2024
489 posts in 2024.
- My highlights of 2024
- 2024: Blog stats
- I never said that
- Best of Thought Shrapnel 2024
- 2024: My year in listening (music)
- 2024: My year in reading (books)
- I'm increasingly uneasy about being a Spotify Premium subscriber
- People aren't unemployed because they're lazy
- Substack bros
- Navigating the clash of identity and ability
- Smartphone bans are not the answer
- Universities in the age of AI
- Backstage blogging
- Weeknote 48/2024
- Sunrise, solar noon and sunset times for 2025 (in Dublin)
- 'Social' social networks?
- The lifehacked, minimalist life (and its discontents)
- Hierarchies should be fluid and temporary
- Anxiety as an expensive habit
- Podcasts I’m listening to in late 2024
- Yeah, but how?
- Anti-anti-AI sentiment
- AI Literacies are plural and context-dependent
- The trials and tribulations of working openly
- Captive user bases are ripe for enshittified services
- Weeknote 47/2024
- Pleias: a family of fully open small AI language models
- AI Literacies are plural
- I hope someday soon I can visit your website
- The case for local economic protectionism
- Should health tech be used to inform health professionals?
- Calling short courses 'microcredentials' is cringe
- The UK needs a wealth tax
- Self-hosting isn't a thing for regular people
- On 'billionarism'
- Visual music discovery
- Weeknote 46/2024
- The Australian ban on social media is probably unworkable
- AI identifies more Nazca Lines
- EV batteries live way longer than assumed
- From the 'everything fun is also bad' department
- (Digital) bodges and badges
- Tuvalu's Digital Twin
- We don’t write things down to remember them. We write them down to forget.
- Scrolling on your phone is not a hobby
- Weeknote 45/2024
- A working definition of 'AI slop'
- Is authenticity a 'trap'?
- November Nihilism with Keiji Nishitani
- Weeknote 44/2024
- On ghosting in a work context
- On our tendency toward (creative) destruction
- Open Badges for organisational performance
- Weeknote 43/2024
- Aim for a mediocre first impression
- Weeknote 42/2024
- Calling myself into the office: November 2024
- My life is a system to...?
- Weeknote 41/2024
- You're welcome to my exhaust
- How to implement badges for Open Recognition
- Weeknote 40/2024
- Weeknote 39/2024
- Weeknote 38/2024
- Transmission Interrupted Signal
- Calling myself into the office: October 2024
- Three quarters of the way there
- Weeknote 37/2024
- Forms of perceptual learning
- Llama 3 is only free to use until monthly active users exceed 700m
- The work to do the work
- About time to head south for winter
- Ocean acidification approaches the boundary
- A Troll's Charter
- Weeknote 36/2024
- A countercultural perspective to the capitalist notion of 'productivity'
- A landscape of havoc and fracture
- Leadership, gender, and 'abusive supervision'
- Water use literacy
- Against cyberlibertarianism
- We look through screens rather than at them
- More is always more where 'kitchen lipstick' is concerned
- Isolated places in the Lake District for wild camping
- Better Images of AI
- TB871: Combining five systems approaches
- AI and community communication
- Weeknote 35/2024
- Migration → Adaptation → Carbon removal → Geoengineering
- Some men just want to watch the world burn (and now there's research to prove it)
- A State of Systems Shifting
- The future is off-grid solar
- How Bluey-Green Was My Valley?
- So far, so dystopian
- Because capitalism
- There is an opportunity to...
- 100 tips to sort your life out
- Calling myself into the office: September 2024
- Weeknote 34/2024
- Your name in LandSat
- The importance of context
- Quote posting done right?
- Digital Credentials: why context matters
- A typology of meme-sharing
- Fediverse governance models
- Life-ready signals
- Weeknote 33/2024
- Begetting strangers
- The thorny problem of authorship in a world of AI
- Government and algorithmic bias
- TB871: Miscellaneous CSH stuff
- TB871: The 'eternal triangle' of systemic triangulation in CSH
- TB871: Systemic boundary critique in CSH
- 'Meta-work' is how we get past all the one-size-fits-none approaches
- Reimagining misinformation
- Where in the world is that shadow?
