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Nick Thompson

RT Org Mdlg

John,

"Going forward I like to be able to create tools
that capture every action that people do. For
example, email should not be a stand alone
application. As a person is creating an email,
the content of the email should be linking to
a central repository of organizational knowledge."

Please forgive me for smothering this idea with love, but it rang just
about every bell in my belfry and all the bats and the pigeons are flying
around like CRAZY. Particularly that last sentence. You clearly DON'T
mean organizational knowledge... not primarily, anyway. You DON'T mean
knowledge about organizations. You MEAN, if I may be so presumptuous,
organization knowledge ... the knowledge that is contained IN the
organization which to some degree is available to the nodes in the
organization. I am not being just a fussy old English teacher here. Once
we know you are talking about an organization's knowledge, we see that you
are engaged in a helluva scientific metaphor .... organizations know things
.... like people know things.

But here we get into a lovely confusion about which way this metaphor
REALLY goes. Surely we know a LOT more about how organizations around us
transmit and retain information than we know about how the brain does. So
"organization knowledge" is a metaphor arising in a domain that we know
something about that points to "brain knowledge" which is something we know
less about. In short, it's a metaphor that points back at itself. What
we DO know suggests perhaps that the metaphors "storage", "retrieval" and
yeah, "information" are already perhaps a bridge or two too far. What
travels around organizations is forms of behavior and action not knowledge
(unless forms of behavior and action are what knowledge is).

I am clearly guilty of idea entropy here .... every idea I have increases
the number of things that have to be thought about before anything can be
done. So here is one concrete action you could take..... study words as
BEHAVIORS rather than as INDICES OF CONTENT. Tracking key jargon through
the company emailosphere .... never mind what the jargon "refers" to ...
Even iff words actual MEAN stuff in the normal way we talk about such
things, surely words in organizations travel AHEAD of their meanings, so,
to lapse back into mentalist metaphors for a moment, it is the word that
carves out the meaning in mind of the new hearer of the word, not the
meaning that goes hunting for the word.

OK. The pigeons have settled back down again and the bats will be home in
the morning. Phil? Do you have any idea what I have said here?

I hope you can have TWO webtech meetings on this because I can probably
make the second one but not the first.

