| | | Newsletter: June 2022, Vol 1:6 | | |
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| | | In this Edition : Message from the President; Information on the upcoming ISSS conference; News from the Board of Directors;
Upcoming SRBS special issues;
SIG in focus: Research towards General Systems Theories;
Upcoming SIG Events;
Meet our new ISSS members: Jason Orr;
Systems Organisation in focus: Operational Research Society;
Book Club: Latest news from Marty;
Recent publications of Members;
Upcoming Systems Conferences;
June Calendar:
To contribute to any of these, please send an email with sufficient detail to: newsl...@isss.org or |
Message from the President
Greetings Systemists,
We're in the final stretch of the Sat/Wed mini-symposia, Past President's Reflections, and open-mic sessions. June 4th and June 8th we will hear from Thomas Wong on System Aging. I'm also in the final stretch of my year as president. It has been an eventful and challenging year but with the help of the other board members we've weathered those challenges and I believe we've made some good progress. Membership is up. Finances are solid. And many members have told me they have really enjoyed and appreciated the interactions afforded by out Sat/Wed sessions. Our website, maintained by past president Peter Tuddenham, has grown in richness and usability. Peter has built a wonderful archive of videos that are priceless (c.f., https://www.isss.org /video-library/). All of our symposia and other meetings can be found there. The Board of Directors have had a number of interim check-in sessions (no business matters vote on) that has helped us stay linked and aware of each others' activities. This as opposed to the once-a-year board meeting at the annual conference. I think a number of processes went much more smoothly as a result. I and past president Delia Pembrey and incoming president Roelien Goede have also been meeting informally to improve the transition aspects of presidential duties. I am mentored by De, I mentor Roelien, and she will carry on the knowledge to next year's incoming president. Continuity.
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| | | Now, however, I am starting to contemplate the future of the ISSS. This has been a year of building but we need to consider for what purpose. The ISSS has been, effectively, more like a social club than a professional/academic organization. Yet, at every turn, I hear members wanting to accomplish more than just get together and talk. Gradually, we have become more active (even proactive) in terms of exploring systems approaches to the global problematique - at least now we are talking about it (and it will feature prominently at the conference). The key question going into the future is: what kind of organization do we need to form in order to be effective in this arena, to broadcast systems concepts to the larger society? A corollary question: How do we empower our societies with systems knowledge? It seems to me that the ISSS is on the cusp of a phase transition to mirror the one happening in global society today - from a club-style organization to an action-oriented, fit-for-purpose organization. That, at least, is where I will be turning my attention. George | | |
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| | | International Society for the Systems Sciences
66th Annual Conference : 7-11 July 2022
Advances in Systems Sciences and Systems Practice | | |
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Featured speakers include:
George Mobus, Vanessa Andreotti, Cynthia Kurtz, Bill Rees, Janet McIntyre, Tyler Volk, Bayo Akomolafe, David Holmgren, Dave Snowden, Peter Jones, Tony Hodgson, Raghav Rajagopalan, Megan Seneque, Paul Pangaro, Bill Seaman, Louise Allison, Alexander Christakis, and more!
Registration: https://web.cvent.com/event/ace397ec-5052-469b-8949-f1d046e5478e/summary
Conference Conversations: Anything you'd like to discuss about the upcoming ISSS conference?
Howard Silverman, 2021-2 VP Conferences
Holistic SIG Workshop at the conference
The Search to Include the Dark Side Creates more Holistic Systems Approaches A bias towards the light side, inherited from the Age of Enlightenment, is preventing systems from dealing effectively with the largest issues we face, e.g of lack of attention to wholes, e.g. earth systems, abuse of power at all levels from global to local, in all spheres e.g., social, political and technical. Since the Corvallis Conference, the SIEL SIG has been working with Peter Tuddenhams Systems Literacy and Gary Smith’s Systems Integration to add a third level to Bill Smith’s AIC natural systems organizing process. The results add a third level to Bills, Purpose, and Power emphasis –the discovery that Order matters. It is the order of purpose and power elements that allows the organizing process to adapt in ways that include the sub-conscious contributions to the dark side of systems. The research also suggests the existence of stem-systems that move Systems Integration to Systems Coherence and Systems Literacy to the creation of a “Periodic Table of Living System Elements”. Three workshops focus on the practical implications of their thinking for individual ISSS members, SIG groups, and implications for the ISSS organization use AIC Color Maps to reveal the resulting patterns of lightness and darkness. The workshops will be presented on July, 8, 9, and 10 at 3:00 pm EDT
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| | | News from the ISSS Board of Directors .Two matters served for approval on the Board Meeting of May, 30th 2022: - The Kruger National Park in South Africa was approved as venue for the 2023 Annual Meeting hosted by Roelien Goede. The proposed date is the last week in June but it is subject to availability of the venue. More detail to follow in future newsletters.
