If you want to discover practical and pragmatic ways to manage under conditions of uncertainty, understand the power of business narrative and discover new ways to use human networks, then this course will provide you with the introductory theory and associated open source Cognitive Edge methods.
The two-day workshop is focused on groups and individuals that are interested in developing capabilities with Cognitive Edge methods for their organisations and clients. The methods effectively provide internal or front-line employee groups an ability to develop their own solutions to challenging organisational issues. Attendance provides the option of then joining theCognitive Edge Network as an accredited practitioner.
The course is being offered across the world in the second half of 2010:
- Seattle, USA: 9-10 August
- Amsterdam, the Netherlands: 7-8 September
- Singapore: 15-16 September
- Melbourne, Australia: 21-22 September
- New York City, USA: 29-30 September
- Hong Kong, China: 27-28 October
The full list of courses offered by Cognitive Edge can be viewed here.
Additionally, a single day focused on SenseMaker® for practitioners has been scheduled to immediately follow all the above courses. The two courses can be booked together or separately – there is an attractive price offered to participants who register in both courses.
Network gatherings will be organised to accompany all five courses – please email Dawn for details to come along to meet local practitioners.
Discounts available:
- For Practitioners who would like a refresher on CE methods, we are offering 30% discount off the course fees.
- If you enrol a group of three or more people, one additional person gets to attend the course free of charge.
- Academics and students who haven't been accredited will receive a 15% discount on course fees.
Cognitive Edge is pleased to announce that our partnership with the Civil Service College (CSC) in Singapore has been extended.
Cognitive Edge is working in partnership with the Institute of Public Administration and Management (IPAM) at CSC to offer its Accreditation course in Singapore. The next course will be offered over 15-17 September this year.
The course will be tailored to the challenges and opportunities of the Public Sector in Singapore and provide participants with an opportunity to work together during the workshop to gain a deeper exposure to Cognitive Edge methods for stimulating innovation and informal networks, strategic planning and enhanced decision-making, and action planning in situations of high uncertainty. Additionally they will gain access to the Cognitive Edge Practitioner Network as accredited practitioners and join a community of like-minded practitioners in the Singapore Public Service.
The Civil Service College (CSC) Singapore is the central learning institution for the Singapore Public Service, and plays a pivotal role in developing people for a first class Public Service. It is a Statutory Board under the Public Service Division (PSD), Prime Minister’s Office. CSC offers a comprehensive suite of programmes that build strategic capacity in the Public Service, focusing particularly on core areas in Public Governance, Leadership, Public Administration, Personal Development and Effectiveness, and Global Orientation. CSC works strategically with Public Sector agencies to reinforce the core values of the Singapore Public Service and equip public officers with the knowledge, skills and expertise to perform their roles efficiently, effectively and professionally.
The Cynefin Framework, introduced by Dave Snowden – new video available from Cognitive Edge
Today Cognitive Edge is pleased to present the fifth of a series of short videos introducing key aspects of our methods and tools, produced in collaboration with Cognia.
The fifth video to be released is The Cynefin Framework – it can be found in the Videos section of our website.
In this video, Dave Snowden introduces the Cynefin Framework with a brief explanation of its origin and evolution and a detailed discussion of its architecture and function. In addition to posting to our site, we've also posted a version of this video to YouTube.
We've been working with Mike Carroll from Cognia in Australia to produce these videos, leveraging Mike's 20+ years of experience in film and TV. Mike's been a member of the Cognitive Edge Network since July 2008. More videos are planned to be released through this collaboration and will be announced here.
Making the transition to work using SenseMaker® – a new project at Surrey University
Transitions are significant change processes in people’s lives and the transition from being a student to being a professional involves changes in thinking, behaviour, identity, capability and performance.
The University of Surrey has an international reputation for preparing and enabling students to make this transition into the professional world through a curriculum that involves them in completing a year in business or industry. While it has a wealth of information on the outcomes of the experience and some data on the midpoint of their experience, knowledge about how students experience and manage the transition from university to work is lacking.
The University is using SenseMaker® to gather and make sense of transition narratives. Armed with this knowledge the intention is to develop better guidance to prepare students and refine practices for preparing and supporting them during this important transition.
It is anticipated that one of the benefits will be to feedback the results of the survey quickly to students so that they can compare their own experience with the other students on placement and perhaps stimulate action where experiences are less than satisfactory.
For more information, please contact Prof Norman Jackson at the University of Surrey.
