systems thinking

Money in the Metaverse: Digital Assets, Online Identities, Spatial Computing and Why Virtual Worlds Mean Real Business

by David G. W. Birch and Victoria Richardson  · 28 Apr 2024  · 249pp  · 74,201 words

store. The motivation for this new feature is particularly interesting in the context of data and identity. Alex Danco, Shopify’s director of blockchain and systems thinking, calls out the fact that ‘online buyers walking around the internet are these relatively anonymous people’, which we would agree with. His ­follow-up remark

Globalists

by Quinn Slobodian  · 16 Mar 2018  · 451pp  · 142,662 words

inspiration from the same source of system theory. From the language of “pattern predictions” to his citation of Warren Weaver, Hayek did not argue against system thinking in his Nobel speech but with it. He made the case explicit when he wrote in the introduction to the third volume of his Law

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

by Kate Raworth  · 22 Mar 2017  · 403pp  · 111,119 words

encounters, but it is rooted in misplaced nineteenth-century metaphors of mechanical equilibrium. A far smarter starting point for understanding the economy’s dynamism is systems thinking, summed up by a simple pair of feedback loops. Putting such dynamics at the heart of economics opens up many new insights, from the boom

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growth was always desirable, necessary, or indeed possible, became irrelevant, or political suicide. One person who was willing to risk political suicide was the visionary systems thinker Donella Meadows – one of the lead authors of the 1972 Limits to Growth report – and she didn’t mince her words. ‘Growth is one of

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is, evidently, a handy picture, making visible many key macroeconomic ideas. The trouble, however, lies in what it leaves invisible. In the words of the systems thinker John Sterman, ‘The most important assumptions of a model are not in the equations, but what’s not in them; not in the documentation, but

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, its core concepts are actually quite simple to grasp – meaning that, despite our instincts, we can all learn, through training and experience, to be better ‘systems thinkers’. A growing number of economists are thinking in systems too, making complexity economics, network theory, and evolutionary economics among the most dynamic fields of economic

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when we can ditch the ill-chosen metaphors of Newtonian physics and get savvy with systems now? The dance of complexity At the heart of systems thinking lie three deceptively simple concepts: stocks and flows, feedback loops, and delay. They sound straightforward enough but the mind-boggling business begins when they start

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dance emerges the system’s behaviour as a whole, and it can often be unpredictable. The simplest depiction of the ideas at the heart of systems thinking is a pair of feedback loops, and the one shown here tells a simple story of chickens, eggs, and crossing the road.10 Each arrow

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, and adaptive because they keep evolving over time. Beyond the realm of starlings and chickens, bathtubs and showers, it soon becomes clear just how powerful systems thinking can be for understanding our ever-evolving world, from the rise of corporate empires to the collapse of ecosystems. Many events that first appear to

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in a bank’s asset portfolio, or the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. As Donella Meadows, one of the early champions of systems thinking, put it, ‘Let’s face it, the universe is messy. It is nonlinear, turbulent, and chaotic. It is dynamic. It spends its time in transient

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with so-called environmental externalities, like the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which risk triggering catastrophic effects of climate change. No wonder systems thinkers like John Sterman, director of MIT’s systems dynamics group, are intent on finding ways to overcome policymakers’ blind spots when it comes to tackling

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, transforming their understanding of the speed and scale of cuts needed worldwide. ‘Without tools like these,’ explains Sterman, ‘there is no hope for developing the systems-thinking capabilities or understanding of the climate among any of the constituent stakeholder groups.’40 C-ROADS has been highly valuable for running role-plays of

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China’s Han Dynasty to the Mayan civilisation of Mesoamerica makes clear that even complex and inventive civilisations are vulnerable to downfall.43 So can systems thinking help us to discover whether it might happen again? That question was most famously explored in the 1972 study Limits to Growth, whose team of

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the human population, and greatly reduced living standards for all. When launched, their analysis simultaneously raised the alarm about the state of the world, introduced systems thinking widely into policy debates, and caused an uproar amongst those committed to the goal of growth.44 Mainstream economists were quick to deride the model

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we thrive within planetary boundaries. This is our generational design challenge, and its possibilities are explored in Chapters 5 and 6. But what kind of systems-thinking economist can help to make it happen? Goodbye spanner, hello secateurs Thinking in systems transforms the way we view the economy and invites economists to

