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Strategy-Nets is a spin-out from the Purdue Center for Regional Development. The principals of Strategy-Nets understand the dynamics of developing and implementing complex strategies in open networks. The primary challenge of civic leadership today is to create and sustain adaptive regional economies. By definition, an adaptive economy has the built-in ability to renew itself by continuously developing new strategies to thrive.

We continually build our catalog of resources to inspire and support you on your journey to apply the latest innovations in adaptive leadership. View the most up to date Pontifex Consulting (and partners) videos. Download our practical resources to illuminate concepts and provide you with concrete tips and techniques for building your adaptive learning skills.

Understanding the difference between complex and complicated systems is becoming important for many aspects of management and policy. With complicated problems or issues one can define the problem and strategically develop actions, time-frames and milestones along a path to success. In contrast, cause and effect are difficult to predict in complex adaptive systems. This post aims to provide more detail around these concepts as an introduction. - See more at: http://learningforsustainability.net/sparksforchange/complicated-or-complex-knowing-the-difference-is-important-for-the-management-of-adaptive-systems/#sthash.Kb2vkjsl.dpuf

We live in a world relentlessly pushed forward by the velocity, volatility, uncertainty, disruption, and disequilibrium of constant change.  As the pace of change accelerates, so does the shelf-life of our strategies, processes, frameworks, and systems.  The rapidity of change now requires an expanding and continuously evolving breadth and depth to our repertoire of problem-solving strategies and leadership skill-sets.  Yet, even in the face of this rapidity of change and the disequilibrium it creates, too often, we find ourselves as individuals and organizations siloed in and dedicated to only one way of doing and working.  

ArtsFwd is an online community of arts and culture leaders committed to doing things differently in their organizations in order to stay relevant and vital in a changing world. We engage this community by sharing stories, providing tools, and fostering dialogue that celebrates the challenges, discoveries, and achievements of those who boldly experiment in pursuit of truly adaptive strategies.

Open Competency Models Ibbaka-TeamFit will be contributing a series of Open Competency Models to its communities over the coming year. Working with our customers and partner, we have seen the power that a skill and competency model brings to individuals and organizations. Good competency models bring clarity to the capabilities that an organization needs to evolve and adapt. They are central to the execution of strategic plans. For the individual, a competency model acts as a lens, allowing individuals to look into their skill profile and find hidden opportunities or gaps.

About Vibrant Planet Vibrant Planet is building a global adaptive management system to accelerate natural carbon drawdown, while mitigating immediate climate change impacts. The team's initial focus is restoring Western US forests to mitigate wildfire risk while stabilizing carbon, water reliability, and biodiversity through a critically-needed data foundation and tech platform that supports better decision making at the ground level. The platform addresses other related issues, including wildland-urban interface risk mitigation and land use planning.   

Our Philosophy & Guiding Principles Social systems work as they do because of how we work - how we think and interact. Our habitual ways of thinking and acting typically lead to change efforts shaped by mechanical problem solving and unproductive competition, often among otherwise well-intentioned interveners. In effect, we try to control complex processes that cannot be controlled, and in so doing miss the real opportunities for deeper and more long-lasting change. By contrast, natural systems demonstrate harmony, balance, integration, and ongoing evolution. The new knowledge we see emerging in the world shapes organic processes of change that result in social systems that are more resilient, sustainable, and adaptive. These "integral" learning and change processes knit "inner" and "outer" change, and are both deeply personal and inherently collective.

The problem is that we use these powers in historically/culturally path dependent ways so the tensions become more acute. The rationalism of the nation-state as a system-hierarchy is good when talking to other states (treaty writing as per Kyoto or the Treaty of Rome), or when universal rules are needed (eg tax collection) but bad at the particular (eg helping troubled families). Passion-populism is critical for mobilisation but can also be corrosive as it fails to offer any real solutions (see UKIP et al). Creative-civic power is good at adapting resources, institutions, and policies to particular needs or ambitions but it is bad at universal welfare and justice. It can also be just as failure prone as passion politics and hierarchy (it's hard and complex to confront particular, local and personal challenges).

Time in complex systems operates concurrently at different scales, runs at multiple rates, and integrates the function of numerous connected systems. We describe these processes as "complex time" as opposed to the simple, regular clock time of physical phenomena. In complex time age includes explicitly the coupling between information gain and information loss.

The new practice connects researchers and practitioners in a loop that allows problem solvers to broadcast, receive, refine, and adapt solutions on an ongoing basis.

"We activists need to become better "reflectivists", taking the time to understand the system before (and while) engaging with it. We need to better understand the stop-start rhythm of change exhibited by complex systems and adapt our efforts accordingly. And we need to become less arrogant, more willing to learn from accidents, from failures, and from other people. Finally, we have to make friends with ambiguity and uncertainty, while maintaining the energy and determination so essential to changing the world."

The Digital Civil Society Lab at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society created digitalIMPACT.io to support civil society organizations in using digital data ethically, safely, and effectively. The content and tools on the site come from nonprofit and foundation partners. digitalIMPACT.io is designed to help you learn from and share with others. The materials are provided as examples to inform your decision-making, organizational practice, and policy creation. We invite you to use and adapt what you find here, and hope you will share the practices and policies that you've developed. This website is only a start; real change will come as organizations integrate appropriate data management and governance throughout their work.

EmcArts Inc. is a social enterprise for learning and innovation in the arts. We serve as a nonprofit intermediary for many arts funders, and as a service organization for the arts field around innovation. We exist to strengthen the capacities and effectiveness of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations, serving their needs in the design and management of innovative change, and assisting them in building their adaptive capacity.

We build capacity among individuals, teams, communities to deal with the complexity of day-to-day existence. In public and private Adaptive Action Labs, we guide clients through innovative design, implementation, and assessment cycles to find breakthrough responses to intractable issues. In research and writing we create and disseminate perspectives, models, and methods for thriving in the 21st century.

Once you make the decision to take a network approach to solving a problem, you need to design a specific strategy - the way you will build, manage and evaluate your network - in order to reach your shared goals. We created our PARTNER Method, a process for creating, tracking and adapting your strategy over time to advance your network objective. Here's a quick overview of the PARTNER Method for Network Strategy.

"As the more immediate effects of global climate change are being felt around the world, people are developing ways to increase resilience and adaptation that also bring other benefits, including climate change mitigation. "

The Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability (LARC) is a network of local and regional decision-makers ensuring a sustainable Los Angeles County prepared for the impacts of climate change. It is one of seven regional collaboratives in California supporting climate change science, policy and planning efforts across sectors. LARC's climate mitigation and adaptation work is driven by cutting edge research on local climate impacts and information management systems. As LA's sole climate collaborative, LARC's network includes climate practitioners from city and county government, regional agencies, non-profits, businesses, and academia. 

Like ecosystems, financial markets are complex evolving systems from which unexpected bubbles, crashes, and other surprising behaviors can emerge. Building resilient financial systems may require policymakers to take cues from biology.

If we want a high-growth society with broadly shared prosperity, and if we want to avoid dislocations like the one we have just gone through, we need to change our theory of action foundationally. We need to stop thinking about the economy as a perfect, self-correcting machine and start thinking of it as a garden.