Think in Systems

Think about whatever you were doing in the Summer of 2017.

At the time Tom Goodwin was a mutual on Twitter and he wrote this:

"We are complicit in not challenging the 'command and control' structure of ancient armies, or quick to embrace in any shape or form, what would happen if we had the audacity to consider digital technology, so profound that we let it shape us."

IMHO, there are a couple common reactions when people are unexpectedly asked to think in systems, especially about ancient structures and power dynamics.

The first is that it produces a "cognitive load".

The second is that the sense of pressure has different effects in different people.

For some people, it results in a deep sense of dismay.

It makes them want to stop and walk away.

They wish to unknow why the 9-5 is an artifact of 19th century innovation.

For others, it provokes their imagination.

Some people want to pull on these threads more.

They are interested in linking and leverage existing structures.

The idea of a remix culture is appealing and innovative.

Pattern synthesis has been rebranded as AI.

To paraphrase Peter Drucker, the objective of a business is to create a customer, via marketing and innovation. Everything else is costs.

The machine synthesizes existing patterns in the data. The data produced by humans.

Human innovation might depend on zigging when the system predicts we'll zag.