NIck

> [Original Message]
> From: <friam-request at redfish.com>
> To: <friam at redfish.com>
> Date: 1/22/2007 7:53:10 AM
> Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 43, Issue 36
>
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>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Real Time Organizational Modeling (John Hellier)
> 2. Ooops! was: NISAC ++ (steve smith)
> 3. Re: Ooops! was: NISAC ++ (David Breecker)
> 4. Re: Real Time Organizational Modeling (Carl Tollander)
> 5. Re: Real Time Organizational Modeling (Phil Henshaw)
> 6. Re: Real Time Organizational Modeling (Phil Henshaw)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:41:49 -0800 (PST)
> From: John Hellier <qhellier at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Real Time Organizational Modeling
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <325240.33243.qm at web32003.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> I am interested in this because of a clear
> problem my group has in communicating.
> This is manifested in an incredible lack of
> understanding of what everyone else is doing,
> even within a small sub-group.
>
> I work in an office of ~100 scientists and
> engineers. The composition of the group is
> broad in functionality and would make an
> interesting test case for trying to capture
> the dynamics of a larger group of scientists
> and engineers.
>
> The project is informal and not quite funded.
> So it is more a pursuit on the side for me.
> But I have been thinking about it for some
> time while working at a variety of organizations,
> all having the same problem.
>
> It may be naive of me but I was thinking of
> approaching this from the top-down with very high
> level actors that evolve over time as the
> model grows. The butterfly effect you speak of
> may not come into play since my initial
> parameters are very general. Initially, the model
> would describe communication channels between actors
> without getting to specific about how to handle what
> is being communicated. Over time the types of actions
> would be fleshed out for each line of communication
> and allowed to change over time. Not sure if
> this makes sense or not.
>
> Going forward I like to be able to create tools
> that capture every action that people do. For
> example, email should not be a stand alone
> application. As a person is creating an email,
> the content of the email should be linking to
> a central repository of organizational knowledge.
> Perhaps email as a tool is wrong for communicating
> in an organization. It just happens to be what
> we have and relatively expedient. A number of
> the applications I have written there replace
> communication channels that used to use email.
> For example, weekly status reports or work orders.
> Both of which were email activities but are
> now formal apps with database backends. These
> kinds of apps could be the start of tracking
> activities.
>
> By capturing all the actions of an organization,
> you could start to encode it. But you would need
> a host of new tools for how people communicate.
>
> A WedTech meeting would be cool.
>
> John Hellier
>
>
>
> --- Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net> wrote:
>
> > On Jan 20, 2007, at 5:58 PM, John Hellier wrote:
> > > Is anyone working on Real Time Organizational
> > Modeling where the
> > > model continually evolves based on changes in the
> > organization. All
> > > members of the organization contribute to the
> > changes even down to
> > > the creation of an email, how the email contents
> > affect the
> > > organization and how the recipients respond to the
> > email.
> >
> > Well, this sounds almost like TranSims in its
> > completeness and
> > depth! Doug might have a suggestion how to approach
> > something quite
> > this detailed and ambitious. Sounds like LOTS of
> > fun too!
> >
> > One problem in this approach is that it is
> > susceptive to the
> > Butterfly effect .. extreme dependency on initial
> > conditions.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
> > This is not a huge problem, but does mean that
> > parameter scans,
> > design of experiments, and the like are needed to
> > make sure your
> > predictions are stable enough for your purpose.
> > Possibly computing a
> > Lyapunov exponent would be a useful tool, but I
> > confess to never
> > doing so with my models, blush!
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_exponent
> >
> > > What I am looking for is the encoding of an
> > organization such that
> > > as someone creates an email, an observer can watch
> > this happening
> > > in the model and see the effect. Maybe the email
> > has little or no
> > > impact or maybe it has a growing ripple effect.
> >
