Complexity & Resilience – Page 15 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/07/222011/07/22

Review: Critical Choices – The United Nations, Networks, and the Future of Global Goverance

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Diplomacy, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Future, Information Operations, Information Society, Information Technology, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment

Wolfgang H. Reinicke (Editor), Francis Deng (Editor), Jan Martin Witte (Editor), Thorsten Benner (Editor), Beth Whitaker (Editor), John Gershman (Editor)

5.0 out of 5 stars Global Hybrid Network Governance Primer for UN+, July 21, 2011

By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) – See all my reviews

Last week I reviewed the first book on this topic by the first author (Wolfgang Reinicke), Global Public Policy: Governing Without Government. I overlooked that book published in 1998, and this book in 2000, for lack of consciousness. Evidently others did as well given the lack of reviews. What makes both these books even more important now is the appointment of the primary author, Wolfgang Reinicke, to the position of inaugural dean of the school of public policy at the Central European University founded and richly endowed by George Soros. To understand how much George Soros has broken away from the government-financial crime axis, his essay free online and also the first fifty-seven pages of The Philanthropy of George Soros: Building Open Societies is essential reading.

I read this book at three levels: for content on its merits; for insight into the specific individuals and agencies behind the book; and for insight into where George Soros might be hoping that Dean Reinicke will go with network governance, what some of us call Panarchy, which is rooted in what we call M4IS2 (Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making). In other words, secrecy is out, transparent true cost information about everything is in–transparency breeds truth, truth breeds trust, and this is how we achieve a non-zero prosperous world at peace that works for all, not just the top 1%.

On page 91 one finds a quote better suited to the front matter, from Kofi Annan:

QUOTE (91): The United Nations once dealt only with governments. By now we know that peace and prosperity cannot be achieved without partnerships involving governments, international organizations, the business community, and civil society.

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2011/07/082011/07/08

Review: Global Public Policy – Governing Without Government?

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Wolfgang Reinicke

Pioneering Work, Missing Some Pieces,July 7, 2011

This is a pioneering work, easily a decade ahead of other world-class efforts, my favorite being that of (then) World Bank Vice President for Europe, J. F. Rischard, High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them. It has been largely over-looked, but should gain additional importance, along with the author's additional book, Critical Choices. The United Nations, Networks, and the Future of Global Governance, now that George Soros is sponsoring the Central European University (CEU), and within that university, the author Wolfgang Reinicke has been appointed the inaugural dean of CEU's School of Public Policy and International Affairs. In the context of the essay by George Soros, the first 57 pages of The Philanthropy of George Soros: Building Open Societies, and the now hardened disenchantment with the nation-state system for being ignorant, biased, and non-agile (these and other deficiencies are marvelously articulated by Professor Philip Allot of Cambridge in The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State, one can surmise that Dean Peinicke will seek to focus on integrationist endeavors that demand transparency and accountability for multiple stakeholders in return for stability and mutual gain.

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2011/06/302012/12/15

Review: The Philanthropy of George Soros – Building Open Societies

6 Star Top 10%, Associations & Foundations, Biography & Memoirs, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Corruption, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), History, Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

UPDATE 30 June to add link to Notes on, and Video of George Soros and Aryeh Neier discussing the theme. See also his full essay online with comment: George Soros Nails It: Intelligence with Integrity

Chuck Sudetic

6 Star Special–Soros Out-Grows Broken System, June 24, 2011

On its own merits, without the Foreword from George Soros, this book is a solid five. With the most extraordinary Foreword, a Foreword that draws the lines of battle between a totally dysfunctional global governance and financial system of systems all lacking in integrity–where truth is not to be found–and the need for transparency, truth, and trust, the book goes into my top 10%, 6 stars and beyond.

The essay is a *major* part of the book, the first 57 pages out of just over 335. The essay is available free online and is a “must read” item for any person who wishes to be part of restoring the Republic and laying the foundation for creating a prosperous world at peace. Searching for <George Soros My Philanthropy> will lead directly to both the New York Review of Books and the GeorgeSoros.com offerings–select the latter to get the full article without subscription nonsense from the New York Review of Books.

I confess to having lost faith in George Soros–he fell for the Barack Obama Show and wasted a lot of time and money on what ends up being the Goldman Sachs Show–to the point that Goldman Sachs not only continues to own the Secretary of the Treasury, but now has installed its own man in the role of National Security Advisor. The irony does not amuse me.

This essay is phenomenal, and bears on the book at large, because Soros has finally put his finger of the sucking chest wound that I, John Bogle, William Grieder, and most recently Matt Taibbi have been sounding the alarm on: the lack of intelligence and integrity in the system of systems. Soros is halfway there; he is now outside the system looking in, and that is good news for all of us.

