Systems Thinking & Social Media

Sysparatem
Social Media, Complexity at the Organisation / Environment
Interface & Systems Thinking Frameworks

Copyright 2012 Sysparatem

Sysparatem Framework Fusion

●
Major real-world paradigm changes create multifaceted problems
●
They demand a range of skills and tools
●
Usually we need to mix approaches and frameworks to suit the
territory we find ourselves in
●
We are free to fuse frameworks to suit the territory but trying to
make the territory fit the framework only ends in falsifying or ignoring
evidence
●
This half of the session explains a framework fusion I used for
looking at crucial change
●
The problem was how organisations need to transform to function
in modern social media environments

Copyright Sysparatem 2012 under creative commons license

Sysparatem Problem I

Organisations can't invent customers to suit
their organisations any more because their
customers are in an enormous articulated
network outside the boundary
They have to address much more complexity
at the perimeter and have to respond to the
inputs instantly in most cases


Sysparatem Problem II

A hierarchical structure is unable to deliver
the necessary responsiveness at the
organisational perimeter
The structure cannot process the necessary
policy application decisions and strategic
actions required for organisations to survive


Sysparatem Problem III

A lot of the answers have been around for a
long time but while it was still largely possible
to hoodwink the consumer, implementing
those answers was optional.
The big difference now is that you can't do
that any more


Sysparatem Systems Thinking VSM

What follows are 3 frameworks from Systems
Thinking that mashed up together looked like
a solution
The first was developed in the
1970's by Stafford Beer
called the Viable Systems Model



System 5
Policy, Governance, Culture

System 4
Marketing, Portfolio, Innovation

System 3
Delivery Resource Distribution

System 2
Coordination

System 1
Operations

Diagram from “The Brain of the Firm” By Stafford Beer published by Wiley 1981



VSM is not a 5 minute study so I'm going to focus here on the aspect
which most directly answers the problem with hierarchical structure.
The organisational model is fractal
So every level of every organisation
contains a whole model within.
This provides requisite variety at the
organisational perimeter as there are
always local instances of Governance etc.
Power is distributed but also coordinated.
This framework let me see how large
organisations could work to achieve
common aims

See “The Fractal Organisation” by Patrick Hoverstadt


Sysparatem Systems Thinking PCP

The Second area of ST I drew on was work developed by
Fran Ackermann & Colin Eden based on George Kelly's
Personal Construct Theory. This work is called SODA
Strategic Options Development and Analysis.

George Kelly



SODA uses cognitive mapping techniques and workshop environments to arrive
at socially negotiated and jointly shared models for organisational change

I thought this fitted perfectly with VSM as a method of developing a shared vision
across an organisation

The next slide is an example of a causal map. Rule of thumb if the map is of an
Individual it's Cognitive if it's used for a group it's Causal



Cognitive mapping tool Decision Explorer available from Banxia.com


Sysparatem Systems Thinking Head Stuff

Now no change proposal or effort gets very far without meeting
serious resistance and quite often from serious players.

SODA is great at encouraging group negotiated strategic options but it seemed
a good idea to look at tools and techniques that might be used to help
with more human / individual levels of resistance

So the final third element were a group of techniques designed to help
people re-frame or re-conceptualise their part in the whole

Metaphor & Visualisation

Challenging restrictive thinking

Overcoming fear and building trust


Mashing the ST
Sysparatem
Frameworks

Pulling these different frameworks together I ended up with
A model that showed them as three interlocking and mutually
supporting parts of a pyramid

The fourth point of the pyramid I saw as outcomes and I labelled it
'Crucial Change' because it expresses that the change that needs
to be made in 21st century environments is about whether
organisations will survive

So looking at those issues, this was my Framework Fusion.


Sysparatem The Framework Fusion


Sysparatem Part II

Example of a Social Media Tool
Helping Meet the Challenge of Increased Variety


Sysparatem Managing Variety in Social Media

A very simple, common attenuator and amplifier of variety

Organisation

Environment



For the purpose of illustration I'm using prediction markets as one
example of a social media tool

A prediction market is an approach to using collective intelligence which
is being dealt with in greater depth by Dr Servan-Schreiber in a separate
session. A very brief summary will serve for our purposes



World's shortest introduction to Prediction Markets

A Prediction Market is:
A market in which the stocks are questions about future events, money
may not be real and there are no insider trading laws

A technique applied by Iowa Electronic Markets to successfully predict the
outcomes of nearly all the US elections for the past 15 years with greater
accuracy than the professional poll organisations 75% of the time

A technique for getting at the aggregate knowledge and wisdom of large
groups so effective that it is leveraged by GE in its’ new innovation driven
business model and by Best Buy to select product lines for next years focus

A method of finding out what people really think about the questions
floated as stocks because bidding is anonymous



Another example of tackling massive variety created by Social Media
actually extends BEYOND the organisations self perceived boundary.

One of our technology partners FlyingBinary, run by the inimitable Jacqui
Taylor, specialises in big data and social media.

The following two slides show the results of a massive high speed web-
data trawl and the latest super-fast structuring and search technologies


From FlyingBinary


Sysparatem Framework Fusion

●
Major real-world paradigm changes create multifaceted problems
●
They demand a range of skills and tools
●
Usually we need to mix approaches and frameworks to suit the
territory we find ourselves in
●
We are free to fuse frameworks to suit the territory but trying to
make the territory fit the framework only ends in falsifying or ignoring
evidence

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time


Sysparatem
Context Value

Thank You

Copyright under Creative Commons Sysparatem 2012

Systems Thinking & Social Media

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