- The results of the nomination committee was approved for the upcoming elections:
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| | | | Upcoming SRBS Special Issues
Detail copied from SRBS homepage Call for Special Issue Papers: Systemic Innovation
For complete call for papers see here. Submission Deadline: 31 May 2022 EXTENDED to 30 June 2022
Call for Papers: Special Issue on Systems Thinking for Creative and Flexible Practice
For more information, please see here.
Submission Deadline: 31 August 2022
Please note all special issue papers must be submitted through the ScholarOne site: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/srbs | | |
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SIG in Focus: Research towards General Systems Theories
Chair: David Rousseau. Email: david.r...@systemsphilosophy.org The concept of “system” is very general, in that every complex thing can be considered to be a system, and every academic discipline can be regarded as studying some kind of system. If this is right then here must be some general theory about systems and systemness relevant (and hence useful) to all specialised disciplines. The notion of “system” was already recognised by Aristotle in ca. 300 BCE, but the matter is a surprisingly complex one, and even today we do not yet have an established general theory of systems, i.e. a widely recognized theory of what systems are in general, and providing us with the general principles and laws about how specialised systems arise, acquire their properties, endure despite environmental change, and evolve to establish a position in resilient ecosystems of enduring evolvable systems. Progress has been made and we have identified some general systems concepts, principles and laws, but we have not yet integrated these into a general theory, or shown how close we are to achieving a complete general theory of systems. This lack of a general theory of systems is an important gap in science. General Systems Theories (GSTs) are needed to unify the specialised systems sciences (e.g. complexity theory, cybernetics, automata theory, game theory, communication systems theory, living systems theory, viable systems theory, fractal theory, chaos theory, etc.) under common frameworks of description, analysis and explanation, and open up new routes to systems-scientific innovation. Current GSTs are still nascent, and this SIG provides a venue for developing and discussing ideas, strategies, frameworks, opportunities and challenges relevant to research towards developing and applying GSTs. Topics discussed in the SIG include: - Refining the concepts central to general systems research, such as “system”, “isomorphy”, “mechanism”, “open-ness”, “emergence”, etc.;
- Affirming or challenging the philosophical frameworks underlying contemporary general systems research;
- Identifying isomorphies of systemic behaviours across kinds of concrete systems, and exposing the systemic mechanisms underlying or linking them;
- Identifying general systems principles that underlie systemic isomorphies, or strategies for identifying such principles, and related work;
- Discussing the limitations and potentials of GST to facilitate interdisciplinary communication, scientific discovery, and the unity of knowledge; and
- The development of a transdisciplinarity grounded in GST.
The SIG welcomes contributions in all these areas of discussion and exploration. Everyone is invited to contribute towards the establishment and operationalisation of better ideas about what systems are, how they work, fail, evolve and succeed, and how understanding all this makes a useful difference to how we understand, engage with and nurture the evolution of the systems we are parts of.
