1 00:00:03,910 --> 00:00:07,970 The, the time is an important one within the development of systemic design. 2 00:00:08,470 --> 00:00:10,730 So there, I think there are some choices that need to be made, 3 00:00:11,190 --> 00:00:15,370 and the first 10 events in this series have established systemic designers, 4 00:00:16,030 --> 00:00:16,863 um, in the world. 5 00:00:18,110 --> 00:00:21,370 But when something like this begins to go become a mainstream endeavor, 6 00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:24,290 when you can sort of introduce yourself in the, 7 00:00:24,290 --> 00:00:29,290 in a lift as a systemic designer, um, uh, there's a lot of risks. 8 00:00:30,410 --> 00:00:33,470 So there's a risk that what's special about it can become lost, 9 00:00:33,810 --> 00:00:37,550 can become lost in just, you know, the rest of the world. Um, 10 00:00:37,630 --> 00:00:41,390 a risk of embedding blind spots that we are blind to because we, you know, the, 11 00:00:41,390 --> 00:00:45,950 the implicit values and assumptions in the foundations of what it is that, 12 00:00:46,890 --> 00:00:49,990 um, just get extended and we forget to question them. 13 00:00:51,420 --> 00:00:55,120 And I think we've got questions that are about, um, uh, 14 00:00:55,300 --> 00:00:58,920 we have important questions for us right now about the next steps in developing 15 00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:01,520 this. And I want to go to, um, 16 00:01:04,710 --> 00:01:07,170 oh, that's the reveal. Um, 17 00:01:08,350 --> 00:01:10,450 so I'm just call doing a call back to this diagram, 18 00:01:10,580 --> 00:01:15,090 which I saw at the first time I came to an R S D, which was, um, 19 00:01:15,970 --> 00:01:20,090 R S D four, and I think it was first presented in R S D two and, um, 20 00:01:20,140 --> 00:01:22,370 maybe it's been around before then. Um, 21 00:01:22,670 --> 00:01:27,170 I'd love to know kind of when Berger first did this. Um, 22 00:01:27,950 --> 00:01:30,890 and there's lots of ways you can maybe do a different diagram. 23 00:01:31,470 --> 00:01:32,970 You can critique this and so on. 24 00:01:32,990 --> 00:01:35,090 And all diagrams are just slices through things, 25 00:01:35,090 --> 00:01:37,770 but I'm just gonna work with this one a little bit. Um, 26 00:01:39,300 --> 00:01:44,200 so Berger's title for this in his slides in RSD two are the 27 00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:46,760 field of possibilities in systemic design. 28 00:01:47,460 --> 00:01:52,000 And I think one of the really beautiful things about, uh, this, 29 00:01:52,500 --> 00:01:56,840 and especially how Bier wrote about this in 2017, 30 00:01:57,900 --> 00:02:01,280 um, is he positioned system systems oriented design. 31 00:02:01,300 --> 00:02:04,520 So the practice that he develops is just one of the possibilities. 32 00:02:05,300 --> 00:02:08,840 So there's a kind of field you have kind of design on one side, 33 00:02:08,900 --> 00:02:10,120 you have systems on the other, 34 00:02:11,050 --> 00:02:15,150 and he puts this kind of blurry red spot for roughly where systems oriented 35 00:02:15,150 --> 00:02:16,550 design is, is one practice. 36 00:02:17,010 --> 00:02:20,510 And there's an idea that systemic design could be a plural field with many 37 00:02:20,750 --> 00:02:23,430 practices and different ways of doing things rather than just one thing. 38 00:02:24,170 --> 00:02:27,950 And I think that plurality is really, um, important and interesting in, 39 00:02:28,610 --> 00:02:30,630 in being critical of everything we do. 40 00:02:31,810 --> 00:02:34,910 But we could also say that most of the stuff that, you know, 41 00:02:34,930 --> 00:02:39,150 we see at R S D is fairly near that red spot, right? 42 00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:42,350 We're kind of plural, but we're still kind of in that zone. 43 00:02:42,890 --> 00:02:45,750 And I'm always attracted to the edges. So I, I'm from a, 44 00:02:45,830 --> 00:02:48,110 a discipline called cybernetics, which is about, um, 45 00:02:48,110 --> 00:02:49,590 exploring the edges between things. 46 00:02:52,110 --> 00:02:56,090 And you can think of this as a field and there's a lot of other space on the, 47 00:02:56,310 --> 00:02:59,460 on the graph. Um, 48 00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:03,540 so have we explored the full range of what that pluralism could be, 49 00:03:04,990 --> 00:03:08,010 um, design on the left. Um, 50 00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:13,340 so there's a lot of other modalities of design that are maybe not captured by 51 00:03:13,480 --> 00:03:17,220 design thinking, design practice, research through design. 