Structural coupling, then, is the process through which structurally-determined transformations in each of two or more systemic unities induces (for each) a trajectory of reciprocally-triggered change. This makes structural coupling one of the most critical constructs in autopoietic theory. -Encyclopedia Autopoietica

I have been thinking about the structural coupling processes that help create and define a community.

Of all the elements and relationships of elements that make up a community at any given time, those with the greatest attraction tend to produce the strongest coupling behavior. Which elements are the strongest at any given time is dynamic. Some elements and relationships of elements have appeared as strong coupling agents for hundreds or thousands of years. Others grow strong and dissipate with more fluidity.

At times, a new coupling agent or a new relationship among agents emerges and the social structure of the community undergoes a phase change -- a perturbation in which a new (relatively) stable-state is achieved.

"The task decides, not the name, the age, or the budget of the discipline, or the rank of the individual applying for it. Knowledge, therefore, has to be organized as a team in which the task decides who is in charge, for what, and for how long."  ~ Peter Drucker

I have written and spoken much about group genius over the past 40 years. I have told stories about how "my" second  graders taught me a lot about what I came to call group genius. Almost by accident—certainly, not by anything I learned in the school of education—I learned how much more effective teaching and learning flows "from the ground up". I had been teaching about six months when one of my students, Seth, asked a question about why soap bubbles had colors. (This was long before the Internet). My first thought was to remind him that his question had nothing to do with what I was teaching. I was getting frustrated with teaching; it seemed so many of the young minds were closed, dormant, not interested in learning. But, instead of reprimanding Seth, I said, "I don't know". And I turned to the other students and said, "Do any of you have questions you wonder about?" Eyes turned away from the windows toward me, hands shot up in the air. I don't remember it being gradual or hesitant. I remember that moment being full of life and energy.

"The impossible has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks."
Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Last week I wrote about creating a "See What Happens Day". This idea emerged out of a group conversation where members were exploring tipping point events and other happenings that occurred between 2056 and 2006. 150 people in teams of six were remembering those events that solidified a new paradigm -- one based on living systems, design science, complex, adaptive systems ... the elements of complex systems. This new paradigm enabled a healthier, more democratic and sustainable world to form.

Nora Bateson, an ISSS participant, gave the report for her team and spoke of the See What Happens Day. When I asked her to recount where the idea came from, this was her response: "You created the birthing structure through your challenge of backcasting. This created the challenge giving our group permission to generate and play within a larger context. It was me that suggested "see what happens day" to the group, but clearly it came forth from our conversation like "the house that jack built"...

Nora's idea got lots of applause and for me, a clear sense of "Yes!" This is a viable, valuable idea. Of course it would be a challenge and one that might take a few years to form and unfold... but it seems so logical. My mind raced back through time to the New York black out when strangers became community. It reminded me of Katrina and despite the warnings and simulations that gave clear instructions for how to evacuate and what to watch out for, most of all the reports and warnings went unheeded. And after 911 a model has been established to create simulations for protecting cities and regions. See What Happens Days can bring home the reality of our global environmental crisis.

The future is rational only in hindsight. –MG Taylor axiom, 1983

To me, emergence is one of the most wonderful happenings in the Universe. One of the dictionary definitions...

July 9 - 14, 2006 | Sonoma State University | Rohnert Park, CA

This was my first ISSS conference. For Gail and me, it was the culmination of more than a year of periodic co-design, dialogue, planning and coordination with a host of other individuals and organizations. Over the course of the conference, I was fortunate to be able to play multiple roles: participant, designer, facilitator, performer. And there was so much I missed, or simply couldn't take part in absent of being in more than one place at a time. All in all, I'm left looking forward to the next opportunity to play with this remarkable community. Here are my highlights:

Nora Bateson reading her father Gregory's Allegory - "a flirtation between different ways of knowing"...

Pille Bunnell's elegant and provocative presentation drawing, in part, on Humberto Maturana's concepts of autopoiesis, structural coupling and cognition...

Alexander & Kathia Laszlo's "Transiting To Sustainability: Nine criteria for walking the talk and dancing the path"...

The DreamScape art installation and ongoing performances of the Autopoetics...

The level of engagement and depth of stories created during the Thursday morning backcasting session...

Joanna Macy's inspired presentation on Friday morning...

Spending an hour and a half with Peter Bishop, chairman of Studies of the Future graduate program at the University of Houston...

And last but by no means least, that I was...

"Planning is the ordering of resources over time. Success is getting things to follow in the right order." Paul Case

For many years I thought of planning as a linear process. It could be collaborative or not, but generally it was a typical project management process. Then when I read Kevin Kelly's book, Out of Control, in 1993 and read chapter four: Assembling Complexity, I learned to think about planning differently. It is the story of restoring a prairie. Nature has a lot to share! Nature does not work in a linear fashion, achieving one goal at a time. Rather, it cycles through plateaus each one attracting a new higher order plateau. Actually, to me, nature seems to have a more fun creating than most project teams have.

"Anthropologists have found 'galumphing' to be one of the prime talents that characterize higher life forms. Galumphing is the immaculately rambunctious and seemingly inexhaustible play-energy apparent in puppies, kittens, children, baby baboons - and also in young communities and civilizations. Galumphing is the seemingly useless elaboration and ornamentation of activity. It is profligate, excessive, exaggerated, uneconomical... In the higher animals and in people, it is of supreme evolutionary value."
Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, by Stephen Nachmanovitch

Matt and I have long used the word 'galumph' to describe our cats racing through the house with a certain gait, or when they chase grasshoppers or snowflakes with a wild spirited abandon. However, this is the first time I have come across the meaning and context of the word. I think back to the organizations and communities that began with a galumphing. The Well, Wired Magazine, GBN, The Calvert Fund, The Whole Earth Catalog, the Open Source phenomenon, The Learning Exchange, MG Taylor Corporation, Architectz of Group Genius are a few that come to mind. Years after their origin - even though some are now deceased - the memory of them brings them back to life. They all galumphed themselves into being. Each brought delight to both the production and user communities. There was an eagerness to engage, to play, to build on the ideas.

My recent run-ins with all things Slow began shortly after returning from the World Economic Forum on Africa. A colleague I'd met there sent me an essay on "The Importance of a Certain Slowness" by Paul Cilliers, which touches on the Slow Movement and then presents, from a systems perspective, an argument that "the cult of speed, and especially the understanding that speed is related to efficiency, is a destructive one." Furthermore, "a slower approach is necessary, not only for survival, but also because it allows us to cope with a complex world better."

How and where does the quality of slowness fit into events and experiences typically constrained in time and beholden to enormous expectations of outcome? In other words, what is the role of slow in an event designed specifically to compress weeks, months or even years worth of design and decision making into a few days?

During a Sponsor Session for a recent event, a Sponsor challenged us to make ‘this one’—the one for his organization—'the best.'

The comment provoked Matt to recall something Frank Lloyd Wright said a half-century ago. Matt shared the memory this way:

“It was in an interview in the mid 50s with Hugh Downs, I believe. Asked which was his best building, Wright said, ‘my dear boy (anyone under 60 was a boy to FLW), the NEXT one.’"

Wright’s comment captures the essence of why both collecting and using feedback is of such importance. From a design sense, feedback is what links the past to the future in a meaningful way. Yet, it seems all too rare that we treat the collection and offering of feedback seriously, let alone systemically.