How does one lift up an insight of a giant out of undeserved anonymity?

We tell vignettes – engaging, lively, catchy, sticky... real-life people and situation stories, to distill core ideas of daring thinkers and make them accessible. They let the reader 'step into the shoes' of a leading thinker, 'look through his eyeglasses'... They make ideas simple, palpable, understandable by anyone. They give those ideas passion, the ability to move and incite action.

No time for stories?

Recalling what our theme is will help you find the necessary time and patience for these stories, to digest them and take them in properly. So before we begin, bring to mind the image of Galilei in house prison... Who might be the still unknown heros of an emerging approach to knowledge? What are their yet untold histories?

We are here taking up the theme of the second book of Knowledge Federation Trilogy (with title "Systemic Innovation", and subtitle "Democracy for the Third Millennium". What might democracy and innovation have to do with one another? In what way might they synergize and empower one another?

We'll here approach the theme of the genesis of a new approach to knowledge and creative work in general from an entirely different angle – from the point of view of social re-organization of the institutional and other structures; and by looking at the technology that may enable a radical change. So think about the invention of the printing press; it made knowledge work so much more efficient, that it is often considered to be the major contributing factor to the deep societal changes that follow – and which we now want to see happening again in our time. Think about the steam engine, which ignited the Industrial Revolution and the creation of machines that changed our world beyond recognition. Think, further about our task of turning the socio-technical candles into light bulbs. What might correspond to the electricity? What principle of operation might lead to such a pivotal change?

The Internet has.. But we also need to change the way we think.

"The answer is obvious – it's the Web!" we imagine you say. The idea that the Web is the new printing press is of course already widely present. And if that's all there is to the story, then it's all already there. But there's a catch – and that's what we're about to point to. It is exactly by focusing on the difference of the Web that is, and of "the Web that wasn't" (as Alex Wright put it), that the future of not only the Web but also of innovation will be understood.

To see our point, notice that the information technology has tended to be used – by implementing the physical environment we've grown accustomed to over the centuries (the desktop, the filing cabinet, the mailbox and the mail...) in the new digital medium. Talk about implementing the candle in the new technology! But what's the alternative? Well, that's what this story is about.

To point to this difference we focus on Douglas Engelbart. This is not only because he created the core ideas. Not only because he is the 'patron saint' of knowledge federation. Not only because we are inspired by his vision, and because many of us considered him a dear friend. But this is also because his story reflects so well the idiosyncrasies of our present way of thinking and innovating. Doug was Silicon Valley's genius in residence - why was he not understood, or even heard, even after having been recognized as that?

So here's his story in a nutshell: Having decided (in 1950, as a young and idealistic engineer, freshly out of college) to dedicate his career to the betterment of mankind, Doug thought intensely for three months about the best way to do that. Then he had an epiphany... What was it that he saw?

And what is that "new way to think" which we now depend on to enable the technology to make the kind of difference it can and should make?

Many years ago I dreamed that...

Doug was celebrated as a brilliant creator of TECHNOLOGY – who created the technology we have in front of us (yes, it took some years for the people in Silicon Valley to understand that it was not Bill Gates and Steve Jobs... or even the XEROX PARC from which they got the interactive interface that made personal computing such a success – but that it was Doug Engelbart and his lab, who demonstrated this technology, and indeed more, already in 1968, when the humans communicated with computers through punched cards and line printer output.

But really we'll introduce Engelbart not as a technology inventor, but as a brilliant creator of IDEAS ; PRINCIPLES – of the kind that inform our creative action, specifically in technological innovation, but also BEYOND. How important are those ideas? We'll explain them and let you judge for yourself. Then perhaps you'll agree with us, that it is most remarkable that those principles SO MUCH DID NOT HAVE A PLACE IN OUR ACADEMIC AND PRACTICAL SCHEME OF THINGS THAT THEY REMAINED ENTIRELY IGNORED!!!!

Doug was credited for "The Mother of All Demos". We must, however, give him credit for seminal contributions to "The Mother of All Issues" – which is what our story is here.