Results published by Wales Audit Office of staff perceptions using SenseMaker®
Recently the Wales Audit Office (WAO) conducted a staff survey using Cognitive Edge's SenseMaker® and narrative research methods to study the perceptions of staff working for the WAO.
It is not often that the results of a project are released to the public domain, however in this case the WAO is an exception.
With their kind permission we have linked to the published report on their website. General questions about the project and report may be directed to Chris Bolton of the WAO or Jules Yim of Cognitive Edge.
Zhen Goh joins Cognitive Edge team as Consultant
Cognitive Edge is pleased to announce the appointment of Zhen Goh as Consultant.
Before joining Cognitive Edge, Zhen worked as a freelance professional. She has worked with government, NGO and corporate clients, taking on independent research, writing and lecturing duties. Zhen received her training from the National University of Singapore, where she completed her Bachelor of Social Science (with Honours). She then went onto pursue her Masters of Social Science (Sociology), on the University Research Scholarship program.
Zhen will be based in Singapore and can be reached on zhen.goh@cognitive-edge.com.
Welcome Zhen!
Laurie Webster joins Cognitive Edge team as Consultant
Cognitive Edge is pleased to announce the appointment of Laurie Webster as Consultant.
Before joining Cognitive Edge, Laurie was the Senior Research Associate for Shore Communications. Previously, she was the co-founder of Grandview Insight and has worked for SilverPlatter, Thomson Publishing, Mosby Consumer Health, News Corp’s Internet Unit, and the University at Albany.
In 2008, Laurie was accredited as a Cognitive Edge Practitioner and is one of the most experienced SenseMaker® practitioners in the Cognitive Edge Network, having completed five market research projects using SenseMaker®.
Laurie will be based in Albany, New York and can be reached on laurie.webster@cognitive-edge.com.
Welcome Laurie!
Upcoming courses and executive seminars
CE's accreditation courses and Dave's Leading through Complexity seminars for H2 have been scheduled - dates and cities are listed below.
Country |
Courses |
Dates |
| Seattle, USA | Cognitive Edge Accreditation Course and SenseMaker™ Workshop | 9-11 August 2010 |
| Amsterdam, Netherlands | Cognitive Edge Accreditation Course and SenseMaker™ Workshop | 7-9 September 2010 |
| Singapore | Cognitive Edge Accreditation Course and SenseMaker® Workshop | 15-17 September 2010 |
| Melbourne, Australia | Cognitive Edge Accreditation Course and SenseMaker™ Workshop | 21-23 September 2010 |
| New York, USA | Cognitive Edge Accreditation Course and SenseMaker™ Workshop | 29 September - 1 October 2010 |
| Hong Kong, China | Cognitive Edge Accreditation Course and SenseMaker® Workshop | 27-29 October 2010 |
Country |
Courses |
Dates |
| Chicago, USA | Leading through Complexity one-day executive seminar | 18 October 2010 |
| Austin, USA | Leading through Complexity one-day executive seminar | 20 October 2010 |
| Houston, USA | Leading through Complexity one-day executive seminar | 22 October 2010 |
| San Francisco, USA | Leading through Complexity one-day executive seminar | 26 October 2010 |
| Seattle, USA | Leading through Complexity one-day executive seminar | 28 October 2010 |
Ning
The Cognitive Edge group on Ning is an online social networking space for accredited Cognitive Edge practitioners to connect with each other. The following are some of the threads that were active on Ning in the past month:
Making Sense of Strategy & Structure
List your Twitter ID on CE's 'Network Members' list
Interesting podcasts on "Positive Deviance" & "New How of Business"
If you're an accredited practitioner not yet on Ning, don't hesitate to email Dawn Lincoln for an invite.
Selected recent tweets from Dave Snowden's tweet stream'
#Complexity /narrative not #storytelling or consultancy approach to organisational values published http://bit.ly/a9qXzh - 18 July 2010
@tonyjoyce Resilient strategy assumes failure inevitable, so focus on early detection and fast recovery - 9 July 2010
Follow the Cognitive Edge tweet stream here.
We've created lists for Accredited Practitioners who blog and tweet. If you'd like to be added, please drop Jules Yim a message.
Get connected your way - there's Facebook, Ning, Linkedin, Twitter or RSS:
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In the past month Cognitive Edge has published two papers - one of Signifier Mapping by Dr Beth Meriam and another of Complex Dynamical Systems Theory by Dr Alicia Juarrero.
These papers were authored as part of a report for a Cultural Mapping project led by Narrate and supported by Cognitive Edge. The project piloted narrative and SenseMaker®-based approaches to understanding different cultures. Students in schools in various countries supplied and collected narratives, giving deep and contextual insights to local cultures as well as indicating possible future projects in those communities.