- TB871: Systems vs Reality in CSH
- TB871: Comparing CSH boundaries with SSM boundaries
- Dark data is a climate concern
- There is no such thing as a life that makes sense
- Google Calendar illustration trigger words
- You get water from food as well, you know
- Tugging at metaphors
- You don't need permission, you need advice
- Weeknote 32/2024
- Give readers a break
- 14kB
- Doing things that don’t scale in pursuit of things that can’t scale
- TB871: Critical System Heuristics
- TB871: "Anything said is said by an observer": Humberto Maturana’s impact on Systems Thinking
- TB871: "The Systems Approach is Not a Bad Idea": the ethical and philosophical legacy of C. West Churchman
- TB871: "Objectivity is the delusion that observations could be made without an observer": the life and work of Heinz von Foerster
- Weeknote 31/2024
- TB871: An overview of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM)
- TB871: Exploring Soft Systems Methodology (SSM)
- TB871: Perplexity and Soft Systems Methodology (SSM)
- TB871: Reflections on TMA02 and looking forward to Block 5 (SSM)
- An isosceles triangle of wind and racism
- Weeknote 30/2024
- Character is a thing you do every day
- Subscribe
- Weeknote 29/2024
- TB871: Conceptualising myself through metaphor
- TB871: Navigating communication under pressure: Transactional Analysis, DISC, and the FONT framework
- TB871: Conflict management and systems thinking
- TB871: Power dynamics in systems thinking
- TB871: Four Stages of Competence (and the Johari Window)
- TB871: Supporting the development of others
- TB871: Please let me be the last thing I have to write on learning styles
- TB871: Personality and causal responsibility
- TB871: A deeper dive into OCEAN
- Where to look for information around Open Badges and digital credentials (July 2024 edition)
- TB871: Responding to change (and junking a lot of perfectly good habits in favor of awkward new ones)
- TB871: Managing personality differences in teams (Belbin & Six Thinking Hats)
- TB871: Working with individual differences (MBTI & OCEAN)
- Exponentially more bad ideas in the world
- Weeknote 28/2024
- TB871: Block 4 Tools stream references
- Managing change with systems thinking in practice (PDF)
- TB871: Cognitive mapping, causal-loop diagramming, and a refreshing use of SODA
- AI for boring project tasks
- On the bench
- Weeknote 27/2024
- TB871: The role of phenomenology in systems thinking
- TB871: Russell Ackoff as a systems thinking pioneer
- TB871: Chris Argyris and his influence on systems thinking and organisational development
- TB871: Introduction to Strategic Options and Development Analysis (SODA)
- TB871: Block 3 People stream references
- TB871: Lateral Thinking, Transitional Objects, and Metaphors
- TB871: Ambiguity and cognitive biases
- TB871: Going beyond WEIRD biases
- TB871: Old and new mode thinking errors
- TB871: Human gizmos and time-binding
- TB871: Intuitive and rational thinking
- TB871: Block 3 Tools stream references
- Stand up for yourself. Challenge authority. Tell your rude co-worker to shut up.