How Doug decided to focus on this matter (the thinking of a young idealistic engineer, in Winter of 1951): The humanity has problems. Qualify their difficulty as complexity x urgency. This measure is increasing exponentially. But there's an obvious (to Doug) way to catch up and conquer these issues – namely to have our CAPABILITIES grow exponentially too. And the way to do that is to focus our capabilities on improve our capabilities (which, in systemic terms, introduces "positive feedback" which is known to lead to exponential growth). QED...

Of Engelbart's many contributions of this kind, we'll talk here about only two.

The first one is what Doug called CoDIAK. The point is – this technology is a QUANTUM LEAP!!! The printing press wasn't – it's just an effectivization of what the scribes were doing in monasteries, while copying manuscripts!

But what Doug foresaw (already in 1951 - and then immediately dedicated his career to fulfilling that vision) was that when digital computer technology is interconnected into a network – COMPLETELY NEW PATTERNS OF INTERACTION and SYSTEMIC SOLUTIONS become possible! We can in effect THINK TOGETHER – like cells collected together into a collective mind.

Now the second idea. It's (an instantiation of) the new way to think. It's more general. It's how to innovate – how to use our creative capabilities in general. It's what we are calling systemic innovation.

Doug developed a specific practical approach to systemic innovation. He talked about AUGMENTING our capabilities. Capability infrastructure. Capabilities live in a relative hierarchy (see picture). The capability to communicate in writing, for example, depends on the technological capability to have some medium (clay tablets, paper and pen...); and on the social capabilities comprising script and education. Innovation, according to Doug, would dexterously be guided by the capability hierarchy combined with obvious questions. Looking at our needs: What capabilities we now most urgently need? What could make a largest positive difference? Looking at a new or potential technology: What capabilities could this augment? Looking at both: What more do we need, so that this new technology may empower the kind of capabilities that we most urgently need?

The answer to this latter question is most interesting. It's what we've been calling systemic innovation. This capability most directly has to do with the DIRECTION in which we innovate. And with the DIRECTION of the metaphorical bus. But let's go slowly and develop our understanding of systemic innovation by talking about another giant, ERich Jantsch – whose name we associate most closely with systemic innovation (just ad Doug Engelbart is most closely associated with knowledge federation.

We give power to stories by combining them together.

Remember our holarchy from IMAGES? We string stories together into threads. They synergize and create a dramatic effect. At the same time each of them becomes part of a larger story.

– The university should make structural changes within itself to enhance the society's ability for continued self-renewal (EXACT?)

Two reasons why we chose Jantsch to represent systemic innovation: (1) linked with contemporary issue (2) WORKED to establish the SI as praxis, to change the systems... to ESTABLISH SI as an academic field (details follow)

And this additional reason – it's such a nice story! Like Doug, he passionately advocated the reconceiving of the university to make our knowledge work adaptable to new demands, to new challenges. And like Doug, he never found a footing for his ideas at a university. Doug was mostly present at Stanford. Jantsch brought his ideas to the MIT and to the UC Berkeley. We are talking about three leading US technological universities!

And finally yes, there's another reason – Jantsch and Engelbart combine so nicely into a story. In the 1970s both struggled unsuccessfully to have their ideas accepted – while working across the GGB from each other (Jantsch was at Berkeley, Doug was at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park). As it turns out, they each needed each other to make their visions happen! Yet they never collaborated and (as far as we are aware) didn't even know about each other! So the story line is developed by telling how those two streams of thought finally found each other, and what ensued... But that will come as desert here, at the very end. First let's hear about Jantsch.

The task is nothing less than to build a new society and new institutions for it.

So the story about Jantsch: "The task is nothing less than to build a new society and new institutions for it. With technology having become the most powerful change agent in our society, decisive battles will be won or lost by the measure of how seriously we take the challenge of restructuring the “joint systems” of society and technology." Like Engelbart, Jantsch was truly a progenitor of the new paradigm! In 1968, upon giving the opening keynote at the inaugural meeting of The Club of Rome (global think tank organized to investigate the future prospects of our civilization), Jantsch saw clearly what needed to be done, and organized some of the leading systems scientists to (as we now call it) federate their ideas together and compose a detailed answer. What will be the institution whose role will be to implement these necessary changes? Jantsch concluded that it would have to be the university. In 1969 Jantsch was at the MIT, lobbying... and writing a report about the structure of the future university. "The university must xxx itself for the new purpose of giving our society the capability for continued self-renewal. (SEE THE EXACT TEXT)

So you may see now the connection between democracy and innovation: Giving DIRECTION to our 'bus' (modernity, or civilization) means directing innovation (which induces change). We need two things: information (supplied by knowledge federation) and innovation (developed as systemic innovation). So they two together comprise the "headlights and steering and breaking controls" that Doug talked about...

