Category Archives: Systems Thinking

12 November 2013

An Eerie Realization

By Rick Ladd

So . . . I’ve just got to share this. In my mind, the feeling/realization described in this animated gif file is somewhat related to a post I did a while back on whether we would have any way of realizing we’re dead and, in so doing, somehow miss the life we had so recently departed from. What they’re calling a realization I think of as a feeling. I have often marveled at the tenuous yet, in some ways, deep connection I have with random people in random vehicles heading in random directions other than my own. My mind momentarily expands, seeking the trajectories of their lives and the countless people they interact (or not) with. This picture seems to convey the feeling rather well. It’s also evocative of a paper I once wrote for a Labor Law class, where I likened society to a living being and analogized commerce to the human circulatory system. 

 

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11 November 2013

Veteran’s Day – The Bigger Picture

By Rick Ladd
Corporate Social Responsibility

From Marcia’s piece in Fast Company

Today we celebrate the service and dedication of all who have worn a uniform of one or more of the armed forces of our country. Let’s be sure we keep in mind their service was – and is – not merely to protect corporate greed and power; neither is it for maintaining the salaries of CEOs nor the dividends and capital gains of shareholders.

Most everyone who serves does so in the belief they are helping to protect their nation – the people who dwell and work within her borders – from enemies both foreign and domestic. Those people are the strength, the vitality from which a healthy nation grows.

In a wonderful piece for Fast Company – “Is Your Company Ready to Make the World a Better Place?“, Marcia Conner reminds us that our obligations are, and must be, greater than to the bottom line. They are to the future of our world, our species, and the entire planet. Let’s honor our service men and women by taking stock of what we do and how it affects the entire system within which we live. Let’s resolve to truly make this world a better, more livable, and healthier environment for all who inhabit her.

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24 September 2013

I Review Age of Context: A Must Read

By Rick Ladd

Age of Context Cover

I’m not in the habit of reviewing books, but I have a special interest in this one, not merely because I played a role in its production, but because of what the book means to us culturally and economically. What follows is the review I posted on Amazon.

I have long been enamored of the concept of Systems Thinking, which holds (among other things) that systems cannot be understood absent their context, the interrelationships of components within each system and with other systems of which they are a part (or are a part of them). In my career I have often heard it said “context is king.” I am predisposed to look for the contextual interrelationships in all things I attempt to understand.

It was nearly a year ago when Shel Israel posted a request for help on Facebook. He was looking for people who could serve as fact-checkers for his and Robert Scoble‘s new book. At the time, I responded and suggested I could serve as his proofreader. He accepted. Thus began a wonderful adventure. Soon I was proofing Shel’s columns in Forbes (q.v.) under the general title “The Social Beat”. Most of them were portions of what would become the chapters of this book “Age of Context”.

Since that time, I have proofed nearly every column he’s written related to the book, as well as each chapter that ultimately became this wonderful book. I also outlined at least six of the chapters for the authors to use in interviews and at speaking engagements and, toward the end, ended up checking each hyperlink and compiling them into a single document.

I bring all this up in part to reveal what surely has the appearance of a conflict of interest in my recommending you purchase and read this book. However, the greater part of what I’m revealing is how thoroughly it moved and excited me. I will admit to being a techno-geek, and I am naturally drawn to shiny new things. I am somewhat prejudiced. However, Robert and Shel have carefully scoured the tech world and now present their findings and conclusions, and many of them should fairly knock your socks off. I can’t tell you how many times I practically came out of my seat as I was reading about their discoveries. It made it hard at times to do my job. Frequently, I wanted to add my own comments to what they were explaining. I somehow managed to contain my excitement. It’s their book, after all.

In “Age of Context” you will find dozens and dozens of applications and approaches that seek to more completely understand, and integrate into, various aspects of our lives. Whether in the home, at work, or at play; whether in their approach to health, recreation, designing and building cities, or marketing product intelligently, Robert and Shel bring together (put into context, if you will) what these developments mean and how they can — and most likely will — improve our lives. They also recognize, and in no way gloss over, the important issues of privacy and safety many of these developments raise.