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only of income but also of wealth, time and power. A tall order? For sure. But many possibilities emerge if we set out with a systems-thinker’s mindset. A compelling starting place is to draw a new image, so what picture best encapsulates the principle of distributive design? In contrast to

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, fearing that their nation will lose competitiveness – and that their political parties will lose corporate backing. These policies fall short in theory too: from a systems-thinking perspective, quotas and taxes to limit the stock and reduce the flow of pollution are indeed leverage points for changing a system’s behaviour – but

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now built into the public school curriculum.60 ‘Our aim is full-spectrum sustainability,’ says David Orr, executive director of The Oberlin Project, explaining the systems thinking behind the project’s design. ‘We need to recalibrate prosperity with the way that ecosystems work and what they can actually regenerate.’61 The era

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believed, with mixed feelings, that the end of economic growth was inevitable and they had different views on what would bring it about – or, as systems thinkers would say, on which limiting factors would ultimately counter GDP’s reinforcing feedback. Adam Smith believed that every economy would eventually reach what he called

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depending upon it, embrace it without exacting it? It has been a long flight: is it time to land? As ever, the core ideas of systems thinking set out in Chapter 4 will be a useful tool. GDP growth, like all growth, arises out of a reinforcing feedback loop, and it will

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-empt that future by transforming the economy from ever-growing on an unstable trajectory to ever-oscillating within a stable range? What advice would a systems thinker offer? We have already followed Donella Meadows’s wise advice to go for high leverage points like changing the goal, by booting out the cuckoo

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bumped out of the frame by the next emerging powerhouse. This is an international collective action conundrum and hence a tough growth addiction to tackle. Systems thinkers would suggest that one way out of this bind is to diversify and ‘start a new game’ with alternative measures of success. If a successful

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it get this way, and what way is it?’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 14: 1, pp. 121–132. 10. Sterman, J. D. (2000) Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 13-14. 11. Gal, O. (2012) ‘Understanding global ruptures: a complexity perspective on the

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. (2002) ‘All models are wrong: reflections on becoming a systems scientist’, System Dynamics Review 18: 4, pp. 501–531. Sterman, J. D. (2000) Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World. New York: McGraw-Hill. Sterman, J. D.(2012) ‘Sustaining sustainability: creating a systems science in a fragmented academy and

Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business

by John Mackey, Rajendra Sisodia and Bill George  · 7 Jan 2014  · 335pp  · 104,850 words

. Systems Intelligence Another important type of intelligence conscious leaders tend to have in abundance is SYQ, introduced in the preceding chapter. Conscious leaders are natural systems thinkers. They can see the bigger picture and understand how the different components of the system interconnect and behave over time. They can anticipate the immediate

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wealth, the business has a negative net impact on the world and could even be described as a parasite on society. A key principle of systems thinking, identified throughout this book as an essential aspect of Conscious Capitalism, is that there are no such things as main effects and side effects. We

The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis

by Jeremy Rifkin  · 31 Dec 2009  · 879pp  · 233,093 words

the moment of death, all of the relationships that made that living being a whole disappear, leaving just a body of inert matter. The new systems thinking owes much to the emerging field of ecology. Ecology challenged the Darwinian model, with its emphasis on the competitive struggle between individual creatures for scarce

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ultimately will be to understand networks.”3 Physicist and philosopher Fritjof Capra points out:As the network concept became more and more prominent in ecology, systemic thinkers began to use network models at all systems levels, viewing organisms as networks of cells, organs, and organ systems, just as ecosystems are understood as

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interdependencies, our search for relatedness and embeddedness, our willingness to accept contradictory realities and multicultural perspectives, and our process-oriented behavior all predispose us to systems thinking. If we can harness holistic thinking to a new global ethics that recognizes and acts to harmonize the many relationships that make up the l

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in hydraulic societies medieval as salvation telegraph telephone television Ten Commandments Tennyson, Alfred Lord text-formed thought text messaging T-groups thalamus theological consciousness thermodynamic systems thinking Third Industrial Revolution distributed capitalism new energy technologies new social vision Thirty Years’ War Thomas Aquinas, Saint Thoreau, Henry David Three Essays on the Theory

Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything

by Peter Morville  · 14 May 2014  · 165pp  · 50,798 words

’s richer, deeper, more connected.” Kathy Sierra, author, Badass: Making Users Awesome Contents Preface Organization of This Book Acknowledgments Chapter 1, Nature Information in Systems Systems Thinking Intervention Literacy Chapter 2, Categories Organizing for Users Making Frameworks Re-Framing Tranquility or Insight Chapter 3, Connections Links Loops Forks Reflection Chapter 4, Culture

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all intertwingled. Chapter 1, Nature Explores the nature of information in systems from the wolves of Isle Royale to Uber in Silicon Valley. Explains why systems thinking is essential if we hope to create sustainable change. Chapter 2, Categories A deep dive into classification and its consequences. Flows from organizing for users

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are linked. To understand any complex, adaptive system, we must look outside its limits. For instance, the story of Isle Royale is a lesson in systems thinking. In 1958, predictions for the rise and fall of populations were grounded in classic predation theory: more moose, more wolves, but more wolves, less moose

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a long way from library school. But this inquiry is important. Connectedness has consequences. Information changes everything. That’s why I’m willing to travel. Systems Thinking I’m in Silicon Valley. I’m in a cab headed to my hotel. Actually, that’s not true. I’m hitchhiking and plan to

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to predict or control. While we’ll never be perfect at change, we can be better. One path to progress runs through the field of systems thinking, an approach that aims to understand how the parts relate to the whole. Think about it. We’re all familiar with Aristotle’s aphorism: “the

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or wants them to continue. They emerge from the system and are wholly immune to the quick fix. That’s where systems thinking comes in. While conventional thinking uses analysis to break things down, systems thinking relies on synthesis to see the whole and the interactions between parts. As Russell Ackoff, a pioneer in

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systems thinking and business management, explains: Systems thinking looks at relationships (rather than unrelated objects), connectedness, process (rather than structure), the whole (rather than just its parts), the patterns (rather than the contents)

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shifts in perception, which lead in turn to different ways to teach, and different ways to organize society.viii There’s a subversive dimension to systems thinking with hints of danger and risk. And this talk of change can overwhelm. We can’t have everyone thinking this way. But, at times, we

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way. These change agents are often found in and around information systems, because our tools of communication are powerful levers of change. As the legendary systems thinker and environmentalist Donella Meadows explains: Some interconnections in systems are actual physical flows, such as the water in the tree’s trunk or the students

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behind the interface. We’re experts at using boxes and arrows to make the invisible visible. This need for visualization is something we share with systems thinkers like Donella, who explains: There is a problem in discussing systems only with words. Words and sentences must, by necessity, come only one at a

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practices rely upon a visual language for analysis and design. While information architects are known for our sitemaps and wireframes, the tool of choice for systems thinkers is the stock-and-flow diagram. Figure 1-7. A simple stock-and-flow. The simplest use only stocks (elements) and flows (in and out

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. It’s an unconventional text that explains why slums stay slums and traffic gets worse. So it’s no surprise that Jane Jacobs was a systems thinker. To see complex systems of functional order as order, and not as chaos, takes understanding. The leaves dropping from the trees in autumn, the interior

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understood as systems of order, they actually look different.xiii Her 1961 book was an attack on conventional city planning and a perfect illustration of systems thinking. Jane recognized cities as problems in organized complexity, a jumble of parts interrelated into an organic whole. She believed good cities foster social interaction at

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aren’t products either. They are systems within systems. That’s why content management is messier than garbage collection, and why information architects must be systems thinkers. When strategy and structure meet people and process, our maps must be subject to change, because things rarely go according to plan. Intervention In recent

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and tools. Working software over comprehensive documentation. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Responding to change over following a plan.xiv And Agile aligns perfectly with systems thinking. It’s not that we shouldn’t begin with a plan and a process. Both are still important. But, today’s sites and services are

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from multiple scales and myriad perspectives. Archimedes once said “Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I will move the world.” As systems thinkers and change agents, it’s our job to look for the levers. To some of us, this work comes naturally. We don’t think in

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’t enough. The systems of the future are cross-sensory. It’s time to design and experience new forms of connectedness. There’s a reason systems thinking isn’t popular. It’s too hard. In place of understanding, most folks rely on culture, which not only tells us which road to take

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-status systems. My clients paid the price. On the bright side, they learned valuable lessons about change. In The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge argues for systems thinking as the basis for learning organizations, and defines eleven laws, including: The cure can be worse than the disease. The harder you push, the harder

