Group items tagged

maker faires

community-and-consensus building, organizing for activism and fundraising

The impetus behind this explosion is both technological and sociological

Technological

information technology and the creation and evolution of the Internet and the Web

appearance, development and evolution of social tools, web services, massive storage, and the ongoing development of computer-and-smart-devices development

Sociological

People are searching for ways to find others with similar interests and motivations so that they can engage in activities that help them learn, find work, grow capabilities and skills, and tackle vexing social and economic problems

get informed and take action

Developing familiarity and practice with open and collaborative processes

play and work together

rules about self-management, operate democratically, and produce results grounded in ownership and the responsibilities that have been agreed upon by the ‘community’

The relationships and flows of information can be transferred to online spaces and often benefit from wider connectivity.

Today, our culture-making activities are well engaged in the early stages of cultural mutation

What’s coming along next ?  “Smart” devices and Internet everywhere in our lives ?  Deep(er) changes to the way things are conceived, carried out, managed and used ?  New mental models ?  Or, will we discover real societal limits to what can be done given the current framework of laws, institutions and established practices with which people are familiar and comfortable ?

Shorter cycle-based development and release

Agile development

It is clear evidence that the developmental and learning dynamics generated by continuous or regular feedback loops are becoming the norm in areas of activity in which change and short cycles of product development are constants.

The Internet of Things (IoT)

clothes, homes, cars, buildings, roads, and a wide range of other objects that have a place in peoples’ daily life activities

experiencing major growth, equally in terms of hardware, software and with respect to the way the capabilities are configured and used

The IoT concept is being combined with the new-ish concepts of Open Data and Big Data

ethical, political and social impact policy decisions

that key opportunities associated with widespread uptake of the IoT are derived from the impact upon peoples’ activities and lives

‘we’ are on our way towards more integrated eco-systems of issues, people and technologies

participation and inclusion enabled by interconnectedness are quickly becoming the ‘new rules’

What the Future May Hold

the ‘scenario planning’ approach

world’s politics, economics, anthropology, technology, psychology, sociology and philosophy

A scenario planning exercise carried out by the Rockefeller Foundation

Clearly these early (and now not-so-weak) signals and patterns tell us that the core assumptions and principles that have underpinned organized human activities for most of the past century

are being changed by the combinations and permutations of new, powerful, inexpensive and widely accessible information-processing technologies

The short description of each scenario reinforces the perception that we are both individually and collectively in transition from a linear, specialized, efficiency-driven paradigm towards a paradigm based on continuous feedback loops and principles of participation, both large and small in scope.

cultural ‘mutation’

Wirearchy

a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology.

the role of social media and smart mobile devices in the uprisings in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East

The roots of organizational development (OD) are in humanistic psychology and sociology action and ethnographic and cybernetic/ socio-technical systems theory.  It’s a domain that emerged essentially as a counter-balance to the mechanistic and machine-metaphor-based core assumptions about the organized activities in our society.

Organizational development principles are built upon some basic assumptions about human motivations, engagement and activities.

Participative Work Design – The Six Criteria

in recent years created models that help clarify how to evaluate and respond to the continuous turbulence and ambiguity generated by participating in interconnected flows of information.

contexts characterized by either Simple, Complicated or Chaotic dynamics (from complexity theory fundamentals). Increasingly, Complexity is emerging as a key definer of the issues, problems and opportunities faced by our societies.

peer-to-peer movement(s) unfolding around the world

Co-creating in a wide range of forms, processes and purpose may become an effective and important antidote to the spreading enclosure of human creative activity.

But .. the dominant models of governance, commercial ownership and the use and re-use of that which is co-created by people are going to have to undergo much more deep change in order to disrupt the existing paradigm of proprietary commercial creation and the model of socio-economic power that this paradigm enables and carries today.

create optimal conditions in a research organization with the aim of enhancing the creativity of its scientific staff

Creativity has been traditionally associated with art and literature but since the early twentieth century, science has also been regarded as a creative activity

Measuring creativity is a challenging task owing to its complex and elusive nature

Measurement of brain activity showed that creativity correlates with two brain states: a quiescent, relaxed state corresponding to the inspiration stage, and a much more active state corresponding to the elaboration stage

models of creativity

have a common feature: they depend on a balance between analytical and synthetic thinking, and usually describe the creative process as a sequence of phases that alternate between these states

Most research on creativity has focused on the individual

However, more recent studies suggest that creativity also depends strongly on the social and cultural context

breakthroughs depended on collaboration and social support

social environment in business organizations affects the creativity of their employees

Although creative individuals are essential, the strong link with the environment indicates that creativity might be greatly enhanced by generating a culture that supports the creative process.

Many of the interviewees repeatedly emphasized three main qualities necessary to be a good scientist: rigorous intellect, the ability to get the job done and the ability to have creative ideas.

almost all interviewees characterized their breakthrough moment as an abrupt leap in understanding

Although breakthroughs in science depend on such an ‘internal' conceptual shift, they also rely on ‘external' experimental results. However, most interviewees described their breakthroughs as largely internal:

Only two scientists expressed the view that their breakthroughs were purely external events, based on the observation of novel data.

intuition

must be combined with rational thinking to be effective

Although the synthesis of a new concept relies on intuition, which is based on subconscious mental processing, it must be subjected to conscious examination and analysis

specific mental skills or attitudes

ability to make unexpected connections

ability to choose relevant possibilities from an infinite set of irrelevant ones

interest in the unknown'

enjoyment of the creative process

stimulation by interacting with colleagues

undoubtedly the most crucial trait for creativity, which thrives on the exchange of ideas

The majority felt that the individual and the collective are equally important:

what interactions are optimal for creativity

The majority of interviewees answered that other people provided them with ‘inspiration to do something new'

positive feedback after the emergence of a new idea is almost as important as the inspiration that triggered it

collective provides the individual with technical expertise

Therefore, scientists would value a culture of interaction and mutual inspiration more highly than access to technology, although the latter is essential for their experiments.

At the end of the interviews, each scientist was asked to describe the best possible conditions for generating creativity at a research institute.

Cross-fertilization is absolutely essential

These results indicate strongly that an interactive environment is the single most important factor for stimulating creativity

interacting with people doing very different things

interacting with colleagues informally

interactions within any institution are strongly affected by its organization

Several interviewees described ‘an open hierarchy' as an important factor for creativity

hierarchy is based on genuine respect because people are great scientists, but at the same time they're very approachable and open towards what you have to say

These results suggest that the best conditions for scientific creativity come with a free-flowing hierarchy and a highly developed culture of interaction to guarantee the exchange of ideas and inspiration.

Furthermore, interdisciplinary interactions lead to the generation of new and unusual ideas

Finally, because of the freedom to try new things, these ideas can be tested and eventually generate new insights.

Creativity can be described as an emergent phenomenon

nonlinear phenomena

Emergence depends on dynamic interactions between individual agents within the system

The importance of a ‘freedom to try new things' and a ‘free-flowing hierarchy' further supports the idea that individual components in an emergent system must be able to interact flexibly without central control

During the interviews, it became apparent that although a culture of interaction and creativity exists at EMBL, this itself is not often the subject of discussion. The values on which this culture is based are seemingly implicit rather than explicit

Potentially, the EMBL culture of interaction could be strengthened further by consciously expressing and discussing the values on which it is based