Yes, I am somewhat prejudiced. However, I feel quite safe in saying this is an important book. I don’t care for the term “futurist”, but I’d like to think I can recognize some of the next big things. There are a lot of them in this book. You owe it to yourself to understand the coming storm of innovation and change the authors so presciently offer.

Buy it at Amazon
My Review on Amazon

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28 August 2013

Movin’ On Up!

By Rick Ladd

Quantellia Logo

I am pleased, proud, and excited to announce I have joined the team at Quantellia, LLC. Located in Denver, Colorado. My official title is Consulting Analyst and my main duties consist of (oddly enough) analysis . . . and some writing. OK, lots of writing.

Woman working on equations

Making Sense of Complexity

Quantellia is the leader in the emerging discipline of Decision Intelligence and, among other offerings, provides a software platform, World Modeler™, designed to rapidly create interactive simulations for envisioning and understanding highly complex systems interactions and the results of decisions affecting them.

For my friends in the Knowledge Management field, as well as anyone who is involved with complex business, governmental, or other organizational decision making, I invite you to learn more about Quantellia. My professional opinion is (though somewhat slanted) you won’t regret it.

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25 October 2012

Continuous Improvement

By Rick Ladd
Thumbs up

It’s All Good!

One of the things I noticed when I was working at PWR was the seeming inevitability that people who were most knowledgeable about some skills seemed considerably challenged when it came time to demonstrate the skill in their own work. What I’m referring to is analogous to the cobbler whose children are shoeless or the accountant who never balances her own checkbook.

I found this to be true of many of us who were the most active in what we still refer to as Knowledge Management (KM). We could help others – whether individuals or large product teams – to organize their approach to capturing and sharing knowledge, but we couldn’t keep our own calendars or contact lists up-to-date to save our lives. I was surely guilty of this; still am, though not nearly as profoundly as before.

I credit the concept of continuous improvement for my ability to refine my personal knowledge management and to slowly become more effective and efficient in performing the tasks and commitments I take on. I suppose, in that regard our lives are a bit like physics avoiding pyramids. The basic, foundational skills we learn early in life remain at the bottom of the edifice. However, as we gain experience and further skills, the foundation continues to broaden in order to provide maximum support for those new capabilities we keep piling on top of it.

In that spirit, I have just added another page to this site. On it, I’ve taken a screen grab from my LinkedIn profile in order to share some of the recommendations I’ve received over the past few years. They’re from colleagues and friends and, in that regard, they may be taken with a tiny grain of salt. I do believe they’re reasonably honest and accurate. I paid nothing for them 🙂

The page has been added to the Menu on this site, under “Background”, “Personal”. If you’d like to check it out now, the link is here.

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5 October 2012

The University of Twitterville

By Rick Ladd

I joined Twitter on March 2, 2008; 1678 days ago. I know this because I asked the Internet when I joined. I kind of remembered, but wanted to be sure. I just typed into Google “When did I join Twitter?”. Actually, I didn’t have to finish my sentence. Google finished it for me. I was presented with the following link, http://www.whendidyoujointwitter.com/. I put in my user name and in less than a second I had my answer. A short while later I remembered HootSuite knows when I joined and shares that info quite easily as well. Oh well. It’s good to have choices, eh?

University of Twitterville

The University of Twitterville

At the time I joined I was working for a rather large aerospace company (Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a division of United Technologies), where I had been a member of the Space Shuttle Main Engine team for nearly twenty years. My job at the time, which had changed considerably over the years, was to seek out new technologies for communication and collaboration and determine if we could use them internally to our advantage. I don’t recall when I tweeted for the first time and I just tried a whole bunch of applications which purport to reveal that initial tweet, but none of them can handle the number  I’ve made (18,036 at the moment). My recollection, however, is that it took me nearly six months until I was able to figure out a use case that made sense.