- You don't have to like what other people like, or do what other people do
- Summer digital detox
- Weeknote 27/2024
- TB871: Using the Viable System Model (VSM) in design mode for my system of interest
- TB871: A complete VSM model of my system of interest
- TB871: Governance and identity in the Viable System Model (System 5)
- TB871: Managing Development and Strategic Balance in the Viable System Model (System 4)
- TB871: Managing the 'inside and now' of the Viable System Model (System 3)
- TB871: Managing my system of interest (System 2)
- Informatics of domination
- If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem
- Look out for surplus fingers
- Weeknote 26/2024
- Notes from a discussion with Steve Brewis on the Viable System Model (VSM)
- TB871: Enhancing Organisational Coordination with System 2 of the VSM
- TB871: Assigning a purpose & defining primary operations in my system of interest (System 1)
- TB871: Rethinking organisational structure through VSM
- New materials for a super-heated world
- Eye-contact has a significant impact on interpersonal evaluation, and online job interviews are no exception
- Weeknote 25/2024
- Here is a book as a toolbox to build actual, hard-tacks answers to the crisis of the Long Emergency
- A smaller human population will immensely facilitate other transformations we need
- The Promise and Pitfalls of Decentralised Social Networks
- TB871: Managing variety using amplifiers and attenuators
- TB871: Systems in my situation of interest
- Painting over problems with AI in the third sector
- TB871: Modelling myself as a viable system
- TB871: Only variety can absorb variety
- TB871: Context and perspective in systems thinking
- If we don’t change course, most people in the U.S. will have some flavor of Long COVID of one sort or another
- An inferior, or at least grossly limited version of intelligence
- F L A M I N G O N E
- Weeknote 24/2024
- TB871: System, variety, recursion in the VSM model
- TB871: Systems as waves on the edge of catastrophic breakdown
- It's all just one big ocean
- The writer’s equivalent of what in computer architecture is called speculative execution
- It's impossible to 'hang out' on the internet, because it is not a place
- 'Wet streets cause rain' stories
- Dividers tell the story of how they’ve renovated their houses, becoming architects along the way. Continuers tell the story of an august property that will remain itself regardless of what gets built.
- TB871: The five systems of the Viable System Model (VSM)
- TB871: The Viable System Model (VSM)
- Source Drone Photo
- The iPhone effect, if it was ever real in the first place, is certainly not real now.
- The latest Hardcore History just dropped
- The logical conclusion of rich, isolated computer programmers having ketamine orgies with each other
- In the English language, a human alone has distinction while all other living beings are lumped with the nonliving “its.”
- Weeknote 23/2024
- Oblivion doesn’t just mean eradication: it is erasure
- 65% of UK adults aged 18-35 support “a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with parliamentary elections”
- Podcasts worth listening to
- The theory of 'a rising tide lifts all boats' does not work when you allow the people with the most influence to buy their way out of the water
- TikTok as spectacle
- Absurd design
- TB871: Block 2 People stream references
- TB871: Systemic and unsystemic metaphors
- TB871: Framing and reframing
- TB871: Sending people off on the wrong plane
- TB871: Happiness is a warm gun
- TB871: Dead metaphors
- TB871: Metaphorical linguistic expressions
- The AI Egg
- What is systems thinking?
- Alone time
- TB871: Primary metaphors
- TB871: Block 2 Tools stream references
- TB871: Metaphor, ambiguity, and conceptual blending
- TB871: Area of practice diagram
- Life has no instruction manual
- Weeknote 22/2024
- TB871: Archetype 6 — Tragedy of the commons
- TB871: Archetype 5 — Arms race
- TB871: Archetype 4 — Drifting goals
- TB871: Archetype 3 — Limits to growth
- TB871: Archetype 2 — Shifting the burden
- Migraines suck
- TB871: Archetype 1 — Fixes that fail
- TB871: Re-mapping my situation of interest
- The effort required to maintain internally consistent and intellectually honest positions in the current environment is daunting
- 3 strategies to counter the unseen costs of boundary work within organisations
- Just because we cannot imagine a future does not mean it cannot happen
- Levelling up?
- Weeknote 21/2024
- TB871: Vicious cycles and causal loops
- TB871: Mapping my situation of interest
- TB871: The poverty of root cause analysis
- TB871: Block 1 People stream references
- Man or bear IRL
- AI is infecting everything
- Electronic spider silk
- A learnt practice that placates idle hands and leaves our thoughts free
- How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives
- TB871: Improvisational intelligence and cognitive niches
- TB871: Flamingos and hedgehog croquet
- TB871: 5 reasons why the unknown is not just a temporary or local state
- TB871: Turtles all the way down
- Shark skin aircraft FTW
- A Jazz-soaked Philosophy for our Catastrophic Times: From Socrates to Coltrane’
- Digital Badging Commission
- Weeknote 20/2024
- TB871: Engaging with unknowns
- TB871: Block 1 Tools stream references
- TB871: Three activities associated with using a STiP heuristic for making strategy
- TB871: Bricolage, rigour, and service design
- Food bank efficiency
- The 'threat' of fictional and factual fembots
- An end to growth?
