Sensorica Knowledge

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.