Introducing myself to FRIAM

[Bruce Abell]

To the FRIAM group:

Let me introduce myself as a new member of this mailing list.

I am Bruce Abell of Santa Fe Associates International, a small consulting group focused on strategies for adaptive organizations. My introduction to complexity came in 1991 when I moved to Santa Fe to become administrative vice president of Santa Fe Institute. Prior to that I had been a senior fellow doing technology policy research at Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, a technology consultant with The Keyworth Company, an assistant director of the White House Science Office, and a communications manager at National Science Foundation, etc.

At SFI I worked closely with my co-vice president, Mike Simmons, and together we formed the SFI Business Network, which I oversaw until I left SFI in 1997. Mike and I, along with Howard Sherman, then formed Santa Fe Center for Emergent Strategies (currently Santa Fe Associates International at www.santafeassociates.com). Mike is a physicist whose excellent scientific taste was, in my mind, largely responsible for the quality and daring of the Santa Fe Institute programs during its first dozen years. Howard was a philosophy professor who had gotten sidetracked, reluctantly, into several spectacularly successful business careers. In one of his several retirements he discovered Santa Fe Institute and immersed himself in trying to understand complexity and its implications and limits for organizations. He succeeded quite well. In the mid-1990s Howard and I organized two large, early conferences co-sponsored by SFI and a company of his on "complexity and business," one in San Francisco and one in London.

When the three of us set off on our own in 1997, our goal was to explore and apply concepts from complexity to organizations; that is, to help them benefit from some of the adaptive processes inherent in systems in nature. Under Howard's particular leadership, we shifted away from pure complexity approaches to understand the role of ideas and what might be thought of as "directed evolution" in human enterprises. Howard and I both described these approaches in our respective books, "Open Boundaries" by Howard Sherman and Ron Schultz, published in 1998, and "Re-Imagine Your Business for Breakthrough Results" by Bruce Abell, published in 2002.

>From 1997 to 2001 we conducted several dozen seminars in Santa Fe on complexity and business, out of which we developed some consulting projects. Over that time we developed a methodology for "fixing" organizations that had become mal-adaptive, or just plain outdated, called "diagnostics for emergent strategies." The diagnostics are described in detail in my book.

SFAI coordinates a network of member companies in different countries that are interested in applying complexity thinking to businesses there. I look forward to interacting with people in FRIAM.

_______________________
Bruce Abell
Santa Fe Associates International
7 Morning Glory
Santa Fe, NM  87506
Tel: [phone]
www.santafeassociates.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20050611/d9279aea/attachment.htm

[Stephen Guerin]

Welcome, Bruce. It's great to have you here as one of the early pioneers of
Applied Complexity!

-Steve

_____________________________________________________________________
[hidden email]
www.Redfish.com
624 Agua Fria Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
mobile: [phone]
office: Santa Fe, NM [phone] / London, UK [phone]
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Bruce Abell [mailto:[hidden email]]
  Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 11:00 AM
  To: [hidden email]
  Subject: [FRIAM] Introducing myself to FRIAM


  To the FRIAM group:

  Let me introduce myself as a new member of this mailing list.

  I am Bruce Abell of Santa Fe Associates International, a small consulting
group focused on strategies for adaptive organizations. My introduction to
complexity came in 1991 when I moved to Santa Fe to become administrative
vice president of Santa Fe Institute. Prior to that I had been a senior
fellow doing technology policy research at Hudson Institute in Washington,
DC, a technology consultant with The Keyworth Company, an assistant director
of the White House Science Office, and a communications manager at National
Science Foundation, etc.

  At SFI I worked closely with my co-vice president, Mike Simmons, and
together we formed the SFI Business Network, which I oversaw until I left
SFI in 1997. Mike and I, along with Howard Sherman, then formed Santa Fe
Center for Emergent Strategies (currently Santa Fe Associates International
at www.santafeassociates.com). Mike is a physicist whose excellent
scientific taste was, in my mind, largely responsible for the quality and
daring of the Santa Fe Institute programs during its first dozen years.
Howard was a philosophy professor who had gotten sidetracked, reluctantly,
into several spectacularly successful business careers. In one of his
several retirements he discovered Santa Fe Institute and immersed himself in
trying to understand complexity and its implications and limits for
organizations. He succeeded quite well. In the mid-1990s Howard and I
organized two large, early conferences co-sponsored by SFI and a company of
his on "complexity and business," one in San Francisco and one in London.

  When the three of us set off on our own in 1997, our goal was to explore
and apply concepts from complexity to organizations; that is, to help them
benefit from some of the adaptive processes inherent in systems in nature.
Under Howard's particular leadership, we shifted away from pure complexity
approaches to understand the role of ideas and what might be thought of as
"directed evolution" in human enterprises. Howard and I both described these
approaches in our respective books, "Open Boundaries" by Howard Sherman and
Ron Schultz, published in 1998, and "Re-Imagine Your Business for
Breakthrough Results" by Bruce Abell, published in 2002.

  From 1997 to 2001 we conducted several dozen seminars in Santa Fe on
complexity and business, out of which we developed some consulting projects.
Over that time we developed a methodology for "fixing" organizations that
had become mal-adaptive, or just plain outdated, called "diagnostics for
emergent strategies." The diagnostics are described in detail in my book.

  SFAI coordinates a network of member companies in different countries that
are interested in applying complexity thinking to businesses there. I look
forward to interacting with people in FRIAM.

  _______________________
  Bruce Abell
  Santa Fe Associates International
  7 Morning Glory
  Santa Fe, NM  87506
  Tel: [phone]
  www.santafeassociates.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20050611/9bb19b0f/attachment.htm