- TB871: Toast and wicked problems
- TB871: Nominating an area of practice
- TB871: A Systems Thinking in Practice (STiP) heuristic
- License to Drill
- Navigating financial uncertainty isn't just about 'trying harder'
- Weeknote 19/2024
- Every drama requires a fool
- Another chance tonight
- TB871: Avoiding traps in conventional thinking
- TB871: Three purposeful orientations and five different systems approaches
- TB871: Systems practice competencies
- More on digital afterlife services
- We got the internet that reflects who we are
- ShareOpenly (to the Fediverse)
- TB871: What is a 'strategy'?
- TB871: Four perspectives on systems thinking
- Strategic Design resources
- Weeknote 18/2024
- Cullernose Point
- Systems ambiguity and chaos
- But here we are: the diaspora of online communities
- "All that any honest review actually does is just accelerate whatever was already going on"
- TB871: Making strategy in difficult/messy situations
- Warm Data
- Spectacular timelapse over the ALMA Observatory
- TB871: Getting the bigger picture and appreciating other perspectives
- TB871: Different uses of the words 'Strategy' and 'System'
- TB871: Starting my next MSc module
- How to easily generate image descriptions and alt text
- It turns out the apple can fall pretty far from the tree
- Recognising oneself through the recognition of others
- Weeknote 17/2024
- Limiting virtues
- You are what you read
- Perhaps we should organise?
- Book reading and secondary orality
- Optimising for the wrong things
- There's only so much lemonade you can make when life is firing lemons at you
- Real-time deepfake videos for fun and exploitation
- It's not sick note culture, it's systemic failure in governance
- Book publishing doesn't work
- Weeknote 16/2024
- Weeknote 15/2024
- Social media without an audience
- How not to mince about like a little weasel
- Tearing your anger into strips
- If you're going to go, you might as well go... weirdly?
- Exporting blog posts to JSON for easier use with LLMs such as ChatGPT
- A pharmacology of digital tools
- Disinformation is free
- Slouchers rejoice!
- Weeknote 14/2024
- 'Neom' is the sound of contractors being laid off
- A tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death
- Itano Circus
- Football fan hierarchy
- De-bogging yourself
- TB872: Concept map to help with my EMA
- The New York Times is a gaming platform
- Borobudur
- Boundaries
- Eudaimonic exercise
- Weeknote 13/2024
- Origami unicorn
- The best antidote for the tendency to caricature one’s opponent
- Endlessly clever
- When should you replace running shoes?
- Human agency in a world of AI
- 5 ways in which AI is discussed
- 14 years of Tory (mis)rule
- Weeknote 12/2024
- Identifying things that don't work
- The art of distraction
- The problem with private property societies
- TB872: Advantages and disadvantages of CSLS
- More equal societies perform better
- Toward the ad-free city?