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. 2. Everything must go somewhere. 3. Nature knows best. 4. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Interdependence is also the basis of systems thinking. It explains why the whole is more than the sum of its parts and why our ability to predict or control the behavior of complex

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). v Understanding Context by Andrew Hinton (2014). vi Make Things Be Good by Dan Klyn (2013). vii Systemantics by John Gall (1975), p.14. viii Systems Thinking for Curious Managers by Russell Ackoff (2010), p.6. ix Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows (2008), p.14. x Meadows (2008), p.157. xi

Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen

by Dan Heath  · 3 Mar 2020

want to solve is people dying from drowning, then the life preserver can prevent that. A telltale sign of upstream work is that it involves systems thinking: Because authorities are aware of the risk of drowning, life preservers are purchased and distributed to locations where they will be readily available if an

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taking a few days off work to stay with a sick parent. Life becomes a tightrope walk. People who are tunneling can’t engage in systems thinking. They can’t prevent problems; they just react. And tunneling isn’t just something that happens to poor people—it can also be caused by

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problem that may have drawn you to focus on the system to begin with,” wrote Donella Meadows in an essay. Meadows was a biophysicist and systems thinker whose work I’ll draw on several times in this chapter. She continued, “And realize that, especially in the short term, changes for the good

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Macquarie Island example might have led you to believe that tinkering with ecosystems is too complex to be feasible. But with the right kind of systems thinking, it can work. The international organization Island Conservation, whose mission statement is “to prevent extinctions by removing invasive species from islands,” has succeeded many times

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’t. As a result, we must experiment. “Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model,” said Donella Meadows, the systems thinker. “Get your model out there where it can be shot at. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their own.… The thing to do

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we don’t anticipate that removing the goats on an island might make the invasive weeds run wild, then that’s a clear failure of systems thinking. But we can’t foresee everything; we will inevitably be mistaken about some of the consequences of our work. And if we aren’t collecting

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equipped with so many built-in feedback loops that it can’t help but get better over time. The second option is the one that systems thinkers would endorse. How do you build a feedback loop? Let’s take a simple example from the business world: the staff meeting. Staff meetings are

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which point they’re immediately considered trash. So this should be a no-brainer: Let’s get rid of these bags. Our starting point for systems thinking demands: What are the likely second-order effects? What will fill the void left by plastic bags, if they’re banned? Customers will either: (a

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books, articles, and videos, categorized by chapter. So if you want more depth on any of the topics in the book—problem blindness, early detection, systems thinking, and so on—check out this document. All the resources are clickable for quick access. The So You Want to Go Upstream… podcast. If you

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substituting hard questions for easy ones, 158–59 success, 153–69 suicide, 148, 149 Summit CPA Group, 183 systems change, 97–114, 115, 236, 237 systems thinking, 7, 60, 174, 176, 180 tangibility, 6, 9, 153 taxes, 67–68 Taylor, Lauren, 12 Taylor, Rebecca, 186 technologies, dangers of, 223–25 TEDx talks

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points in, 7 as optional or volunteer work, 41, 76 paradox in, 67 and saving money, 127 systems change and, 97–114, 115, 236, 237 systems thinking in, 7, 60, 174, 176, 180 timelines in, 159 use of term, 7 “the world avoided” phrase and, 70 upstream leaders, questions for: how will

Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems

by Martin Kleppmann  · 16 Mar 2017  · 1,237pp  · 227,370 words

can be predicted by thinking about the entire system (not just the computerized parts, but also the people interacting with it)—an approach known as systems thinking [92]. We can try to understand how a data analysis system responds to different behaviors, structures, or characteristics. Does the system reinforce and amplify existing

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and liveness systems of record, Derived Data, Glossarychange data capture, Implementing change data capture, Reasoning about dataflows treating event log as, State, Streams, and Immutability systems thinking, Feedback loops T t-digest (algorithm), Describing Performance table-table joins, Table-table join (materialized view maintenance) Tableau (data visualization software), Diversity of processing models

In Our Own Image: Savior or Destroyer? The History and Future of Artificial Intelligence

by George Zarkadakis  · 7 Mar 2016  · 405pp  · 117,219 words

with an algorithm that composes sonnets, in which case we would have cybernetic poetry! We can actually think of numerous examples of automatic and autonomous systems. Think of the first automata in Hellenistic Alexandria, or a mechanical heart, or an autonomous robot exploring the surface of Mars. But there also exist numerous

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