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| | | Upcoming SIG Event 'Through Her Eyes' by CWiST Jun 10 at 7 am PT. Join Us! We are pleased to invite you to our second in our series 'Through Her Eyes' (a CWiST Offering), in dialogue with Helen Sanson. Join us as we learn from Helen's journey into Awareness Based Systems Thinking and gain an insight into her work with generative conversations. Helen is the founder of Forcera CIC, a consultancy that aims for change by using her passion for learning, systems and complexity thinking to build capacity and foster agency for social transformation and impact whilst appreciating the practical challenges. She believes in exploring ways to make power inclusive, so people’s voices are part of the decision-making process and they belong. Her interests lie in how societal structures and systems exacerbate existing inequalities by conceptualising how they occur to create social change. She brings various skills and experiences, including lived, to empower organisations and individuals through awareness-based systems thinking based on social science, active learning and participatory approaches. She enjoys facilitating space for engaging in generative conversations that explore the complexities of wicked problems that create uncertainties by reframing frustrations and disrupting issues to realise new ways of thinking, seeing, doing and being and reaching the root cause. More Information:
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| | | Welcome to our new ISSS members We sent an email to all members who joined in 2022 and the following new members participated in a fun question answer survey. We welcome you to the society. All new members who received the invite to participate are welcome to submit their detail. We will feature every month a few new members. Members select questions from a long list to tell us about themselves. To join the ISSS simply go to ISSS.org/Register/ | | |
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How did your interest in systems develop? Some of my work involved investigating efficiency and effectiveness of cross-jurisdictional or cross-sectoral sharing (governance of services) or delivery (provision of services). I became interested in concepts for how different public and private partners work independently and collaboratively to assure public health services across different systems and enterprises.
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| | | Are you interested in a specific field of systems thinking - which one? I am interested in systems thinking with respect to public health systems and services. There is a lot of complexity at each level of abstraction from the national public health enterprise to local health departments and service providers (“parts”). Public health services and their delivery are fraught with complexity. In which industry do you work and in which role? I am a researcher in academia and work on topics related to public health systems and services. Those topics include workforce enumeration and development, public health financing, performance management, and modernization of public health systems and services. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? Definitely somewhere warm. Other than that, I’m not entirely too particular. Sunning on a rock, maybe. What was the last tv show you binge watched Supernatural (CW series) Do you have any pets? My fiancée and I have two cats: Stevie Nicks (black cat) and Bunny (black & white manx; picture a holstein cow) | | |
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Organisation in Focus: The OR society
Operational research (OR) is the science of better decision making. We are a charity set up to advance knowledge, interest and education in OR. Our goal is to see operational research used and acknowledged widely in all areas of industry, business, government, the community and the third sector.
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| | | Since 2018, a team of us at the University of Hull (UK) and Linnaeus University (Sweden) have been organizing systems thinking streams at Operational Research (OR) Society annual conferences. They have consistently been the largest streams at these events, with 60+ presenters filling three parallel sessions. Some participants also contribute 1-3 hour interactive workshops.
The next conference is nicknamed OR64, and it will be held face-to-face at the University of Warwick (UK) on 13-15 September 2022. The deadline for abstracts is 30 June.
We really want you to come to this conference and be part of something special! I am inviting my whole research network in systems thinking, systems science, cybernetics and complexity. I am also publicizing this on Facebook and Linked In. This is a great opportunity to meet 60+ other people who want to further the agenda of systems thinking and OR.
THE SYSTEMS THINKING STREAM AT OR64
There will be practitioner and academic stream keynotes, and Dan McGonigle (Head of the Systems Group in Defra) will be a plenary speaker for the whole conference, talking about the use of systems thinking in UK government.
For presentations in the stream, we welcome the widest possible diversity of practitioners and academics, whatever specialism you bring.
We encourage the submission of abstracts discussing: - Applications to (and across) organizational, social and environmental issues;
- Theoretical and methodological innovations;
- Thoughts on the diversity, impacts and ethics of systemic OR practice; and
- Reflections on the past, present and future of systems thinking in OR.
Indeed, any insightful presentation of relevance to systems thinking and OR is very welcome. If you have any questions about the focus of your abstract and presentation, please write to g.r.m...@hull.ac.uk (there is another email address further down this message if you have more general questions about the conference).
We have also been asked to look out for people who can offer experiential workshops (e.g., giving practical experiences of using a systems approach) in the Impact stream. If you think your work would fit in this category, and can facilitate a workshop lasting between 1-3 hours, please let us know by email before uploading your abstract. You can write to Sadaf Salavati - sadaf.s...@lnu.se - about interactive workshops.
THE EVENT
There is no requirement to produce a written paper – just an abstract (maximum 300 words) describing your presentation, which will be published in the program. The closing date for abstracts is 30 June 2022.
Everything you need to know about the event (venue, travel arrangements, accommodation, price, critical dates, requirements of presenters, etc.) can be found on the conference web site, where you can also sign up and submit abstracts: https://theorsociety.eventsair.com/or64-annual-conference/
Please choose the systems thinking stream when you upload your abstract.