- The impact of the pandemic
- Microcast #104 — Questioning uncritical acceptance
- Bluesky's approach to decentralised moderation
- Barnacle ball
- Anti-AI hyperbole
- TB872: Core reading for my EMA
- Microcast #103 — Microphones and Moving to Micro.blog
- Taking seriously the noise and free-floating anxiety
- Austerity is not efficiency
- Reframing as small i's
- Weeknote 11/2024
- Scaling AI requires 'muddling through'
- Born to run
- Consciousness porn
- Vendor lock-in writ large
- Be careful what you wish for
- Scintillating scotomas
- TB872: Preparing for 1:1 meeting with my tutor
- Career vs Job
- Absence is not a defect(ion)
- Claude's Prompt Library
- 'Manifesting' work
- Weeknote 10/2024
- Sports betting and neoliberal atomisation
- Subject, Consumer, Citizen
- A truly liberatory (digital) future for everyone
- Moderation is up to us now
- TB872: A systems map of organisations involved with LERs in the USA
- TB872: Bawden and transforming worldviews
- Hope vs Natality
- Post-Holocene preferable future habitats
- TB872: Key concepts in Critical Social Learning Systems (CSLS)
- TB872: Reading about Critical Social Learning Systems (CSLS)
- Hope vs optimism
- Being a good listener also means being a good talker
- AI agents as customers
- Weeknote 09/2024
- Elysium, elites, and elision
- Ultravioleta
- Language is probably less than you think it is
- Humans and AI-generated news
- TB872: Choosing between CSLS and CoPs
- Elegant media consumption
- Philosophy and folklore
- 3 issues with global mapping of micro-credentials
- TB872: Overview of different traditions in social learning systems
- TB872: Ubuntu and Pratītyasamutpāda
- Perhaps stop caring about what other people think (of you)
- Educators should demand better than 'semi-proctored writing environments'
- The perils of over-customising your setup
- TB872: Wenger-Trayner and communities of practice
- TB872: Bawden and living as a constant process of learning
- Weeknote 08/2024
- Systems thinking and the FRAMED mnemonic
- The war on the URL
- Educators in an AI generated world
- TB872: MCB and 'being what we are willing to learn'
- TB872: Vickers and appreciative systems
- Random advice from Ryan
- The line between “just enough” and “too much” can fluctuate
- We tell ourselves stories in order to live
- What kind of online world are we manifesting with AI search?
- Vomit on my sweater already / mom’s spaghetti
- At the (current) boundary of 'AI ethics'
- Bet you didn't know this about Botox
- Economic incentives and parental leave
- Human writing in the age of generative AI
- The cause of our anger is not other people
- TB872: Schön's swamp and 'ideas in good currency'
- Weeknote 07/2024
- Every default macOS wallpaper in 6k
- Building a Bonfire
- AI-generated video is coming for your reality
- Brexit means Brexit in football, too
- TB872: Social learning systems and communities of practice
- 'Beast mode' as permission-seeking behaviour
- Writing, personal branding, and capitalism
- Generative AI means we need to use art school approaches to assessment
- Eye-opening heat map study
- Weeknote 06/2024
- First Thought Shrapnel 'newsletter' via micro.blog!
- Weeknote 05/2024
- TB872: Authenticity and accountability
- TB872: Four pervasive institutional settings inimical to the flourishing of systems practice
- TB872: Outstanding leadership and making the case for developing STiP
- TB872: Different types of change
- Weeknote 04/2024
- TB872: Systemic inquiry and the 'design turn'
- TB872: My learning contract as a designed system of interest
- The death of consensus reality
- Preparing for a year of electoral disinformation
- Doing something about the UK schooling class divide
- Shared persuasion tactics
- Unlearning behaviours
- An 'anti-social network' you post to via email subject lines
- TB872: Snappy Systems
- TB872: The main systemic influences now operating in my situation of concern (S2)
- TB872: Juggling the M-ball (Managing)
- Weeknote 03/2024
- TB872: Juggling the C-ball (Contextualising)
- TB872: Juggling the E-ball (Engaging)
- On the strategic uses of ambiguity
- TB872: Juggling the B-ball (Being)
- TB872: Purposeful and purposive framing
- Weeknote 02/2024
- TB872: What I talk about when I talk about juggling
- TB872: Four advantages of systems practice
- TB872: Places to intervene in a system
- One does not simply move off Substack
- TB872: Adding the juggler isophor to the PFMS heuristic
- TB872: The juggler isophor for systems practice
- Welcome To The
- Weeknote 01/2024
- What is degrowth communism?
- Spy windows?
- We become what we behold
- TB872: Revisiting my learning contract
- TB872: Rich picture for my systemic inquiry (S1)
- TB872: Rich picture for my systemic inquiry (S2)
- Your future is statistically more likely to be better than your past
- Logical fallacies, cognitive biases, and more
- Would you survive in medieval Europe?
- The rich are scared we're going to eat them
- TB872: STiP terminology
- Remember distinct music scenes and culinary traditions? Yeah, they're coming back.
- Giving up is an attempt to make a different future
- We already have solutions for a lot of problems, we just don’t use them
- TB872: Different understandings of the word 'system'
- TB872: Systems: epistemologies or ontologies?
- TB872: Systems practice and social relations