Cameron Norman calls for creative products that matter to those who create them, not just those who consume them. What happens when we offload this work?
Artificial Intelligence and Creative Human Capacity
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Essays + Reports
These are exploratory and reflective writings that offer insights and perspectives on diverse topics.
What if innovation needs us to slow down?
What if, in our rush to respond to the demand for action, we are overlooking something essential: the time it takes for good ideas to become better ones?
Bothering to Wake Up
Waking up as a process and perspective and being bothered as a sign of an unawakened self. If we are bothered, can we consciously choose to act as if we matter?
The Death and Life of Professional Online Communities
Cameron Norman’s reflection is a timely and thoughtful consideration of online communities as RSD15 enters a few months of professional online encounters.
Human Centering: Gaining focus and clarity
There is a large amount of verbal traffic around the term ‘human centered’ in modern discourses but little understanding or agreement on what the term actually means in practical terms.
Five Elements to Evaluate Systemic Change
Book launch series by Emily F. Gates and Pablo Vidueira (Post #5). Evaluation often feels overly technical and jargony. We simplify it into five elements anyone can work with.
A critical reflection on integrating AI in System Mapping
First impulses in a series on AI in system mapping. The series anticipates the roles AI can take, tools and approaches, and reflections on the potential of AI-enhanced mapping.
The Decline of Deviance 2
Is the decline of deviance actually an increase in tolerance? Part 2 of Adam Mastroianni’s article: art, the internet, being (un)cool, and bermuda shorts.
Let’s Wobble!
Embracing the wobble and staying with the both/and space between opposing perspectives.
What makes a good vote
Goebey on participatory budgeting: It is worth looking at how the voting system used for elections map onto the specific context that is building out a budget.
What Pluribus Doesn’t Get Right
Jamborcic: The choice is not between individual and collective. The question is how to structure the space between so that groups can think well and act together.
The hundred-mile investment
Using our own insights into the unique assets our communities hold can allow us to develop approaches to thinking about community wealth in ways that benefit us individually and collectively.
Designing belonging
An interview with DESIS Social Innovator Fellow, Yuliia Barash, an educator, community builder, and social initiative organizer based in Lisbon, Portugal. Her work focuses on building supportive environments for families, strengthening migrant communities, and creating initiatives that combine education, creativity, and social integration.
The Thinker the Century Couldn’t Hear
Richard David Hames in memoriam for Edgar Morin, French sociologist, philosopher, public intellectual, and theorist of complex thought. Photo Oliver Dion.
On Hope
Sophie Keiko Hope and reflections on remaining in relationship with the future when you cannot control the future.
Managing Organizations as Systems
James Stauch (The 55 Minutes) has completed a a three-part series on how systems thinking is (historically and still occasionally), is not (generally at present), and could be (no, must be) applied to the teaching and learning of management.
Reading “The Market in the Model”
Eryk Salvaggio offers a “very light gloss” of the paper, The Market in the Model, which extends dataset critique by examining the latent diffusion model’s internal mechanisms as a neural economy.
The real work of shared power
Lisa Gill: Why is sharing power so demanding, and how we can grow into it together. Lisa is host of the Leadermorphosis podcast and co-author of “Moose Heads on the Table: Stories About Self-Managing Companies from Sweden” with Karin Tenelius
Horst Rittel’s two matches inquiry
Horst Rittel’s matches—a reminder that categories or clusterings cannot substitute for, or stand in for, understanding and cannot assign value or meaning to assembled data.
Moving Beyond Extractive Measurement: Introducing the Regenerative Evaluation Living paper
Unity Effect is a social enterprise that works with a network of freelancers who share regenerative mindsets. The paper is an open invitation to join the network. Lots to explore.
The Ultimate Reading List: bioregioning, regenerative patterns, myth and language
Tijn Tjoelker: With the joyful responsibility to “keep the gifts flowing,” I created an overview of my favourite articles. From The Mycelium on Substack.
An Axial Revolution
An axial revolution challenges unquestioned beliefs, assumptions, and paradigms to address challenges posed by global environmental change.
Where impact investing could (and if it should) be transformative
Impact investing is supposed to have social and ecological impact while generating investment returns; charitable giving is supposed to have social and ecological impact without generating investment returns. From one lens, there is an emerging sector finding its footing. From another lens, there is a product so confusing it can’t be given away.
The 55 Minutes Shift: The problem with solutions
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.
I need a miracle, every day
We may not see the impacts of our work right away, but we can trust that we are part of a larger whole—and that transformation is underway
Shifting Patterns
What pattern could you shift to contribute to quantum social change, and to help create a world where we greet the news each day not with “sh#*!” but with love?
Beyond Product-Market Fit: Why governance matters from day one
Sean Geobey’s on Substack. In this post he writes “Your governance structure positions you strategically. Who owns you determines whose interests you serve, which determines how you compete.”
From truth out of adversity to truth in good faith
Our scepticism about political truth claims and the implications of cultural diversity lend added weight to the need for restorying what we might call truth.
States of Change: Signals from Apolitical Day 2025
This paper comes from inside the practice of public innovation, at a moment when many practitioners are trying to understand what has shifted beneath their feet. States of Change was initiated by the UK Foundation Nesta to help governments become better problem-solvers.
The World We Prefer
Preferment has been on my mind lately. It’s my alternative to retirement; a recognition that now is the time to do things differently, and to consciously create a world where we all can thrive.
(Non)Intervening in Complexity: The Navigational Wheel of Inquiry
RSD14 TALK. The Systemic Design Wheel of Inquiry is a didactic and practice-oriented framework developed to support systemic designers in navigating complex, evolving systems.
