Weblog of Allison Pinto, Ph.D. at the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute — A space to share ideas regarding some of the hot topics emerging in children’s mental health

Hello Brownbaggers,

There was quite a turn out at the Brownbag last week. The discussion focused on the question, “Where do we go from here?”

–Greg Teague noted that it might be helpful to ask, “What is this group?” & “What does this group foster?” to make sense of that which is emerging in the Brownbag.
–Mike Agar shared some thoughts about the unique contribution that the Brownbag group could make with regard to applications of complexity theory/science relating to social services. He suggested that the Brownbag could pursue becoming a Fractal of Plexus.
–Several people spoke about the group’s potential to contribute to USF more broadly, and to the local community, by developing the group into a Center on complexity. Frances Wallace shared information about an NSF RFP that looks like a good fit. Walt Nord noted that the development of some materials to provide a basic orientation to complexity for others at USF and in the community would be helpful.
–Gary Burge provided a brief orientation to the website he has established for the Complexity Brownbag at http://garyburge.com/complexity/ Each brownbagger can log on to post materials and comments.
–David Rigall spoke about the value of maintaining the brownbag as a space for folks to think together about complexity and its application. He again suggested that we identify an issue/topic that could serve as a “case study,” about which we each could form an opinion and bring our own expertise, collectively viewing the issue/topic through a complexity lens.
–David proposed that the West Tampa development initiative could serve as this issue, as an article on this issue was published in the Tampa Tribune that very day. We could watch the issue and analyze it with regard to the people, institutions and dynamics involved, as they reveal its complexity.
–Gary has posted a link to the Tampa Tribune article on the Complexity Brownbag website, and today at lunchtime I posted a comment…maybe some of you will do the same!
–Rich Puddy suggested that the Central Park Village project could serve as a focus as well.
–Continued exploration of technologies to support complex adaptive systems / complex responsive processes was also discussed. Jason Miller noted that The Center for 21st Century Teaching Excellence at USF offers courses on using wikis, blogs & podcasting: http://www.cte.usf.edu/

In the end, it was proposed that the Brownbag itself could serve as a case study, as we figure out how we can develop in ways that support the group / effort as a complex adaptive system. Comments included: “How might we evolve as a group such that various projects can form to feed the whole without defining what it is?” “How can we grow our efforts and always come back to an unformed center?” “The Brownbag itself provides an opportunity for us to ‘practice what we preach.’”

So now things are really getting interesting…

What’s the plan for tomorrow?
–Continued discussion of West Tampa as a CAS
–Continued discussion of Complexity Brownbag as a CAS

ALSO: PLEASE NOTE THAT THE OCTOBER 26 BROWNBAG WILL BE 12 – 2, AS WE PLAN TO ATTEND ANDY BLANCH’S PRESENTATION RE: THE FUTURE OF MENTAL HEALTHCARE (MIKE AGAR TO PROVIDE COMMENTARY).

Hope to see you tomorrow,
Same time/place (FMHI Westside D, 12 - 1 p.m.)

Allison

Hi Folks,

Another interesting brownbag yesterday. Here are a few of the questions that were generated and explored:

–The notions Bruce laid out in his article are a creative way of describing the transmission of ideas. Could mark-up be used to model a qualitative language of sorts that would help us better understand sensemaking processes in organizations and systems?
–Regarding McKelvey’s article: Is transcendental hindsight important in organizations and systems, as well as transcendental foresight?
–Agar’s article addresses various dimensions of living narratives. Which combinations of these various dimensions are most important in which conversations in which contexts?
–Do different types of conversations exist at different levels in an organization or system?
–How does the communication and transmission of emotion relate to sensemaking processes?
–When are in-person, whole group sensemaking sessions needed, versus ongoing processes that facilitate sensemaking (such as can be provided through a wiki)?
–How do sensemaking processes among people/groups in an organization or system lead to state changes in the system?
–How is the managerial emphasis on numbers / productivity compromising sensemaking processes?
–What would a qualitative digital dashboard look like, or is that a contradiction in terms?
–How do we notice sensemaking processes occurring (or not) in the work we are doing with/among policymakers, service providing agencies, formal providers, families and individuals?
–So what?

Of course, the most interesting part of the brownbag was the riffing in response to these questions, but it’s Friday after 5:00 and I gotta get outa here, so I’ll leave you to speculate about that part

Two readings/resources were suggested for next week, to further the discussion of ways to make sense of organizational/systems change processes:

1. Suddaby, R. (2006). From the Editors: What Grounded Theory is Not. Academy of Management Journal, 49(4), 633 – 642.

2. “The Art of Complex Problem Solving” interactive webpages by Marshall Clemens which can be accessed at http://www.idiagram.com/CP/cpprocess.html

I’m off to Roanoke for a few days, but look forward to seeing you all next Thursday.

