Cognitive Edge Guest Blog
Our guest blogger for the next two weeks is David Williams. David is Project Manager at Narrate and also holds the position of Programme Manager (Mediation & Community) at Coventry Cathedral.
He has used complexity-based techniques for the last seven years with organisations ranging from multinationals (pharmaceutical and telecommunications) to charities and churches. He is also a CEDR Accredited Mediator.
1 September 2010
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition
It's been a long day and I offer a little light relief in the shape of this YouTube video.
For those of you who like looking for metaphorical applications, well...you might take a look at how long it takes people to start to react to this totally unexpected happening - how they start to make sense of it - vague annoyance at the man in the fluorescent jacket/protective gear, incredulity at the "doo waps", but then smiles (almost) all round as something new and exciting comes together - but they're still not sure how or why. There are still one or two people who look like they just want to get on with their day (see 2mins 17seconds). The final "reveal" on the copy of the newspaper lets them know why what they've experience has happened.
There again, you might just want to enjoy it!
31 August 2010
Proverbs 2:6
I’m just back from two days at Greenbelt, a Christian arts festival held every year at the Cheltenham race course with about 25,000 attendees.
There was a huge range of talks and two in particular that I went to that I’d like to blog about, one on what technology and social media are doing to society and the second intriguingly entitled “The English Civil War and the Future of the Church of England.”
Today I’ll confine myself to the talk on technology and social media given by John Bell, a member of the Iona Community.
30 August 2010
Introductions
Hello, it's a pleasure to be Guest Blogger here on the Cognitive Edge site! To get my stint off the starting blocks, a little about me:-
My first degree was in Electrical and Electronic Engineering after which I did some postgraduate study into Electromagnetic Compatibility (during which time I was a Guest Scientist (AKA research student!) at the National Bureau of Standards, now National Institute of Standards and Technology at Boulder, Colorado, USA). I then worked for GEC Telecomms (which later became Marconi) for many years in a range of roles including being a UK representative on an international standards body (a test of skills in diplomacy as being the native English speaker it often falls to you to discern what people from many different nationalities are trying to say and express that in a form on which they will agree), being part of a central marketing team, and working with Marconi’s biggest customer to help identify business opportunities in their markets.
While studying for my MBA at the University of Warwick I heard Dave Snowden speak on Complexity, Narrative and Knowledge Management and knew immediately that whatever else I had learned on the course, this was worth investigating further - which has shaped my career from that moment. My dissertation was on the application of narrative-based research methods to corporate culture analysis and through it, I realised the power of the techniques.
I have been using these skills (and Cognitive Edge techniques) for the last seven years in organisations as diverse as Age Concern and the Church of England, and in situations from thinking about how to plan a lounge for patients in the NHS suffering from dementia (perhaps more of that in a later blog?) to increasing the effectiveness of sales presentations by using the power of stories.
More recently I am working as a Project Manager with Narrate and also as Programme Manager (Mediation & Community) with Coventry Cathedral.
On a personal note, I sing for pleasure (two weeks ago I was singing on BBC Radio 4 for the Daily Service - there’s nothing quite like a live broadcast to concentrate the mind!)
I look forward to blogging more (I have a list of topics which is growing by the day) and hope to hear from you.
27 August 2010
A "Work of Art"
Ive been an artist and designer all my life dabbling in drawing, paint, sculpture, animation, interaction, music, etc.., more recently turning to more traditional opposites of art, but have always found it interesting that I haven't run into many other artists or designers who are really well read or care too much about complexity science or anything of the sort... normally the space tends to be filled with "scientists" and "engineers" of many sorts.
I think the idea of what art is, and what it means to be an artist may have something to do with this, so I found some good pages on Wikipedia covering some of these. I think it may come down to a simple notion that an artist (painter, sculptor, musician, actor, storyteller etc...) must become chaos and complexity while at the same time respecting and honoring complication and order, while scientists and engineers and managers I don't think I have ever really heard them use language that they feel they must become the change, in order to no longer experience change... but moreso focus on employing principles from complexity or even art at a distance to achieve, to accomplish, to get somewhere, etc... But I may be a little too biased and over exaggerating or generalizing.
To Oxford today for a series of meetings. Firstly more work on the use of SenseMaker® as a new way to incorporate larger volumes of people in scenario planning and also moving that planning from a linear staccato process to a continuous one linking strategy with operations. I also started to see ways in which we could create a Delphi method variant which does not close off so many options. I had the afternoon free before an evening meeting/briefing on impact measurement and knowledge management in the health Service. So I indulged myself with an extended (and expensive) visit to Blackwells to pick up some interesting books on aesthetics. Lunch was in the Kings Arms pictured below. Back in the 70s I used to come to Oxford to meet with Herbert McCabe OP in Blackfriars (pictured), then it would be off to the Kings Arms to meet up with Terry Eagleton and Giles (another Dominican who gave evidence for the defense in the Oz trial) who were all working with Slant at the time. Herbert was an inspiration and had a profound influence on many people who wanted to think radically about the world and our role in it. A Thomist scholar of repute who was also a marxist, a priest and a considerable wit, Herbert was one of those larger than life characters who you meet from time to time and who make a lasting intellectual impression.
I've had a stressful week with several work projects, compounded by issues for/with spouse, children and Her Majesty's Inspector of Taxes which have taken me away from the blog. I'm pleased to say that those problems which could be solved have been solved and those problems which cannot are at least stable. At the same time the thatcher arrived. For those who don't know our house is a thatched cottage which sounds romantic but is also expensive to maintain. We've lived here for over twenty years now and have had to redo the ridge once, but we are now at the point when you have to re-thatch. You can see why if you look at the picture to the left which is three feet to the left of the fresh new thatch in the picture to the right.
I watched