Wayfinding—towards justice and democracy
My particular focus in theses posts is on the public sphere, particularly on the functioning of our two major public institutions, the government and the law. How well is the governing and regulating done?
Power Without Wisdom
Expression of the relationships between people and their created technologies, known in various fables or narratives, is essentially some variation of the sorcerer’s apprentice.
Service Design Tools Can Inform the Design of Agentic AI Services
Jodi Forlizzi: Service designers will play a critical role in envisioning new forms of Agentic AI services, designing their touchpoints, and ensuring that what we design and deliver is ethical and beneficial to the world.
Thoughts on Hinton
If Geoffrey Hinton and others agree that the greatest danger in AI is its capacity to persuade, we need to develop more resistance to every claim it makes.
The Möbius Strip of Knowledge
Rethinking the boundaries of knowing / Le ruban de Möbius du savoir : repenser les frontières de la connaissance.
Abundance: What about public common partnerships?
Abundance promotes public-common strategies to democratise the economy and realise a just socio-ecological transition for everyone.
Working With the Grain
I’m grateful to have learned how to learn by feel. Over the past decade, I have realized that so many of the principles I learned under the florescent lights of my grandpa’s workbench apply to my work in design and systems.
Unity through Community
The climate negotiations in Brazil were a missed opportunity for nations to express unity through clear and ambitious climate action. Moving forward, we need to build communities that care for all.
What Was ChatGPT?
Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gathering more users in less time than any product launch in history.
Seven Habits for Collaborative Leaders to Make it Through These Times
Here are some of the habits that have helped us and the leaders we work with stay steady and open through uncertainty.
The Path to Polycrisis
My journey into personality studies began 10 years ago when I had the unfortunate luck of having a sociopath as my manager.
The Rebels Who Keep Us Human
New on the feed! GertyGordie substack posts by Lorraine Randal. Let’s start with “Systems rely on convivial rebels to stay alive and responsive… but struggle to admit how much they need them.”
What if…? Robyn Penman’s substack is live
Robyn Penman is a scholar and long-time observer and critic of our social world asking “what if…?.” to open a path to a new world of being with others.
Is the Media Studies Cabal in the Room With Us Right Now?
A great deal of suffering arises when we act on our imaginations of the world, rather than working toward clarity. As such, it’s the role of those who care about a topic to articulate the contours of the space. AI is one such space, and debate, at the current moment, is pretty vigorous.
The Karma Effect
Understanding cause and effect is at the heart of responsible climate action. Karma isn’t fate but feedback, and a reminder that we matter more than we think.
What Machines Don’t Know
Much of the most intense debate in AI defaults to “you don’t even understand the technology.” But I suspect the most significant distinction is not whether we understand how a model works, but in how we interpret what the structure is doing.
A library guide to support transdisciplinarity
By ANU Library Guide Working Group. What tools can libraries develop to support transdisciplinary education and research? What are the challenges and requirements to make such tool development happen?
Freedom vs. Order: The Decentralized Design Dilemma
In real life, generous sharing usually works better than strict rules. Heavy permission systems slow down teamwork more than the occasional trust problem costs you. When you’re already working across different groups, you’re not trying to keep everything private anyway.
Reader’s Block and Mental Stuckness
Francis Laleman’s poetic and evocative story about three novels and a book about trees.
Systemic Centaurs—Part II
Infusing or integrating AI technology into the functioning of teleological systems, replacing or augmenting human strengths, depends on the activities supported by concomitant degrees of freedom in each conjunction space.
Don’t miss Harold Nelson’s #RSD14 framing conversation on OCT 3.
The Audience Makes the Story
This is a discussion between Camila Galaz, Emma Wiseman, and Eryk Salvaggio, collaborators behind an experimental workshop linking puppetry and generative AI.
Six tips for using research to influence policy
Six very excellent tips from David R. Garcia, US legislative staffer, state policy director, statewide political candidate, and professor.
Soul Searching
“Send” I hit the button this week and sent a letter to make it official that I will retire from the University of Oslo on January 1, 2026. In that moment, a wave of possibility collapsed into a particular reality.
The Astronomical Fall
Karen O’Brien reflects on Bill McKibben’s new book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization—”we have to deliberately transform ourselves and our societies. Quickly.”
Every High-Energy System Needs a Crucible
Harold Nelson: It is obvious that we need to reestablish new broadband designs of inquiry to supplement and balance the dominance of narrowband inquiring systems in a world recognized to be more complex and entangled than imagined, and more challenged by complex technologies than ever expected.
Speaking Up
Karen O’Brien: How do those of us who still have the freedom to speak make use of our voices in powerful and responsible ways? “Speak up” sounds simple, but the truth is that using our voices can make us feel vulnerable. It can, in some cases, be dangerous.
Holding the Roots: Resourcing the infrastructure behind movements
Behind every campaign or viral hashtag, there is slow, deliberate work. Networks negotiating values, grassroots leaders navigating conflict and decision-making, and organizers choosing to stay in relationship when things get hard because they know liberation isn’t a solo act.
Three social mechanisms leading to fake interdisciplinary collaborations / 伪跨学科合作的三种社会形成机制
Also in Chinese | Lianghao Dai: Fake interdisciplinary collaborations are a form of performative scientific behaviour that claims to be interdisciplinary but lacks knowledge integration across disciplines.
Systemic Centaurs—Part I
Harold Nelson: New technologies in general, such as personal computers, and more recently the emergence of so-called artificial intelligence, have become, or are becoming, prosthetics fitted to modern humans. But how well do these new prosthetics fit human nature?