Narratives were collected and self-signified using paper, voice recorders or iPod Touches as well as a successful website. To date, over 7,000 narratives and micro-narratives have been collected from students in South Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.
Analysis using SenseMaker® Explorer resulted in recommendations for education, cross-cultural dialogue, communications and others.
Dr Beth Meriam, corporate anthropologist and consultant / trainer, was the principle anthropologist engaged on this project and Dr Alicia Juarrero, Professor of Philosophy at Prince George's Community College, Maryland and published author, is an expert on the subject of complex adaptive systems; her work has contributed much to the development of Cognitive Edge's complexity-based methodology.
Today's Dilbert cartoon (see below for the full version) brought back memories of corporate life. Innovation in general seemed to trigger a white blood cell reaction in many a corporate environment. In Data Sciences days I was regularly wheeled out for one client who was very excited by some of the new strategy work I was doing which I described here. You knew when it would happen as it always coincided with the annual renewal of the outsourcing contract. I was deployed into meetings and my future presence on the contract was promised, but after renewal all such promises were forgotten and I was put back in the box...
Towards a co-evolutionary praxis of value
In my post of yesterday I suggested that: far too much management "theory" is shoring up executives by making them feel good without changing their real actions. I wrote that as a response to Rosabeth Moss Kanters Ten essentials for getting value from values, but in practice I could have chosen more or less any of the current crop of mainstream management gurus. We have after all created a whole industry that rewards describing ideal behaviour and creating simplistic recipes. I also used quote marks around theory deliberately or possibly ironically. In practice these descriptive and pseudo-prescriptive approaches are theory-light. The need for praxis is central to the work of Cognitive Edge, combining sound theory with practice while privileging neither...
From communication strategies to emergence
The persistence of failed ideas continues to surprise me, and especially in the case of those who claim to embrace complexity approaches to organisational development. A lot of people like the shinny new wine of complexity, but they want to put it in the familiar wineskins of conventional thinking, net effect the wineskins burst...
Catching up on my RSS feed late last night while watching Godfather II into the early hours of the morning, I found this post on leadership from Walter Smith's ever thoughtful blog. He is building on a speech at West Point by William Deresiewicz entitled Solitude and Leadership. As it happens solitude was a personal theme last night so I was probably sensitised to the subject. Unusually I had spent the last two nights eating with a family engaged in multiple conversations. Last night was with David Rooney of Queensland University, his spouse and two daughters engaged in a conversation that ranged from genetics to German literature. When you travel a lot the rhythms of family life are disrupted when home, and travel means a lot of solitary nights in various hotels. Now I am not complaining, there are advantages as well as disadvantages, but its always good to be reminded that people have lives away from seminars, lectures and consultancy practice...
Christine Woods
01 Aug 2010 to 14 Aug 2010
Kiwi born and bred, Chris's has a passion for entrepreneurship This interest was sparked after working in Malawi as a small business advisor. Instead of catching malaria she caught the entrepreneur bug, becoming "hooked" on the passion and energy that entrepreneurs bring to what they do. She currently teaches Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Faculty of Business & Economics at the Univerisy of Auckland. Her consultancy work is with SMEs and Family Businesses in strategy development, learning and business growth and she is also involved with The ICEHOUSE Business Growth Programmes. She became interested in complexity theory and its links with Austrian Economics a number of years ago and is currently using a complexity lens in work on social entrepreneurship.
1. When/where accredited
Singapore / Oct 2008
2. Occupation
Organisation Development (OD) Practitioner in the Singapore Public Service
3. How did you get to know about CE?
Through a Lecture on Complexity by Dave Snowden. Dave is one of our Senior Visiting Fellows at the Civil Service College.
4. Current projects
Am involved in a number of Government-wide projects, but essentially most of these projects are driven by the interest to raise the overall OD capabilities in the Singapore Public Service. The most recent project completed was to assess the state of engagement of OD practitioners across the entire Singapore Public Service (which consists of more than 70 organisations). One example of a current project is to diagnose state of Whole-of-Government collaboration (i.e. collaboration among multiple organisations) and to implement interventions that can facilitate such behaviour.
5. What is Organisation Development (OD)?
OD put simply is the practice of making informed change that results in sustainable organisational performance. I chose this question because it is one that gets asked a lot, and my answer (with emphasis on making ‘informed’ change) explains my interest in complexity – more specifically, how data should be collected and analysed on what appears to be a complex organisational phenomenon for the purpose of making an informed decision on what action to take.