Take care til then,

Allison

Hi Brownbaggers,

We had an interesting discussion during today’s brownbag that touched on:

–Ways to get research re: complex systems funded
–Ways to share the information we are stumbling upon and gathering related to complexity
–Ways to identify a particular complex adaptive system to explore together as a means of applying what we’re learning

We decided to devote NEXT week’s brownbag to discussion of these articles:

“Telling it like you think it might be: Narrative, linguistic anthropology, and complex organization” by Mike Agar in Emergence: Complexity & Organization, which can be accessed at: http://www.ethknoworks.com/files/Eco_article.pdf

“Scholarly journals as web services: automated scholarship, memes and cyberactive articles” by Bruce Neubauer in Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, which can be accessed at http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=767628&jmp=abstract&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=1588875&CFTOKEN=96544800#abstract

“The Hive” by Marshall Poe in the Atlantic Monthly, which can be accessed at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia

“Transcendental Foresight: Using Complexity Science to Foster Distributed Seeing” by Bill McKelvey, which can be accessed at:

http://www.billmckelvey.org/docs/TRANSCENDENTAL%20ORGANIZATIONAL%20FORESIGHT–GLASGOW–11-15-2002.pdf

Note that these are the articles that were distributed a few weeks ago, with one addition: the article by Bill McKelvey on transcendental foresight. McKelvey makes a case for the importance of transcendental foresight by quoting Prusak (1996):

“The only thing that gives an organization a competitive edge—the only thing that is sustainable—is what it knows, how it uses what it knows, and how fast it can know something new!”

He explores processes of sense-making in organizations by asking and answering two questions: “Who is doing the looking?” and “What are they looking at?” He introduces the concepts of the sub-drivers and supra-drivers of transcendental foresight. Here is a quote from the article that offers a brief description, to whet your appetite:

“I answer the question, Who’s Looking? by focusing on the microevolutionary processes comprising the corporate brain. Especially, I study how to speed up the functioning of the corporate brain and how to sharpen its ‘seeing’ ability by using phase transitions to initiate self-organizing activity aimed at collective, foresight-related search behaviors. These are the sub-drivers of transcendental foresight.

Key to this process are the adaptive tensions set up to motivate self-organization. This, then gets at the Looking at What? question. These are the supra-drivers. Here the emphasis turns to the study of longer-run, extant trends at the level above a firm-in-an-industry perspective of most extant strategic analyses—specifically analyses above Porter’s “industry drivers” (1980, 1985) and efficiency curve perspectives. Analyses of where a firm stands with respect to these broader adaptive tensions provides information that can be used to both motivate and steer phase transitions, coevolutionary events, and self-organizing behaviors. Bottom line? Supra-drivers and sub-drivers coevolve to improve organizational foresight.”

This is one of the most dog-eared articles in my personal stash of complexity lit…seems like it’s got all sorts of implications for the work we do. I am really looking forward to discussing it with you all…

Also, GARY, next week would you be willing to share with the group what you’ve been working on in developing a wiki for the group? Bruce is going to follow up with a “peanut butter wiki” too, to help us all understand what exactly a wiki is all about…

OK, that’s it for now, hope to see you next Thursday at noon, &

Take care in the meantime,

Allison

Hi Brownbaggers,

We had an interesting discussion during today’s brownbag that touched on:

–Ways to get research re: complex systems funded
–Ways to share the information we are stumbling upon and gathering related to complexity
–Ways to identify a particular complex adaptive system to explore together as a means of applying what we’re learning

We decided to devote NEXT week’s brownbag to discussion of these articles:

“Telling it like you think it might be: Narrative, linguistic anthropology, and complex organization,” by Mike Agar in Emergence: Complexity & Organization, which can be accessed at: http://www.ethknoworks.com/files/Eco_article.pdf

“Scholarly journals as web services: automated scholarship, memes and cyberactive articles” by Bruce Neubauer in Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, which can be accessed at http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=767628&jmp=abstract&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=1588875&CFTOKEN=96544800#abstract

“The Hive” by Marshall Poe in the Atlantic Monthly, which can be accessed at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia

“Transcendental Foresight: Using Complexity Science to Foster Distributed Seeing” by Bill McKelvey, which can be accessed at Permalink Comments