(2nd of 2 posts exploring self-organisation and emergence in transport / traffic and the relevance for aid strategies – first was last week’s piece on slime moulds)
Traffic planners are increasingly moving away from signs and regulations to increase traffic safety and address congestion. Rather than legislating for driver behaviour, they are requiring drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists to [...]
Archive for the ‘Strategy’ Category
From traffic management to development management?
Posted in Leadership, Organisations, Public Policy, Self organisation, Strategy, Traffic, Urbanisation on February 22, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Bank of England Director uses complexity theory to explain global financial crisis
Posted in Financial crisis, Networks, Public Policy, Resilience, Strategy on December 16, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Andrew Haldane, Executive Director of Financial Stability at the Bank of England gave a speech earlier this year which focused on the idea of the global financial system as a complex adaptive system.
In his speech, Haldane focuses on applying the lessons from other network disciplines – such as ecology, epidemiology, biology and engineering – to the [...]
Lessons in Distributed Leadership from the Obama Campaign
Posted in Campaigns, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Networks, Organisations, Public Policy, Strategy on December 4, 2009 | 2 Comments »
The Obama presidential campaign owed its victory not to a single charismatic candidate, but to the efforts of a disciplined and motivated organisation whose influences go back to landmark civil rights movements. Many of the principles were consistent with the emerging ideas of ‘complex adaptive leadership’.
A recent MIT lecture featured Marshall Ganz, veteran of the 1960s [...]
An Equation for Copenhagen: Conformity + Rapid Change = Collapse
Posted in Climate change, Public Policy, Resilience, Strategy on December 1, 2009 | 1 Comment »
American scientists using agent-based modeling techniques have linked excessive conformity to societal collapse and even mass extinction. The implications for the Copenhagen negotiations next week seem stark.
The researchers at Dalhousie University and the University of California-Davis have modeled how well different learning strategies work in different learning environments, and found that under certain circumstances societies can be doomed [...]
Urbanisation, complexity and poverty – or why aid agencies should be reading Jane Jacobs
Posted in Organisations, Public Policy, Strategy, Urbanisation on November 24, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Jane Jacobs, renowned urban scholar and grass-roots activist, has recently topped the Planetizen list of the 100 leading Urban Thinkers by an ’impossibly wide lead’.
Jacobs is something of a heroine for many communities around the world, real and virtual, not least the complexity science community. She approached cities as ecosystems and suggested that over time, buildings, streets [...]
Chaos, Complexity and Public Policy – An Interview with Irene Sanders
Posted in Public Policy, Strategy on November 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The Woodrow Wilson Centre runs the Dialogue programme – weekly, half-hour raido and TV conversations with renowned public figures, scholars, journalists, and authors.
Early November saw a stimulating Dialogue interview with Irene Sanders, Director of the Washington Center for Complexity and Public Policy and author of “Strategic Thinking and the New Science: Planning in the Midst of Chaos, Complexity, [...]
Latest Asian Development Bank ‘Knowledge Solution’ focuses on Complexity and Development
Posted in Evaluation, Knowledge and learning, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Strategy on November 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Olivier Serrat, Head of Knowledge Management at the Asian Development Bank, has just published a short paper on complexity and development, as part of their Knowledge Solutions series. Brief excerpt and link below.
Development is a complex, adaptive process but—with exceptions—development work has not been conducted as such… development assistance often follows a linear approach to achieving [...]
From Architects to Gardeners
Posted in Organisations, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Strategy on November 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Henry Kissinger held a party recently for his protege, Joshua Ramo Cooper. Speaking about Ramo Cooper’s new book to a New Yorker reporter, he said, “[it] has one basic theme that is a little difficult for me, which is that my generation is sort of a bunch of dodos.”
The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New [...]
Is diversity the key to resilience in complex social-ecological systems?
Posted in Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Strategy on November 11, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I am just reading Complexity Theory for a Sustainable Future, a 2008 book edited by Jon Norberg and Graeme S. Cumming. The chapter I have just finished ’Diversity and Resilience of Social-Ecological Systems’ is co-authored by Elinor Ostrom, who shared this years Nobel Prize in Economics. So far, it makes for fascinating reading.
The authors provide an account of how complex adaptive [...]
An Innovation Dialogue on Strategy in the face of Complexity
Posted in Meetings, Strategy on October 28, 2009 | 2 Comments »
The 8th meeting in the emergent series on Complexity and Aid will take place in November 2009
How often do you question what will work in a complex and messy situation? Like many of us you are probably working to bring about some strategic change for the better – developing sustainable business models, innovating to help [...]