I was never interested in following celebrities and I wasn’t interested in small talk. I was looking for how Twitter could be used for a business to help its people get their work done efficiently and effectively. I think one of the first actual uses I encountered that impressed me was my discovery the team preparing one of the Shuttle Orbiters for its next launch were using it to share status updates in real-time. I had been part of teams that had “stand up” meetings every morning to update each other on the previous day’s activities. These were hugely wasteful exercises made necessary by the limited communication capability at the time. There were many days when only 20% or less of the team needed to be at the meeting, but there was no way to know that until it was over.

With Twitter, I imagined the NASA team being able to follow each other and share their status immediately. The value to this could be, in my estimation, enormous. For instance, if a team member was offsite picking up an item that another member of the team needed to continue working on a particular task, the knowledge that it would be available in four hours could allow them to start a task, knowing that the upstream portion of it was now complete or that a needed component for finishing that task was on its way. There are all kinds of scenarios where not having to wait until the following day saves time. There’s also something to be said merely for the value of one-to-many communication capabilities, which is one of the many value propositions of Twitter.

Unfortunately, I could never get anyone at Rocketdyne to experiment with Twitter as a communications tool, so I had to look for another use case; one that benefitted me but might have broader implications as well. So here’s what I, personally, got out of Twitter and why I think it is so valuable. One of the first people I started following was Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly). He had written what I found to be the seminal paper on the transition in the Internet from a one-way, broadcast medium to a multi-path, participatory medium. It was entitled “What is Web 2.0“, and reading it had been one of the more enlightening reads of my career. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it highly.

It wasn’t long before I was following quite a few thought leaders. What made all this so incredibly valuable was not merely being able to read their pithy tweets, but also being able to read the papers, columns, and blog posts they provided links to. Thanks to link shortening services like tiny.url and bit.ly, a very long URL could be shortened to less than 25 characters, allowing the author of a tweet to not only share the link, but also to provide a little information on what the subject is. This made it easy to determine if something was going to be of interest to me.

Although I hold a professional degree (Juris Doctorate) and a Masters degree (in Knowledge Management), I am largely an autodidact; a self-learner. I never went to undergraduate school and got into Law School on the strength of my LSAT scores, which I am reasonably certain were high based on my being self-taught and, therefore, fairly well rounded and well educated. I barely made it out of high school, taking an extra semester to finish enough credits to be able to graduate. I’m a lousy student, but a powerful, self-actualized learner.

In my opinion, perhaps in large part because I’m already someone who learns on his own, I found the things I learned – the education I got, if you will – from Twitter was every bit as valuable and useful as what it took for me to get either of those advanced degrees. In some ways I’m pretty certain it was actually better. It was certainly more pleasurable because it was done entirely on my schedule and nothing I studied was superfluous. I can’t say that of any other educational experience I have had in my entire life.

My experience with Twitter, therefore, is analogous to having gone to University; one of my choosing, taught by people I admire and respect, and studied on a schedule completely of my choosing. Tests came in the form of real-life applications both on-the-job at Rocketdyne and in various interactions I had with professional and other organizations and people. I am very grateful to be a proud graduate of the University of Twitterville.

Has Twitter affected you in any appreciable, useful way and, if so, what was it?

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Business, Knowledge Management, Professional, Social Media, Systems Thinking

30 September 2012

Can Men Be Feminists?

By Rick Ladd
What a Feminist Looks Like Hint: It Doesn’t Mean You’re Feminine 🙂

I hope this is a question many men have asked themselves. It’s important to understand and come to a useful resolution about this, as I think there are many men who support women’s equality but are somehow intimidated by the thought of being seen as a feminist. Let me say it right up front. I am not only a feminist; I have been one since the early 1970s. It’s important for men to understand what being a feminist means, because it has nothing to do with being feminine, which I think is why many men might cringe somewhat at the thought.

The Oxford English Dictionary, online edition, defines a feminist as “a person who supports feminism”, and Wikipedia defines feminism as follows: “. . . [A] collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. In addition, feminism seeks to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment”. As a movement, feminism is complex and – for the most part – understanding its history isn’t important to the issue of whether or not men can (or should) be feminists. On the other hand, one of the reasons for this post is to share a short video that addresses one of the more egregious historical responses to the struggle of women for suffrage, i.e. to gain the right to vote.

