Search Results for: pollard's law

The Purpose of Work

child labourers, Pennsylvania, 1910, photo by Lewis Hine in the National Archives The word “work” originally meant “what we do”, and came into use around 900 years ago. At that time it was mostly about craftwork, and the design and … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Working Smarter | 2 Comments

What If We Got Rid of Offices?

cartoon by the late New Yorker cartoonist Robert Weber, one of the few cartoonists who worked mostly with charcoal One of the things that CoVid-19 has made clear is that “offices” for individual workers (and so-called “executives”), and even for … Continue reading

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Ten Tips For Dealing With Complex Predicaments

Dave Snowden’s Cynefin Framework This is a bit of a screed against really bad “strategic” plans, which is to say most of the documents that go by that name. Most written plans these days are means to achieve a particular … Continue reading

Posted in How the World Really Works, Working Smarter | 3 Comments

Changing Things That Don’t Make Sense

I coined Pollard’s Law of Complexity nearly 20 years ago, to try to sum up what I thought was the most important practical learning from my years of study of complexity theory. Here’s how I worded it: POLLARD’S LAW OF … Continue reading

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Why We Don’t Call

Ten years ago some futurists were predicting that voice-only phone calls would soon be extinct, since video calling was becoming so easy, and since it added a dimension to the communication, and was no longer constrained by low bandwidth, so … Continue reading

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Collective Intelligence to Make Sense of Complexity

I recently did a mini introductory workshop on complexity and systems thinking, describing the difference between complicated and complex systems using my friend Dave Snowden’s Cynefin Framework (characteristics of each type of system in red; approaches in green; small business … Continue reading

Posted in How the World Really Works | 1 Comment

Aphorisms

photo by Allen Ishibashi, from Twitter In this week’s New Yorker, Adam Gopnik muses on the value, appeal and history of aphorisms. He differentiates the aphorism (wise) from its cousin, the epigram (witty). He touches on Twitter, the latest vehicle … Continue reading

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 1 Comment

Conversations That Matter: What It Takes to Have Them

photo by Maren Yumi on flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Ironically, despite the fact that I engage in fewer conversations than I used to (maybe because since I’m retired I don’t have to, and because I find few conversations valuable anyway), I’ve started … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 4 Comments

The Other Extinction

image by Marsel van Ooosten via overgrowthesystem.com “Listen to this,” Ren said, looking up from his laptop. “This cog scientist Donald Hoffman ‘has spent the past three decades studying perception, artificial intelligence, evolutionary game theory and the brain, and his … Continue reading

Posted in Creative Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will | 6 Comments

A Mantra to Live By

 New Yorker cartoon by the late Charles Barsotti As reported in a recent New Yorker article, the popular trans model Hari Nef was asked for her “mantra to live by”, and her response was “Take what is yours.” When I … Continue reading

Posted in Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will, Our Culture / Ourselves | 2 Comments