Announcements and updates on books of interest to systemic designers.
Virpi Oinonen: The trouble is that complexity is hard to explain to people who think in straight, causal lines. So I made it visible by drawing funny (and slightly irreverent) cartoons about it. Use the cartoons to understand the problem, explain it to others… or as therapy. Your choice.
Abbie van Meter and Susan Coleman discuss Susan’s new book, Collaborative Hardball: Using the Power of a New Negotiation as Women to Change the World and what a “new negotiation” looks like for women and everyone.
Christopher Alexander (1936–2022), architect and theorist of pattern languages, shaped architecture, planning, and computer science through works including A Pattern Language and The Nature of Order, and through a lifelong commitment to living architecture.
This volume, the last in THE NEW series, brings together people who rarely end up in the same conversation about how contemporary economic systems can be critically examined and pragmatically transformed.
Eric Wenzel’s new book explores recurring paradoxes of organizational life that shape transformation yet receive little attention in orthodox literature (in English and German).
The first in a series by James Stauch diving into a concept, idea, framework, or tool, drawing on the book The 55 Minutes, co-written with Daniela Papi-Thornton and Anna Johnson.
Edited By Michael R. Gibson and Keith M. Owens. Of interest to scholars and designers working in design studies and design research, and design practitioners who are increasingly called upon to understand and act on data gleaned from evidence-based research.
Mark Cabaj has authored an accessible primer that helps build a shared understanding of what transformation means—and what it demands—from those seeking to pursue it seriously.
Mari Suoheimo, Jonna Hakkila, and Ravi Mahamuni are editors of this broad-ranging collection the highlights the role that technology can play in increasing community engagement in participatory design, now and in the future. Print copy info (open access will follow).
This book is a blueprint for escaping capitalism and creating a world of true abundance—By Kai Heron, Keir Milburn, and Bertie Russell
RSD14-RSDX book talk | The 55 Minutes | OCT 6. Author James Stauch highlights how designers can still benefit from hanging up their solutions and journeying deeper into understanding the dimensions of the problems they are seeking to address.
Katie Krummeck’s exciting kickstarter for DreamUP development. Katie is a social impact designer and thought leader in leveraging the power of design to drive change in social systems.
Camargo-Borges and McNamee’s 2022 book introduces the constructionist research design process as a framework for research that is creative, transformative and innovative. The link goes to the first 19-pages.
A new resource from the Design Council, created to close the green skills gap in design. It offers shared language, practical steps, and a mindset shift toward regenerative design—part of an ambitious plan to upskill one million designers by 2030.
Bob Williams book on the CSH framework is useful for anyone working in complex environments who wants to better navigate ambiguity, power, and competing perspectives
Katie Krummeck, Gray Garmon, Munir Ahmad, and Sarayu Agarwal have created a human-centred design resource for social impact and innovation practitioners that can be downloaded from the Aga Khan Foundation learning hub.
From the stacks: A review of Russell Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg’s 2008 book, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track. The authors called for a learner-centred, systems-informed, democratic redesign of education’s purpose. “Why doesn’t education focus on what humans can do better than the machines and instruments they create?”
An incredible way to browse a personal collection of design books—delightful photos of covers and insightful notes in a diary entry style. Some will be familiar and some will be new.
A starting point to bridge that gap, providing impact investors—foundations, family offices, impact funds, and those that advise and work with them—with practical options to apply systems thinking across their impact investing strategy, implementation, and impact measurement and management (IMM).
How grassroots innovators across five countries — Guatemala, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil, and Cameroon — are re-imagining scale on their own terms. An inquiry on how to shift dominant global north models of scale.
How do we make the invisible work of networks visible? A step-by-step guide to translating the complexity of networks into clear, compelling narratives.
NEW BOOK. Adam Kahane: I started to wonder about everyday habits for transforming systems, and to realize that I needed to write this book—not only for others but for myself.
Benjamin Taylor’s resource list serves as a primer and prep for SCiO (Systems and Complexity in Organisation) open meeting (Manchester UK).
Co-editors Mari Suoheimo, Peter Jones, Sheng-Hung Lee, and Birger Sevaldson. Mari says, “I learned a lot from reading others’ research, for example on systemic oppressions in service design and mapping tools that can be important for service designers to know about wicked problems in services.” Open access download >
Bas van den Berg’s upcoming book, co-written with Koen Wessels and Mieke Lopes Cardozo. Open access launch June 12 livestream and @Pakhuis de Zwijger Amsterdam.
Forthcoming book by Paul Kingsnorth “is a deep dive into the dehumanisation of the world at the hands of techno-capitalism, spiritually rootless technologies and a culture that has lost its moorings in place, time and faith.” Iain McGilchrist calls it brilliant.
Preview of Robyn Penman’s new book by Sheila McNamee, “we are asked to consider a complete reconceptualization of justice. What if we inhabit a space where justice is something we make together rather than an abstract, ideal standard for resource distribution, legal decisions, and for moral conduct?”
Epistemological error describes a foundational fault in ways of knowing. The error is a pervasive failing to attend to relations(hips). Mapping Gregory Bateson’s Ecologies of Mind, Part One.
Eight edition of Arthur Jensen and Sarah Trenholm’s textbook is available. It offers guidance on human interaction and is reviewed as “the text I wish I had as an undergraduate student.”
From must-read reports to thought-provoking conversations and inspiring exhibitions, here’s what the Design Council is loving right now.
The Centre for Systems Studies (University of Hull) newsletter includes articles and news about webinars, UK-based events, publications, and the Annual Mike Jackson Lecture—this year is John Seddon .
Fabian Gampp and Gian Wieck’s interview on their system mapping chapter in “Future Organization Playbook.”
Annoucing a new book chapter by
Marlieke Kieboom and Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer with some excellent recommendations on relational design reads and events.
This handbook is a guide for a product manager’s journey towards more human centered medical device product management. It provides tools, examples, and tips, acting as a stepping stone to the world of service design from the perspective of medical device manufacturing.