> > I like the word "encoding" here. We've generally
> > built behavior via
> > algorithms, with a certain amount of stochasticity,
> > but have not, in
> > my mind, been quite formal enough.
> >
> > Carl: do you think policy modeling, and category
> > theory in general,
> > could handle encoding an organization?
> >
> > > This model should have a view of the entire
> > organization including
> > > tracking all actions performed. I realize that
> > trying to capture
> > > everything is a bit daunting but if possible it
> > could yield
> > > incredible insight into how organizations work.
> >
> > I'm curious: what is prompting this? Is it a
> > possible project you
> > may be working on? I ask because that might let you
> > do *some*
> > narrowing.
> >
> > > I generally feel that most decisions made in
> > organizations are made
> > > with such limited information that it is amazing
> > that most
> > > organizations don't fail. Or is that they are a
> > lot less brittle
> > > than one might imagine.
> >
> > No doubt about that!
> >
> > That said, one successful narrowing I know of is
> > Steve's
> > visualization of the pharmaceutical industry.
> > Rather than look at
> > the entire organization, the model looked at
> > projects and their life
> > cycle. Its a very interesting viz and maybe you
> > could drop by the
> > office for a show & tell.
> >
> > A second stunt Steve pulled off was actually a
> > multi-organizational
> > simulation of the entire British criminal justice
> > system, including
> > the police, courts and more. Not sure if this would
> > apply in your case.
> >
> > > I know that there is quite a bit of work done in
> > more bit size
> > > pieces. I'm mainly interested in the much larger
> > task of taking a
> > > company of 40K and tracking every action and
> > interaction. And then
> > > by extension, actions connected outside of the
> > organization. I
> > > know, huge, maybe impossible. Is there a way to
> > adapt social
> > > networking concepts to an organization to help
> > model it?
> > >
> > > Any ideas?
> >
> > I'd propose a WedTech meeting .. the lunch chats we
> > have at Redfish
> > on Wednesdays. They often are pretty unformed and
> > brown baggy. It'd
> > give you a way to talk through the modeling effort,
> > and get good
> > feedback from at least those that have tried such a
> > thing.
> >
> > I'd sure love to think about this a bit more. For
> > example, one
> > approach might be to accept the bit sized pieces,
> > but then have them
> > interact. That would make the problem more
> > approachable by
> > decomposition.
> >
> > > Thanks
> > >
> > > John Hellier
> >
> >
> > -- Owen
> >
> > Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
> > http://www.friam.org
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:50:42 -0700
> From: steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Ooops! was: NISAC ++
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <0ab62f792f61e546e4ec4f23b51f92b4 at swcp.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
> FRIAM - folks -
>
> Pardon my indiscrete faux-pas.
>
> That last solicitation for work-leads was intended for Doug only...
>
> No surprise to most of you, however, that LANL under Bechtel is no
> better (and perhaps but not indisputably worse) than under UC
> themselves.
>
> The long-nights and short-days have kept me too busy with stoking a
> woodstove whilst tuning an active solar system, and trying to get 10+
> hours of hibernative sleep a night to participate properly in the
> FRIAM extravaganza represented here and at various coffee locations in
> Santa Fe. But I do enjoy the ebb and flow of ideas presented here.
>
> I am looking for an alternative to my current dial-up service here in
> San Ildefonso... resisting the Sattelite solution up to now. Anyone
> with better thoughts are welcome... <= 28K does not entertain. I'm
> not convinced that my marginal visual siting of Santa Fe Baldy
> constitutes meaningful access to the direct-beam wireless (microwave)
> offered to folks in the Tesuque basin and other such areas. But maybe.
>
> Does anyone know if any of the Satellite systems are not brokered
> through Israeli satellites (no anti-semitism... I'm just kinda
> anti-zionist)?
>
> Carry on!
> - Steve
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:29:14 -0700
> From: "David Breecker" <David at BreeckerAssociates.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Ooops! was: NISAC ++
> To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group"
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <001a01c73ddd$e44cbe90$0200a8c0 at power>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
> Steve, I'm on HughesNet when I'm out in Abiquiu, formerly DirecWay,