I urge you to participate if you possibly can, and I look forward to seeing you there. Please also invite others who you think will be interested, and feel free to re-use my message when you write to them. Please share widely.
Contact
For further information about the conference (including anything to do with costs, travel or accommodation), please write to event....@theorsociety.com
Thanks, and I hope to see you at the conference in September!
Best wishes,
Gerald Midgley G Midgley Co-Director, Centre for Systems Studies University of Hull, UK g.r.m...@hull.ac.uk
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| | | News from the Book Club The ISSS Book Club will not be convening in June but will reconvene on July 21 from 12:30 - 2:00 Eastern time. We will be starting back up from where we left off in Stafford Beer’s book The Heart of Enterprise. Here are the reading assignments:
July 21: Chapters 4-6 (Note: we read Chapters 1-3 in January) August 18: Chapters 7-10 September 15: Chapter 11-13 October 20: Chapter 14 - Note One November 17: Note Two - Note Five
Please contact Marty Jacobs at marty.ja...@gmail.com if you have any questions or would like to be added to the email list for the book club.
Happy reading!
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| | | MEMBER PUBLICATIONS
Please forward the detail of your recently published papers to newsl...@isss.org
Turnbull, S; & Poelina, A. (2022), ‘How Indigenous wisdom can protect humanity’. Journal of Behavioural Economics and Social Systems 2022, (BESS), 4(1), pp 10-36. https://globalaccesspartners.org/bess/ https://doi.org/10.54337/ojs.bess.v4i1.7293
Turnbull, S. (2022). A new way to govern for eternity based on system science, Journal of Behavioural Economics and Social Systems 2022, (BESS), 4(1), pp. 81- 106. https://globalaccesspartners.org/bess/ https://doi.org/10.54337/ojs.bess.v4i1.7297
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| | | Upcoming Systems Conferences
Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD11) 11th Symposium: Possibilities and Practices of Systemic Design Relating Systems Thinking and Design is a conference series concerned with the development of systemic approaches to design in practice, research, and education. It is the annual conference of the IFSR affiliated Systemic Design Association. There is a lot of overlap with ISSS interests, and the ISSS community may be interested in seeing how ideas from the systems traditions have been developed in design contexts. In addition to the general call, please check out the seven focus sessions, which include sessions inspired by Bateson and the Long Now Foundation, as well as concerns with method and planetary health that will be of interest.
Online and in person, hosted by the University of Brighton, Brighton, UK, 13-16 October 2022. General call for papers: https://rsdsymposium.org/rsd11-call-for-papers/ Focus sessions call: https://rsdsymposium.org/rsd11-focus-sessions/ Submission deadlines: Full papers: JUNE 16, 2022 (2000-5000 words)
Presentations and reports: JUNE 30, 2022 (1000 words extended summary for review which can be expanded as a working paper for the proceedings)
Exhibition items, workshops, etc.: AUGUST 15, 2022 | | |
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| | | Systems Science Events in June | | |
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Invitation to join the Newsletter Editorial Team
We started the newsletter in the final quarter of last year to provide a vehicle for monthly reflection on the activities of the society. The first three issues were well received and the Board of Directors supports the newsletter as a means to support the purpose and objectives of the society. As stated in the by-laws, the purpose of the society is: The overall purpose of the ISSS is to promote the development of conceptual frameworks based on general system theory, as well as their implementation in practice. It further seeks to encourage research and facilitate communication between and among scientists and professionals from various disciplines and professions at local, regional, national, and international levels. The newsletter seeks to support the final sentence of this statement. To encourage contributions, we started regular features in order to provide guidance on the type of information we want to communicate. These are listed on the first page of each newsletter and members are invited to provide information to the editorial team. To ensure sustainability and equal opportunity, it is important to form an editorial team for the newsletter. I hereby invite any ISSS member to become part of the editorial team of the newsletter. Editorial team members should be especially enthusiastic about the latter part of the purpose statement quoted above. Please contact me at newsl...@isss.org if you are interested in joining the team. Roelien Goede Editor and President-Elect
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Thanks to all the contributors!
Roelien Goede, Louise McCulloch Editorial Team
To contribute to event lists or any other section, please send an email with sufficient detail to: newsl...@isss.org To receive this newsletter you must sign up on our main isss.org page under "Newsletter Sign Up". | | |
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International Society for the Systems Sciences
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