Review: Reflexive Practice–Professional Thinking for a Turbulent World

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Information Operations, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Public), Leadership, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Priorities, Public Administration, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
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Kent C. Myers et al

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond 5 Stars–a Foundation Work

November 20, 2010

In combination with the other books that I am reading this week, the first by David Perkins, Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education, the second by Curtis Bonk, The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education, this book I have read in galley form, by Dr. Kent C. Myers [strategist and process historian, a disciple of Russell L. Ackoff] with contributed chapters from a number of other individuals, gives me hope.

This is an extraordinarily diplomatic and measured book, a book that can nudge even the most recalcitrant of know-it-all stake-holders toward the “aha” experience that what they are doing [doing the wrong things righter] is NOT WORKING and maybe, just maybe, they should try Reflexive Practice (or at least begin to hire people that think this way).

This is *the* book that could-should lead to the first-ever Secretary General of Education, Intelligence, & Research, IMHO. THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest, done with Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02) was a proponency book. This book by Dr. Myers et al is a praxis book absolutely up there with the other 6 Star and beyond books that I recommend.

For a magnificent companion book, Will Durant's 1916 doctoral thesis, I strongly recommend Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition. The intermediate books would of course be Buckminster Fuller's Critical Path and Russell Ackoff's Redesigning Society (Stanford Business Books).

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Review: Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
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Harrison Owen

5.0 out of 5 stars Low-Cost Priceless Guide Worth Hundreds of Thousands

October 24, 2010

It's been my pleasure to know the author of this book ever since he hunted me down after my review of Wave Rider: Leadership for High Performance in a Self-Organizing World, and I have also had the benefit of being a participant in a number of Open Space sessions run by, among others, Peggy Holman, author of Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity and the older The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems.

I cannot over-state the value of this book to anyone who has a complex and expensive problem but cannot afford to get the author there personally. While the book is no substitute for the genius, the intuition, the experience, and the sheer “quiet energy” that the author can bring to any endeavor, it is not just a starting point, it is more than enough to get you through your first self-organized event, and the results are sure to astonish as well as excite about the potential benefits of having the author lead the next session.

Here is how it works in a nut-shell, and I put this into the review because I am not happy with the minimalist marketing information the publisher has provided but happy that Look Inside the Book is activated–use that feature!

1) Everyone who cares is invited to a meeting in a space large enough to accommodate the group. Many events will charge a fee to cover the space, the food, and the travel costs of the facilitators, some events can be free especially if internal. HOWEVER, the diversity of who is invited (i.e. including outsiders, clients, journalists, the lowest ranking maintenance people), THIS MATTERS….A LOT.

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Review (Guest): Science, Strategy and War–The Strategic Theory of John Boyd

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Force Structure (Military), Military & Pentagon Power, Science & Politics of Science, Strategy
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Frans P.B. Osinga

5.0 out of 5 stars “Hell of an Engineer”

October 24, 2010

By Retired Reader (New Mexico) – See all my reviews

Phi Beta Iota: This is the long review provided directly to Phi Beta Iota.  A shorter review can be read at the Amazon Page.

I have just completed a first read of “Boyd”, by Robert Coram and have concluded that I a made a big mistake reading Osinga’s book first. Osinga explains what Boyd did; Coram describes how he did it. If you read Coram’s book first, Osinga’s book will be much easier to tackle. Both are quite good, but Coram gives a much better sense of the context in which Boyd did his work and a better understanding of who John Boyd was and what he represented.  Robert D. Steele has an excellent review of Coram’s book that I recommend. I purchased both books at the same time, but read them in the wrong order.

I was not surprised to find from the Coram book that Boyd attracted a select group of like minded individuals who put integrity ahead of the go along to get along mehtod of moving forward. We could certainly use a similar group at the Pentagon of 2010.”

This book has the rather ambitious goal of “better understanding the strategic thought developed” by Colonel John Boyd (USAF ret.).  For the most part it succeeds in doing this. Since Boyd choose not consolidate his thoughts into one or more books, Osinga was forced to develop his information from Boyd’s slides used to brief his ideas and from Boyd’s notes.  So what does this book tell the reader about the “strategic thought” of Colonel Boyd?

Although Osinga does not address it, John Boyd appears to have had what can only be called the mind of an engineer. The application of scientific principals to practical ends seemed to come naturally to him. He actually received a degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech in 1962, but this appeared to have primarily credentialed his existing engineering talent.