We attain still larger insights by weaving the threads into patterns.

We build further up – toward general insights, or principles, or patterns. Here's one emerging – it's the insight that we should DIRECT our creative work, that we should use information and knowledge – how fundamental can anything be (pragmatically speaking)?

So let's revisit the way this is currently done, so that we know what exactly we are talking about.

How are they directed today? Well, we trust "the invisible hand" – and other than that we let everyone be as self-serving as one can. The rationale is . The reason why we begin this part of our conversation by pointing to the steam engine is because it started the creation of machines that either made the human labor dramatically more efficient, or made it unnecessary altogether. But since then we have invented just about every gadget that can save human labor or make it more effective or efficient. So what else can happen? And especially – what can be a dramatic news on that frontier?

To have control, we must have suitable feedback.

There's an alternative. To see it, we bring in another giant. The point is that there's a whole science behind this. Or better said – there should be one! Right after the WW2, a group of .. Let Wiener be the icon. In 1948 Cybernetics he addresses the question – how should innovation be directed. "There's an article of faith... Unfortunately...". And he goes on to show why.

The alternative? Of course – to develop the knowledge about systems. How their structure drives their behavior. If a car has no headlights and no breaks, we know what's going to happen. But do we have such knowledge on a much higher – and incomparably more important – level? Do we USE such knowledge?

The relationship with democracy?

There are two points of view, corresponding to the two paradigms. Just as science is is considered to be "what the scientists are doing", so is democracy considered to consist of the familiar mechanisms comprising the "free press", the representative bodies, the debates and the elections etc. When all this is in place and functions as it's supposed to, it is believed that the democracy is also in place, and it functions as it should. A nightmare scenario in this paradigm is the dictatorship, where the control of the society has been taken away from the people by a dictator. But there's another, much worse nightmare scenario, and we are living it! It is the scenario where nobody has control – because the minimal structure is lacking in the system. We called it, metaphorically, the headlights, and so did Engelbart. The cyberneticians have called it "feedback and control". To have the function of control, a system must have suitable information, and the ability to use that information to make the necessary changes. Our social system, flagrantly, does not have that structure. It doesn't even have the awareness that it needs one!

So why not innovate systemically?

Here's Doug's new thinking... Here's a HL insight that provides us "a way to change course".

We asked our communication design team to create an ideogram that would show the people that they are part of a system. And that the structure of that system, or systems, determines both the quality of their life and the value .The ideogram shown on the right is what they came up with. So imagine a system as a large machine, comprising technology and people. Think of its role as taking everyone's daily work as input, and producing socially useful results as output. How well is it performing in this all-important task? How well is it suitable for that task? How much would its function improve by changing it?

Consider these questions for a moment, and the systemic innovation proposal will begin to emerge in full clarity before your eyes.

The opportunities opened up by systemic innovation have a flair of a fairy tale.

Let us make sure we make it clear that this is not just about the problems and challenges. On the contrary! It stands to reason that a dramatic improvement of our use of our core capabilities will lead to dramatic improvements across the board. Here's how we illustrated that at our presentation of "The Game-Changing Game" (a generic prototype method for systemic innovation) at the Bay Area future salon, in 2012.

The Game-Changing Game is of course not a conventional game, but a game-changing way to conduct one's career, where one does not learn how to perform in a profession and 'plays' competitively, but is empowered to conduct one's career by changing the profession or the system, i.e. by changing the rules. At the beginning of The Game, which is orchestrated online, one meets a metaphorical fairy who offers to fulfill a most audacious gain or contribution. "Make a fortune in business"; "Save lives and reduce suffering"; "Solve global problems" are some of the choices.

So just think about the specific one of those choices – make a large contribution to human knowledge. What is the largest contribution to human knowledge you are able to imagine? (Our clue is provided in the references at the bottom.)

And then there's the 'invisible elephant'...

