Comments for Aid on the Edge of Chaos

Comment on From traffic management to development management? by Javier Ekboir

Javier Ekboir — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:47:54 +0000

The literature on management, innovation and complexity has made important contributions along these lines. There, two types of strategies are recognized. Deliberate strategies are the traditional strategies that come out from planning exercises. These strategies are appropriate for interventions in processes that are relatively well understood. For example, I think it would be very difficult to eradicate a disease without a well-planned campaign of vaccination, disinfection of contaminated sites, distribution of nets, etc.
On the other hand, emergent strategies are those that arise from complex behaviors and go along the lines of what is described in the comment above.
Of course, when using deliberate strategies, it is important to be open to emerging problems and opportunities.

Comment on From traffic management to development management? by Craig Duncan

Craig Duncan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:36:18 +0000

Great post – We are working in risk reduction, and I think there are a lot of compelling success stories, but there is still a poor understanding of motivation. Agency has many drivers, and unfortunately most of them are not directly connected to end results.

Comment on Slime mould, simple rules and the politics of self-organisation by From traffic management to development management? « Aid on the Edge of Chaos

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:08:05 +0000

[...] February 22, 2010 by bramalingam (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) [...]

Comment on Strategy in a complex world – 5th meeting in the emergent series on aid and complexity by From traffic management to development management? « Aid on the Edge of Chaos

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:02:50 +0000

[...] and policymakers in the sector. More on strategy in the face of complexity can be found elsewhere on this blog and on the Broker pages which summarise a major November 2009 conference on strategy and [...]

Comment on Lessons in Distributed Leadership from the Obama Campaign by From traffic management to development management? « Aid on the Edge of Chaos

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:02:46 +0000

[...] The key may be finding ways of experimenting within existing strategic frameworks, and bringing new ways of thinking and theories of change to the table. In fact, it is arguable that some of the most significant successes in our sector have been because of a combination of top-down planning and emergent, self-organised behaviours – think of the Abstain, Be Faithful, Use Condoms campaign for HIV-AIDS in Uganda in the 1990s, and the successful Brazil eradication campaign of the 1990s. Elsewhere, the success of the Obama campaign has highlighted the power of an approach which combines a overall strategy with ‘distributed leadership’ (see a 2009 Aid on the Edge post on the campaign). [...]

Comment on Evaluating Complex Development – Presentations and Meeting reports by Monitoring and Evaluation NEWS » Blog Archive » Meetings on evaluation and complexity

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:31:58 +0000

[...] latest post on Aid on the Edge post compiles presentations and reports from meetings on evaluation and complexity (NORAD, Panos, [...]

Comment on Slime mould, simple rules and the politics of self-organisation by bradhinton

bradhinton — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:50:34 +0000

Ben,

I’d be interested in hearing about multiple slime moulds at work within the same network space. Individually, I don’t think the slime mould experiment tells us much with respect to congestion and efficiency constraints. A transport network without congestion and efficiency contraints would not be a problem for the human commuter who could equally determine an efficient route from A to B, and include options C & D as alternative routes.
Still, I am impressed with slime moulds for their “intelligence” and mapping potential.

Comment on Slime mould, simple rules and the politics of self-organisation by Milton Friesen

Milton Friesen — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:09:35 +0000

This is a very interesting post that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Great trajectory through complexity theory, slime moulds, engineering, policy and politics. You point out how complexity theory can be useful and identify the limitations of this growing body of research. Very important. Thanks for putting this article together.

Dave Snowden talks elsewhere about how our role is to feed the feedback loops that are desirable and mute the ones that are not. Nudging the formation of strange attractors is an important role for leaders and I often use the analogy of a farmer who plants and grows things, not by making the things grow, but by being attentive to the conditions at all scales, adding water if it doesn’t rain enough, digging trenches to drain water if it’s too wet, etc.

Comment on Bank of England Director uses complexity theory to explain global financial crisis by Slime mould, simple rules and the politics of self-organisation « Aid on the Edge of Chaos

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:57:09 +0000

[...] led to serious problems and the need for extensive government intervention down the line (see an earlier post on the financial crisis through a complexity lens). And as I have argued elsewhere: A study of the role of self-organisation in the Rwandan genocide [...]

Comment on International Conference on Evaluating the Complex – 2nd in emergent series on complexity and aid by Monitoring and Evaluating Complex Development « Aid on the Edge of Chaos

Monitoring and Evaluating Complex Development « Aid on the Edge of Chaos — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:17:19 +0000

[...] given at a 2008 NORAD conference ‘Evaluating the Complex‘ - Michael Quinn Paton’s keynoteand my own seminar [...]