One of the main reasons I have been so supportive of women’s rights almost as long as I’ve been able to vote is my belief, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. Then there’s also this little thing called the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. I like to think the meaning of these two maxims – and so many like them – is that inequality is not a good thing. Since the very essence of feminism is, as stated above, the goal of establishing “equal political, economic, and social rights for women”, it seems to logically follow it is something anyone – even men – of good conscience must support. Let’s take it a little further, though. Let’s ask ourselves who these women are who wish equality. We don’t have to look very far for they are our mothers and grandmothers; our sisters, nieces, and cousins; our girl friends and wives. In short, they are all women, everywhere. Why would we not support feminism and thereby be feminists?

This November 6th we are going to make a choice in the trajectory our nation will follow for the succeeding four years, almost certainly a lot longer since one or more Supreme Court Justices is likely to retire. The Republican Party, through its most important representatives and through its actions, has made it clear they wish to return to a level of patriarchy that makes women second-class citizens and, in some respects, returns them to the status of chattel. Although the party has tried to move the national conversation away from the highly-charged term “War on Women”, the reality is a victory for Mitt Romney would be a “Disaster for Women“. It is imperative for not only women to understand what’s at stake but, perhaps, even more important for men to understand because they have a tendency to be somewhat timid when it comes to supporting these basic rights of women (should read merely “people”).

Today I came across a wonderful short video that recounts the struggle of a group of women who protested for the simple right so many of us take for granted – the right to vote – and were severely punished for their temerity. This was less than a hundred years ago, when Woodrow Wilson was President. Less than 100 years ago! There are far too many of us who either haven’t registered to vote or, in our apathy or despair, won’t take the time to vote. This is not a good thing. As Plato said, “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” The struggle for the right of women has come too far to now go backward. Here is the video I want you to see. I hope you’ll share it as well. It’s very powerful.

And get out there this November and VOTE! 

Photo from Douche, Bag and Shoes

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Philosophy, Politics, Systems Thinking

26 September 2012

More Softiness!

By Rick Ladd

Yesterday I posted my thoughts about empathy and kind of wondered aloud why I find it easy to get so deeply immersed in a fictional drama that I can be moved to tears; sometimes to really distressful levels of sadness and grief. At the end of that post I wrote:

I want to understand what is moving me when this happens. On some levels it seems patently ridiculous to get so emotionally involved in a fiction story. On the other hand, perhaps it is really what makes us human. I’m wondering if someone with a more classical education than I have knows more of the thinking humans have brought to the subject. I’m sure some in the Arts (especially the Theater Arts) have tackled it. I’ll have to do more research. In the meantime, I’m glad there’s plenty of tissue in the house.

As it turns out, thanks to a friend I discovered an interesting answer through a wonderful TED talk by VS Ramachandran, a Neuroscientist who has studied the functions of mirror neurons. It would seem there is overwhelming evidence we humans are more closely connected than I was hinting at.

In his talk he says, “There is no real independent self, aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world, inspecting other people. You are, in fact, connected not just via Facebook and Internet, you’re actually quite literally connected by your neurons.” I find this resonates in many ways with my understanding of Systems Dynamics, Quantum Theory, and Zen and goes a long way toward answering my question. Frankly I find it a meaningful addition to my understanding, but still find myself wondering why it manifests itself so powerfully in some . . . and not at all in others. After all, the world is filled with people who are anti-social in varying degrees of severity from mild conduct disorders to outright sociopathy or APSD.

Regardless, there is much value in this talk. He speaks of the wonders of the human brain and, with respect to the issues I raised yesterday, uses words like imitation and emulation, ultimately winding his way to empathy. Rather than repeat any of his talk, I urge you to listen to it. There’s at least one very cool surprise a little more than halfway through. At less than eight minutes, it’s really engaging. Here’s the video. I’d love to hear what others think of this:

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Personal, Philosophy, Random Thoughts, Science, Systems Thinking

7 September 2012

What Is Romney’s Campaign Thinking?