formerly
> Fox Corp, which I'm fairly sure is on a U.S. bird given what Hughes'
other
> business operations are about.
>
> I'm pretty satisfied with it, with the standard caveat that if you have a
> choice (DSL, cable, or wireless) take it; if dialup is your only
> alternative, go for the satellite.
>
> Downloads are roughly T-1 speeds; uploads have no minimum guarantee, but
I
> find they're at dialup or better. The latency gets to you (pageloads can
> feel as slow as dialup if you're clicking through quickly), but you get
used

> to it, and you can stream audio or video, handle fat files and software
> downloads, etc.
>
> Give me a call if you'd like more info, or come by and try it,
> db
>
> dba | David Breecker Associates, Inc.
> www.BreeckerAssociates.com
> Abiquiu: 505-685-4891
> Santa Fe: 505-690-2335
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "steve smith" <sasmyth at swcp.com>
> To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group"

> Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 8:50 PM
> Subject: [FRIAM] Ooops! was: NISAC ++
>
>
> > FRIAM - folks -
> >
> > Pardon my indiscrete faux-pas.
> >
> > That last solicitation for work-leads was intended for Doug only...
> >
> > No surprise to most of you, however, that LANL under Bechtel is no
> > better (and perhaps but not indisputably worse) than under UC
> > themselves.
> >
> > The long-nights and short-days have kept me too busy with stoking a
> > woodstove whilst tuning an active solar system, and trying to get 10+
> > hours of hibernative sleep a night to participate properly in the
> > FRIAM extravaganza represented here and at various coffee locations in
> > Santa Fe. But I do enjoy the ebb and flow of ideas presented here.
> >
> > I am looking for an alternative to my current dial-up service here in
> > San Ildefonso... resisting the Sattelite solution up to now. Anyone
> > with better thoughts are welcome... <= 28K does not entertain. I'm
> > not convinced that my marginal visual siting of Santa Fe Baldy
> > constitutes meaningful access to the direct-beam wireless (microwave)
> > offered to folks in the Tesuque basin and other such areas. But maybe.
> >
> > Does anyone know if any of the Satellite systems are not brokered
> > through Israeli satellites (no anti-semitism... I'm just kinda
> > anti-zionist)?
> >
> > Carry on!
> > - Steve
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:12:44 -0700
> From: Carl Tollander <carl at plektyx.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Real Time Organizational Modeling
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <45B447CC.3000303 at plektyx.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> >
> > Carl: do you think policy modeling, and category theory in general,
> > could handle encoding an organization?
> To date, the efforts I'm aware of speak to a Category Theory (CT)
> environment
> where agents equipped with identities navigate and create additional
> model structure
> among categorified data. We might consider organizations to be
> black-box generators of such
> categorified data, but we don't yet model the organizations themselves
> explicitly. The
> current work is thus about interoperability and mixing of models and the
> theories about
> them. I think that this work is necessary to figure out how to more
> easily explore
> and calibrate spaces of models, but that general organizational modeling
> might be a
> bit ambitious for the approach at this point.
>
> Here's why. Organizational modeling is usually difficult because (1)
> the organization
> is not always cognizant about what the salient features are (it looks
> for things that are
> more easily quantifiable), (2) there are usually different factions
> within the organization
> that will tell you (alas, over the duration of contract) that the
> 'actual' features are different
> from those you were told about by those other guys last month, and (3)
> what is actually
> salient may be different depending on what the organization is trying to
> do at any
> given time and the environment it is currently situated in. My
> (admittedly limited)
> experience with a machine learning project seems to reveal to me that the
> feature-extraction area is still full of unsolved problems. While these
> problems aren't
> totally intractable (my friends deal with them all the time), for me (a
> small organization)
> they are distracting, so, accordingly, I'm trying to keep the focus
> more on policy space
> than organization space, at least for now.
>
> The questions one asks of models synthesized by CT-like approaches will
> be more of the
> 'how does a group of models extend itself when we do X or modify the
> group's model mix',
> as opposed to the 'how does a static model (however nonlinear it may be)
> react when we do X'.
> Given the difficulties in modeling organizations I mentioned above, I
> tend to believe that the
> former approaches will eventually come to bear more fruit. However,
> 'eventually' probably
> doesn't mean 'tomorrow', and anyone new to complexity modeling
> approaches should keep
> in mind that these approaches will likely help extend the reach of
> current modeling practice,
> not compete with it.
>
> Carl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:37:16 -0500
> From: "Phil Henshaw" <sy at synapse9.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Real Time Organizational Modeling
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <00e701c73e22$0d3696c0$2f01a8c0 at SavyII>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Well, the only rigorous general method I know of for exposing the
> detailed structure and steering potentials for individual complex system
> events is described in "easy to mark", posted yesterday.
>
> Studying individual events requires substantially reforming the methods
> of science that were built for representing classes of similiar events
> as following the same formula.
>
>
> Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> NY NY 10040
> tel: 212-795-4844
> e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> explorations: www.synapse9.com
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of John Hellier
> > Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 5:19 PM
> > To: friam at redfish.com
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Real Time Organizational Modeling
> >
> >
> > Phil,
> >
> > Actually, it is not about confidence in modeling so much as
> > trying to find a way to understand an organization. To see
> > how it is really working. Having worked for large (Cisco,
> > NT), small (biotech and start-up) and government both state
> > and federal, I see the same problem, how the organization
> > works is a mystery. It is a black box to the decision makers.
> > I as a decision maker
> > whether manager, project lead or CEO have very little insight
> > into how my organization is working.
> > How can I make an informed decision based on such limited and
> > frequently unvalidated information?
> > I will but it is a far from optimum decision. One that could
> > sink my organization. Or maybe because
> > I don't have the information I won't make the big decision on
> > anything. Which again may sink my organization. I'm just
> > hoping that my competition has the same reservations.
> >
> > I'm not looking to magically solve the problem by using
> > models. I hope to be able to offer some help in clearing the
> > chaos that we call organizations today. Modeling may be help.
> > Small steps.
> >
> > It is not about rules either. The biggest failing in IT is
> > discounting the human element. I would like to create tools
> > that help the individual to be clearer in their actions and
> > to be able to focus on the creative side and leave the drone
> > work to a machine. There is a balance required though and
> > the human will have to adapt a bit and I don't mean being
> > comfortable using Windows(Wrong direction!). I see the tools
> > more as universal translators that make the intentions and
> > expectations of all the participants clear(er).
> >
> > I've been a software engineer for fair number of years. I'm
> > currently working up in Los Alamos on software projects that
> > attempt to get scientists and engineers to communicate.
> >
> > John Hellier
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Phil Henshaw <sy at synapse9.com>
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <friam at redfish.com>
> > Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 1:08:40 PM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Real Time Organizational Modeling
> >
> > John, I'm not sure what your background is, but I've been
> > surprised by what high confidence people here put in
> > modeling, and how little discussion of modeling strategies
> > there is. I doubt there's any useful modeling method for
> > organizations, since what animates them are the
> > currents of human ideas, not rules. What distinguishes between an
> > email addressing a critical issue that simply goes dead and
> > engages no one, and an email addressing trivial matters that
> > becomes everyone's reference for a while, is completely unknown.
> >
> >
> > Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> > NY NY 10040
> > tel: 212-795-4844
> > e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> > explorations: www.synapse9.com
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> > > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of John Hellier
> > > Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 7:58 PM
> > > To: friam at redfish.com
> > > Subject: [FRIAM] Real Time Organizational Modeling
> > >
> > >
> > > Is anyone working on Real Time Organizational Modeling where
> > > the model continually evolves based on changes in the
> > > organization. All members of the organization contribute to
> > > the changes even down to the creation of an email, how the
> > > email contents affect the organization and how the recipients
> > > respond to the email. What I am looking for is the encoding
> > > of an organization such that as someone creates an email, an
> > > observer can watch this happening in the model and see the effect.
> > > Maybe the email has little or no impact or maybe it has a
> > > growing ripple effect.
> > >
> > > This model should have a view of the entire organization
> > > including tracking all actions performed. I realize that
> > > trying to capture everything is a bit daunting but if
> > > possible it could yield incredible insight into how
> > > organizations work. I generally feel that most decisions made
> > > in organizations are made with such limited information that
> > > it is amazing that most organizations don't fail. Or is that
> > > they are a lot less brittle than one might imagine.
> > >
> > > I know that there is quite a bit of work done in more bit
> > > size pieces. I'm mainly interested in the much larger task of
> > > taking a company of 40K and tracking every action and
> > > interaction. And then by extension, actions connected outside
> > > of the organization. I know, huge, maybe impossible. Is there
> > > a way to adapt social networking
> > > concepts to an organization to help model it?
> > >
> > > Any ideas?
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > >
> > > John Hellier
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ============================================================
> > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures,
> > > archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:50:09 -0500
> From: "Phil Henshaw" <sy at synapse9.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Real Time Organizational Modeling
> To: "'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'"
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Message-ID: <00e801c73e23$d990ee40$2f01a8c0 at SavyII>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Great! these are very legitimate methodology questions. The reason I