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Review (Guest) (DVD): The Social Network

5 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, DVD - Light, Information Society, Reviews (DVD Only)
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Jesse Eisenberg (Actor), Andrew Garfield (Actor), David Fincher (Director)

Review by Jon Lebkowsky

The David Fincher/Aaron Sorkin film collaboration called “The Social Network” is not about technology, though there are scenes that suggest how code is produced through focused work (which actually looks boring when you’re watching it “IRL” (in real life), without Fincher’s hyperactive perspective – but is so engaging you can lose yourself totally in the process when you’re the one actually producing the code).  The film is more about the entrepreneurial spirit, what it takes to have a vision and see it through. The real visionary in the film, Mark Zuckerberg, appears far less intense IRL than Jesse Eisenberg’s interpretation would suggest, but his drive and work ethic are undeniable. It’s not an accident that a guy in his twenties produced a billion-dollar platform; he could have been derailed if he’d lacked the persistence of vision and intent that the film shows so clearly. And, of course, he was kind of a jerk, probably without meaning to be. That kind of focus and drive tends to override comfortable social graces, kind of ironic when you’re building a social platform.

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Review (Guest): Innovation–The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want

2 Star, Change & Innovation
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Curtis R. Carlson (Author), William W. Wilmot (Author)

2.0 out of 5 stars This is a BAD book on innovation

September 30, 2006

By ARMAN KIRIM, PhD (Istanbul, Turkey) – See all my reviews

This is a BAD book on innovation

As a matter of fact it is a bad book in the most general meaning of the word. First of all, it does not deliver what it promises to deliver and thus misleads the buyer. It claims that it is going to provide a `framework' for an innovative organization, but instead turns out to be a most general blah blah on every subject in the area of `management'. Apart from an abundant use of the word `innovation', there is hardly anything related to the core of innovation process in this book.

If you like, let me summarise what they say:

1. The book starts with an expose of the CHANGES in the world economy, globalization etc. The usual stuff you would expect to find in any `wake-up call' book these days. But is there anyone left who is not aware of the big changes going on around us? Do we need another book warning us that business is no longer usual?

2. The book then goes on outlining their `framework' for innovation. This is called the `five disciplines'. Disciplines indeed! And such `novel' ones. Let's look at them, if you like.

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Review (Guest): What Technology Wants

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Culture, Research, Information Society, Information Technology, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Science & Politics of Science, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean)
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Kevin Kelly

From Booklist:  Verbalizing visceral feelings about technology, whether attraction or repulsion, Kelly explores the “technium,” his term for the globalized, interconnected stage of technological development. Arguing that the processes creating the technium are akin to those of biological evolution, Kelly devotes the opening sections of his exposition to that analogy, maintaining that the technium exhibits a similar tendency toward self-organizing complexity. Having defined the technium, Kelly addresses its discontents, as expressed by the Unabomber (although Kelly admits to trepidation in taking seriously the antitechnology screeds of a murderer) and then as lived by the allegedly technophobic Amish. From his observations and discussions with some Amish people, Kelly extracts some precepts of their attitudes toward gadgets, suggesting folk in the secular world can benefit from the Amish approach of treating tools as servants of self and society rather than as out-of-control masters. Exploring ramifications of technology on human welfare and achievement, Kelly arrives at an optimistic outlook that will interest many, coming, as it does, from the former editor of Wired magazine. –Gilbert Taylor

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating look at how technology evolves, October 14, 2010

WHAT TECHNOLOGY WANTS offers a highly readable investigation into the mechanisms by which technology advances over time. The central thesis of the book is that technology grows and evolves in much the same way as an autonomous, living organism.

The book draws many parallels between technical progress and biology, labeling technology as “evolution accelerated.” Kelly goes further and argues that neither evolution nor technological advance result from a random drift but instead have an inherent direction that makes some outcomes virtually inevitable. Examples of this inevitability include the eye, which evolved independently at least six times in different branches of the animal kingdom, and numerous instances of technical innovations or scientific discoveries being made almost simultaneously.

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Review (Guest): The War of Art–Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Education (Universities), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy
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From the Library Journal:  He identifies and explains seven distinct stages of the creative process: discovery and encounter, passion and commitment, crisis and creative frustration, retreat and withdrawal, epiphany and insight, discipline and completion, and responsibility and release. He also develops his view of the three principles of the creative impulse, which include creative courage, being in the right place at the right time, and deepening connections with others.

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful and potentially life-transforming book!, September 10, 2004
Review by Joe Tye
Steven Pressfield

Know the enemy, know yourself, wrote Sun Tzu in his classic The Art of War, and your victory will be certain. For anyone who is stuck at a level below their God-given potential, who can't seem to get on track to do the things they need to do in order to achieve their most authentic goals, knowing the enemy and knowing yourself are one and the same.

Steve Pressfield's magnificent little book The War of Art is about being more creative – but more important, it's also about fulfilling your potential as a human being. To do this, he says, you must overcome Resistance (the “R” is capitalized be Pressfield to represent the fact that it is a very real entity – as real to your authentic Self as Charles Manson or Genghis Khan were to their victims).
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