By Rick Ladd
Romney Button "Made in China"

Don’t these people vet anything?

I am now fully aware this picture is not real. Please see my apology and explanation here.

I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to blog about politics, but it seems I just can’t keep my mind off the election. It’s easy to say, as I probably have many times before, this is the most important election of my life. I’m not sure it’s true. There is nothing, in my opinion, Romney and Ryan can do that will stop the inevitable. The arc of history has always bent toward the increasing prevalence of peace, justice, and freedom – even if it doesn’t seem that way in various parts of the world.

Much like the existence of cooler temperatures in one small area of the planet does not prove global warming isn’t occurring, you can’t generalize from regional strife and even setbacks like our current economic conditions that our society is devolving. I have said more than once I almost thought it would be good for Michelle Bachmann to become our President because it would surely bring about the next – quite likely necessary – American revolution. I say “almost” because I really would prefer we evolve peacefully. Violence doesn’t generally do much for the species, although it may temporarily benefit one group over another.

Now . . . having said that, let me offer that this probably is the most important election of my life :). We have just barely come through the worst economic collapse in several generations and we’re not out of the woods yet. In my opinion the Policies espoused by the Romney-Ryan ticket are destined to turn the United States of America into what Arianna Huffington has referred to as Third World America. As Bill Clinton said the other night, in his speech to the Democratic National Convention, the Republican position is “we left him a total mess, he hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.” I’m pretty sure that’s not a good idea. I will have more to say about this in the next couple of months. There’s plenty of material out there. I just need to move it from Facebook to here.

At any rate, this graphic is both sad and hilarious. I keep saying that the Republican Party leadership projects all of their worst traits onto others. To me, this is a perfect example of it. One can reasonably assume, if it actually crossed their mind it was important, they would have been willing to spend a little more money getting their buttons made here in the USA. That they don’t care seems pretty evident. Where the projecting comes in is I’m reasonably certain they think we don’t care either and won’t be paying any attention? Am I crazy? What’s your interpretation of why this would happen?

PS – If it’s unclear in the picture I snatched from my Facebook news feed, the arrow is pointing to the words, “Made in China” . . . but you knew that, right?

11 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Politics, Systems Thinking

9 August 2012

Can You Sense Me Now?

By Rick Ladd

Below is a Slideshare presentation posted by a friend who is in the process of authoring a new book entitled “The Age of Context”. He’s presenting it today at the Big 3 Conference in San Francisco, where he is one of the keynote speakers. It’s quite high level and somewhat simplistic at this point, but you should be able to get an idea of the direction the book will be taking.

I have long believed we humans are on the road to becoming a race of cyborgs. Nothing that’s happened in the last quarter century has served to dissuade me from this belief, either. At the rate we’re developing and making use of prostheses, and with continuing advancements in Fetal surgery and in utero cardiac procedures, it’s only a matter of time (100 years? 1000 years?) before most humans will have some sort of inorganic component attached or implanted.

I haven’t thought much about this lately, being content to watch as we meandered down this path. However, recently I was made aware that a couple of social media “friends” of mine were writing a book discussing another aspect of this inevitable evolutionary route we’re on. Their current working title is The Age of Context and I am really glad they’re writing it.

What they’re talking about is the newest developments in the fields of mobile technologies, wearable computers, sensing and mapping capabilities, big data residing in “the cloud”, and the apps and services that bring them together. I believe they’re truly on to something.

The book likely won’t be available until sometime next year. However, one of the authors (they are Shel Israel and Robert Scoble) has put together a simple Slideshare presentation that gives some hints of the direction they’re heading in. Since the presentation is available, I thought I would share it to give you a taste of what they’re seeing and thinking. I am hopeful I’ll have a lot more to say about the subject as time goes on. Suffice it to say I’m very excited about their thoughts, including how they mesh with and supplement those I’ve had for several decades now.

Disclosure: At the request for assistance by the authors, I offered to proofread the manuscript for them and they agreed. Here is how Shel tweeted about it a couple of weeks ago.

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