“I am looking for novel solutions in order to make an untidy structure manageable.”

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2011/06/27

Review (Guest): Re-Creating the Corporation – A Design of Organizations for the 21st Century

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Economics, Information Society, Intelligence (Commercial), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design

Russell Ackoff

5.0 out of 5 stars “There are no simple solutions to complex problems”., August 21, 2000

ByTurgay BUGDACIGIL (Istanbul, Turkey) – See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

“This book is a product of applying systems thinking to the management and organization of enterprises”. Russel L. Ackoff writes, “therefore, an understanding of the nature of systems and systems thinking is essential for understanding what this book is about. Although most people can identify many different systems, few know precisely what a system is. Without such knowledge, one cannot understand them, and without such an understanding, one cannot be aware of their implications for their management and organization and for treatment of the most important problems that currently face them” (p.5).

Thus, he firstly argues that a system is a whole consisting of two or more parts that satisfies the following five conditions:

(1). The whole has one or more defining properties or functions.

(2). Each part in the set can affect the behavior or properties of the whole.

(3). There is a subset of parts that is sufficient in one or more environments for carrying out the defining function of the whole; each of these parts is necessary but insufficient for carrying out this defining function.

(4). The way that each essential part of a system affects its behavior or properties depends on (the behavior or properties of) at least one other essential part of the system.

(5). The effect of any subset of essential parts on the system as a whole depends on the behavior of at least one other such subset.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Re-Creating the Corporation – A Design of Organizations for the 21st Century”

2011/06/27

Review (Guest): On Purposeful Systems – An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Individual and Social Behavior as a System of Purposeful Events

5 Star, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Information Operations, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design

cover ackoff puposeful systems — Amazon Page

Russell Ackoff, Fred Emery

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterful guide to designing a better world, December 25, 2002

ByW. C. Priest “Dr. W. Curtiss Priest” (Boston, MA United States) – See all my reviews

In 1970 I taught from this book when it was entitled
“Choice, Communication and Conflict”

What makes this book “magical” is Ackoff (from his
management and behavioral science roots) provides
“operational definitions” for many ill-defined words
and concepts — from defining ‘knowledge' & ‘understanding' to providing definitions of feelings/emotions that — operationally — you know — that if certain events take place in a person's life, that you know the feeling they have.

This is only a glimmer of what this book is about. In terms of Kuhn's idea of “paradigm shifts” — this book
represents a shift that has yet to be appreciated, thirty years later!

AA Mind the Gap — Vote and/or Comment on Review

2011/06/272011/06/27

Review (Guest): Turning Learning Right Side Up – Putting Education Back on Track

5 Star, Complexity & Resilience, Culture, Research, Education (General), Information Society, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design

Russell Ackoff 5.0 out of 5 stars Taking learning seriously, December 12, 2008 By Scott D. Gray (Marlborough, MA United States) – See all my reviews In modern America, everyone and his brother believes that the educational system is broken. But most people suggest responding with more of the same, rather than rethinking what learning is actually about. When the economy does well, people claim that it must be because of the education system and propose spending more money. When it does poorly, people say that it must be because we don't spend enough on education and propose spending more. Ackoff and Greenberg go back to first principals, and to daily experiences, to consider how people learn, and how education might be restructured. What they propose really does turn the modern vision of school on its head. Why do schools in the US — the land of the free and the home of the brave — condition children to be passive and to wait on authority? There is only one suggestion or conclusion that I question. There is an argument posited by one of the authors (Ackoff, I think) for an elaborate voucher system. However, the history of governments' tendency to want to manage how government money is spent would likely crush the innovation that is needed — pushing and encouraging private schools to recoil further from innovation and the cutting edge, and thereby eliminating the laboratories for reform of education. That said, the appeal for a voucher system is a very secondary aspect of the book, and does not distract from the arguments, message, and information.

2011/06/262011/06/26

Review: Planning with Complexity – An Introduction to Collaborative Rationality for Public Policy

4 Star, Complexity & Resilience, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy

Judith Innes, David Booher

Excellent but Not Perfect, June 25, 2011

The authors claim to be addressing a new theory of collaborative rationality. The Native Americans called this “seventh generation thinking.” It is neither new nor rational alone, but rather holistic. I bought and read this book along with Democracy as Problem Solving: Civic Capacity in Communities Across the Globe, and the two go very well together. Both are directly founded on John Dewey's 1927 work, Public & Its Problems, and both fail to mention Will Durant's 1916 thesis, Philosophy and the Social Problem: The Annotated Edition.

Key ingredients are thinking differently, dialog as information discovery and exchange, and knowledge operations via dialog–Juanita Brown and David Isaacs call this The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter.

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