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 |
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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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 |
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In reply to this post by John Hellier
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 |
Owen,
In fact, there is a component of TRANSIMS that is somewhat similar to what is described below. If you recall the "simulated annealing" step of a TRANSIMS analysis, a certain percent of unsatisfied traveler demand is iteratively rerouted until either all the travel demand for a given urban region can be realistically satisfied, or it is determined that the travel demand is unrealistic. However, the design of this component was carefully developed such that the individual agents are only in possession of local knowledge of the system, not global knowledge. The analyst, or course, can see the overall effects on the system of the indiviuals' trip replanning, but the agents in the simulation only see their local effects. --Doug -- Doug Roberts, RTI International droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On 1/21/07, 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 > -- Doug Roberts, RTI International droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20070121/d43553ae/attachment.html |
In reply to this post by Phil Henshaw-2
Phil,
I've been wondering for some time if you have ever actually designed and implemented an agent based model of any kind, for complexity analysis or not. I suspect the answer is "no". --Doug -- Doug Roberts, RTI International droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On 1/21/07, Phil Henshaw <sy at synapse9.com> 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 > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > 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 > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20070121/1f307fe0/attachment.html |
In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
Doug -
Just checking in after our brief conversation at De Colores when you intimated that RTI (or equivalent) might have some work. I'm working on Viz for NISAC... trying to come up with an integrated strategy (and reference implementation) for 2D (Java app w/OpenMap or GeoTools) thick client, plus GeoTools thin client (HTTP/HTML/JavaScript) plust 3D thin client (Google Earth/KML) interface to the multitude of models... I have other irons in the fire as well, but those are the ones most relevant to your work. What is the prognosis for extra-LANL work via your friends and associates? - Steve |
Hi, Steve.
Thanks for jogging my memory -- I'll mention you to my colleagues this week and let you know what opportunities might exist at RTI for a viz guy. Cheers, --Doug -- Doug Roberts, RTI International droberts at rti.org doug at parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On 1/21/07, steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote: > > Doug - > > > Just checking in after our brief conversation at De Colores when you > intimated that RTI (or equivalent) might have some work. > > I'm working on Viz for NISAC... trying to come up with an integrated > strategy (and reference implementation) for 2D (Java app w/OpenMap or > GeoTools) thick client, plus GeoTools thin client > (HTTP/HTML/JavaScript) plust 3D thin client (Google Earth/KML) > interface to the multitude of models... I have other irons in the fire > as well, but those are the ones most relevant to your work. > > What is the prognosis for extra-LANL work via your friends and > associates? > > - 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 > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20070121/881c8718/attachment-0001.html |
In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
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 > |
In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
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 |
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" <[hidden email]> To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <friam at redfish.com> 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 > > |
In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
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 > > |
In reply to this post by John Hellier
I think John's on the right trail with his opening and closing
comments about "communication, which could start with notions of "tagging" and agent communication languages but then would have to dive into the literature on discourse in the workplace. In the many projects I've been involved with over the last year or so, the problem he describes is the normal situation and difficult to figure out how to resolve. Maybe thinking of the problem in terms of the whole organization is in the way here. The problem with ?the whole organization? is that there are a variety of mental models distributed within and linked to it, to some extent constrained by shared task demands, to some extent still variable within task depending on the variety of biographies brought in by individual participants. Then another problem--the tasks themselves change in response to changes in the organizational environment, and the changes impact differentially on various organizational units with different rhythms. A third problem--Making the model is an example of Arthur?s self referential ?logical hole? for economics-- Making the model changes the organization that it is a model of. The more the organization resembles the ?Complex Organization? celebrated in the literature, the more difficult these problems will be. Maybe the notion of a model of THE organization harks back to the old hierarchical command and control steady state etc model that so many try to change, except of course in government and the university (: So models yes, but of issues that can be reduced and clarified, probably not of an actual entire organization. All of this leaves John's original problem unsolved. It will involve communication, but also issues of interests, power, distrust, prejudice, and others that also need to be addressed. Like he said, a WedTech discussion wouldn't be such a bad idea. Mike Agar www.ethknoworks.com On Jan 21, 2007, at 8:41 PM, John Hellier wrote: > 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 >> > > > > ============================================================ > 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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