Perhaps the main reason why the best ideas of our best minds are still waiting to be discovered by us others is – paradoxically – that they do truly make a difference! To make sense, an idea must fit in snuggly with our other ideas, or into our shared paradigm. But as we mentioned – the best ideas of our best minds compose together an altogether different paradigm! And hence our giants appear to us as those proverbial blind men touching an elephant, each speaking excitedly about its different part.

We undertake to make a difference by describing the whole thing – and then showing how the pieces fit in and compose its different parts. As the organs of an elephant will only be truly understood when seen as functional parts of the whole big animal, so can the visions and contributions of our giants only be understood when seen in the context of the new order of things to which they are intended to contribute.

The Paradigm Strategy poster provides a roadmap for a dialog through which the vision of emerging paradigm can be seen and manifested in reality.

We must emphasize that this poster is not a complete map, but an excerpt. It was created specifically for academic systemic thinkers with vital interest in contemporary issues (the specific occasion was the 2017 yearly conference of the Research in Systemic Design academic community in Oslo). Can we still tell such people something that might surprise them, even challenge them?

There are some interesting questions one might have in mind when approaching this poster. Why haven the pioneers of knowledge federation and systemic innovation not been heard and understood? Considering the importance of this matter – how to explain the ignoring, or the active resistance on the part of the academia? What really hinders positive systemic change – and in particular, what hinders us from taking radically better advantage of knowledge than we presently do?

Ultimately these question converge to a single insight – about the direction our societal and cultural evolution (and in particular the evolution of our knowledge and knowledge work) has taken. We reach it by weaving together a multiplicity of insights from the humanities. We call it homo ludens.

The LHS challenges the prevailing paradigm.

The threads show: Wiener and Jantsch were not heard. Ronald Reagan won in 1980 on the exactly opposite agenda – and it still prevails! The bigger picture is – our feedback loop is broken; we do not communicate about THE important things!

This thread is woven together with another one, showing how the systems have been evolving – from the beginning of time – beginning with Chomsky (appearing here as a linguist; yes, it's the language again that is the key) in a most destructive way. Then comes Harari as historian, and Graeber as anthropologist. The story about Alexander the Great, about the origin of money (as our shared belief, and the trusted token guide of our evolution)

The result of weaving these threads together is a pattern, the Wiener's paradox... The points – academic publishing has no effect on our evolution. And isn't that what Wiener was claiming to begin with, in 1948 (the feedback-and-control loop is broken)! But alas – he committed his core insight TO THAT SAME feedback-and-control loop!

The other two threads weave together results in sociology, cognitive science, insights from philosophy... The result is another pattern, the homo ludens – how we've been responded to complexity by just learning a game and playing competitively. KNowledge has no role, no impact...

Be the systems you want to see in the world.

Less than two weeks after Douglas Engelbart passed away – on July 2, 2013 – his dream was coming true in an academic community. AND the place could not be more potentially impactful than it was! As the President of the ISSS, on the yearly conference of this largest organization of systems scientists, which was taking place in Haiphong, Vietnam, Alexander Laszlo initiated a self-organization toward collective intelligence.

He really had two core ideas. One was to make the community intelligent. The other one was to make an intelligent system for coordinating change initiatives around the globe. (An extension of).

Alexander was practically born into this way of thinking and working. His father...

We came here to build a bridge.

We came to Haiphong with the story about Jantsch and Engelbart; and with the proposal "We are here to build a bridge"...

And indeed – the bridge has been built! The two initiatives have federated their activities most beautifully!

Prototypes include LaSI SIG & PHD program, the SIL... And The Lighthouse project, among others.

The meaning of The Lighthouse (although it belongs really to prototypes, and to Applications): It breaks the spell of the Wiener's paradox. It creates a lighthouse, for the systems community, to attract stray ships to their harbor. It employs strategic - political thinking, systemic self-organization in a research community, and contemporary communication design, to create impactful messages about a single issue, and placing them into the orbit: CAN WE TRUST "THE MARKET"? or do we need systemic understanding and innovation and design?

See

While this page is being edited...

Explore the Google doc Completing Engelbart's Unfinished Revolution, where you'll find quite a bit of what is being told here. And if you can read it between the lines, yet another interesting story will reveal itself!