> let my interest in the first serious attempts at system dynamics
> modeling to slide is because of their flaws.
>
> Individual events represent processes with continually changing
> structure and all the models I know of, try to approximate that with
> fixed structures. It's very problematic. I'm not sure that my work is
> advanced enough to make a strong contribution to practical modeling
> efforts, but sometimes it's helpful to have someone on the team who's
> aware of previously unrecognized parts of the problem.
>
> BTW in that post I was probably voicing some frustration with not just
> FRIAM but also all the other really smart sophisticated people I've
> talked with over the past years about this really cool thing I found.
> The example of inexplicable organizational behavior I chose was meant to
> be recognizable, but not to suggest that I think that the tone of
> discussions here, on any subject, is trivial.
>
>
> Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> NY NY 10040
> tel: 212-795-4844
> e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> explorations: www.synapse9.com
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
> > Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 7:02 PM
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Real Time Organizational Modeling
> >
> >
> > On Jan 21, 2007, at 1:08 PM, Phil Henshaw wrote:
> > > John, I'm not sure what your background is, but I've been
> > surprised by
> > > what high confidence people here put in modeling, and how little
> > > discussion of modeling strategies there is.
> >
> > Phil, we all realize you are disappointed in FRIAM for its lack of
> > understanding of your chosen area. But there is no need for snide
> > remarks such as this. John fully realizes who he is speaking to and
> > has realistic expectations.
> >
> > > I doubt there's any useful
> > > modeling method for organizations, since what animates them are the
> > > currents of human ideas, not rules.
> >
> > Nonsense. Organizations have been modeled at least since MIT's Jay
> > Forrester, and later, John Sterman, introduced their System
> > Dynamics. I've always been surprised at your not using System
> > Dynamic for studies of growth. It's eminently suited to flows,
> > feedback, high interaction rates and so on.
> >
> > > What distinguishes between an
> > > email addressing a critical issue that simply goes dead and
> > engages no
> > > one, and an email addressing trivial matters that becomes
> > everyone's
> > > reference for a while, is completely unknown.
> >
> > Gosh, I'm sorry we are such a lousy list and focused on such trivial
> > topics.
> >
> > If this forum has been unresponsive to your needs, perhaps
> > you should
> > search elsewhere.
> >
> > -- Owen
> >
> > Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net
> >
> >
> > On Jan 21, 2007, at 1:08 PM, Phil Henshaw wrote:
> >
> > > John, I'm not sure what your background is, but I've been
> > surprised by
> > > what high confidence people here put in modeling, and how little
> > > discussion of modeling strategies there is. I doubt there's any
> > > useful
> > > modeling method for organizations, since what animates them are the
> > > currents of human ideas, not rules. What distinguishes between an
> > > email addressing a critical issue that simply goes dead and
> > engages no
> > > one, and an email addressing trivial matters that becomes everyone's
> > > reference for a while, is completely unknown.
> > >
> > >
> > > Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > > 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> > > NY NY 10040
> > > tel: 212-795-4844
> > > e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com
> > > explorations: www.synapse9.com
> > >
> > >
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On
> > >> Behalf Of John Hellier
> > >> Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 7:58 PM
> > >> To: friam at redfish.com
> > >> Subject: [FRIAM] Real Time Organizational Modeling
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Is anyone working on Real Time Organizational Modeling where the
> > >> model continually evolves based on changes in the
> > organization. All
> > >> members of the organization contribute to the changes even down to
> > >> the creation of an email, how the email contents affect the
> > >> organization and how the recipients respond to the email.
> > What I am
> > >> looking for is the encoding of an organization such that
> > as someone
> > >> creates an email, an observer can watch this happening in
> > the model
> > >> and see the effect. Maybe the email has little or no
> > impact or maybe
> > >> it has a growing ripple effect.
> > >>
> > >> This model should have a view of the entire organization including
> > >> tracking all actions performed. I realize that trying to capture
> > >> everything is a bit daunting but if possible it could yield
> > >> incredible insight into how organizations work. I
> > generally feel that
> > >> most decisions made in organizations are made with such limited
> > >> information that it is amazing that most organizations
> > don't fail. Or
> > >> is that they are a lot less brittle than one might imagine.
> > >>
> > >> I know that there is quite a bit of work done in more bit size
> > >> pieces. I'm mainly interested in the much larger task of taking a
> > >> company of 40K and tracking every action and interaction.
> > And then by
> > >> extension, actions connected outside of the organization. I know,
> > >> huge, maybe impossible. Is there a way to adapt social networking
> > >> concepts to an organization to help model it?
> > >>
> > >> Any ideas?
> > >>
> > >> Thanks
> > >>
> > >> John Hellier
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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>
> End of Friam Digest, Vol 43, Issue 36
> *************************************