52 00:03:17,220 --> 00:03:20,260 There's other kinds of things, right? And other connections, 53 00:03:20,260 --> 00:03:23,100 maybe things beyond design that are forms of creative practice too, 54 00:03:23,100 --> 00:03:26,700 that are relevant. Um, we could think to connections, to art practice, 55 00:03:26,700 --> 00:03:27,533 to engineering. 56 00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:32,740 And in the same way the system side systems is as a field is more than just 57 00:03:32,740 --> 00:03:35,990 systems thinking. So systems thinking, um, 58 00:03:36,210 --> 00:03:40,790 in a way is the kind of presentable, neat, um, 59 00:03:41,770 --> 00:03:46,350 uh, known kind of methodological area that you can kind of present in a kind of 60 00:03:46,350 --> 00:03:47,130 government circle. 61 00:03:47,130 --> 00:03:50,710 And they've heard of it and it really makes sense to start with this because 62 00:03:50,710 --> 00:03:53,390 it's kind of known. It has some acceptance. Um, 63 00:03:53,390 --> 00:03:57,670 and if what you're trying to do as Alex Ryan put it, um, 64 00:03:58,050 --> 00:03:59,950 at a previous R s d, if we're, 65 00:04:00,130 --> 00:04:04,070 if systemic design is trying to move upstream from designs traditional areas to 66 00:04:04,270 --> 00:04:08,990 questions like policy and, um, sociotechnical systems that are, 67 00:04:09,330 --> 00:04:12,860 um, governance, If you're trying to move into that realm, 68 00:04:12,860 --> 00:04:17,030 it makes a lot of start sense to start with, um, uh, 69 00:04:17,030 --> 00:04:19,150 with kind of systems thinking as a framework. 70 00:04:19,610 --> 00:04:22,630 But there's also many other things that systems connects to as a field. 71 00:04:22,930 --> 00:04:27,350 So it connects to the counterculture, connects to, um, ecology, 72 00:04:27,550 --> 00:04:30,950 connects to the long, now, connects to embodied cognition, 73 00:04:30,950 --> 00:04:35,470 biology of cognition to art practices, to family therapy, um, 74 00:04:35,530 --> 00:04:39,670 to all kinds of things that are, I think still re very relevant to, um, 75 00:04:39,670 --> 00:04:43,670 designing and also to, um, design challenges. 76 00:04:47,260 --> 00:04:50,400 One of the most noticeable parts of systemic design, um, 77 00:04:51,620 --> 00:04:53,840 has been giga mapping or different forms of mapping. 78 00:04:54,780 --> 00:04:56,880 And this is often talked about as 79 00:04:58,510 --> 00:05:02,240 visualizing complexity. Um, 80 00:05:02,420 --> 00:05:04,960 but I think the most important thing in it is, um, 81 00:05:05,060 --> 00:05:07,280 an integration of what's called boundary critique. 82 00:05:09,580 --> 00:05:14,000 So if we take the basic systems idea that everything is connected, 83 00:05:15,540 --> 00:05:19,330 um, but we can't engage with everything at once, 84 00:05:20,370 --> 00:05:23,980 then there's an idea that all our engagements are partial and we're always 85 00:05:23,980 --> 00:05:26,700 making boundary judgements about what we include and what we don't. 86 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:29,020 The question who is, 87 00:05:29,020 --> 00:05:33,020 and who should be included is at the heart of e every systemic design process. 88 00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:38,020 Um, and I'm sure you will encounter that in different ways in your work, 89 00:05:40,410 --> 00:05:43,990 But I think we can also apply that question to systemic design itself, 90 00:05:44,820 --> 00:05:49,670 also to R S D who and what is included in systemic 91 00:05:49,770 --> 00:05:51,590 design and who and what should be. 92 00:05:52,650 --> 00:05:56,910 And here I'm thinking partly of something Margaret Mead did, um, 93 00:05:56,920 --> 00:05:59,560 with the systems and cybernetics communities in the sixties, 94 00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:03,160 which was to ask them to take their ideas seriously enough to apply them to 95 00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:06,600 their own practices. So their own events, their own organizations. 96 00:06:09,260 --> 00:06:11,280 So Berger's, Gibb, giga mapping approach 97 00:06:13,030 --> 00:06:16,770 has beautiful part which is about, um, 98 00:06:16,770 --> 00:06:19,930 mapping out beyond the horizon, um, 99 00:06:19,950 --> 00:06:22,170 of the project until you get to things you know, 100 00:06:22,190 --> 00:06:24,530 you don't need to deal with right now. Right? 101 00:06:25,070 --> 00:06:27,810 So moving beyond the scope and then, you know, 102 00:06:27,810 --> 00:06:30,730 you can make a proper critical judgment of what to include and when. 103 00:06:36,380 --> 00:06:40,200 So just to play with the diagram a little bit, if we kind of start to imagine, 104 00:06:40,390 --> 00:06:44,560 well, that was maybe a field, what's beyond that field? And I, 105 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:48,080 I would like to encourage us to kind of think about maybe the other 106 00:06:48,080 --> 00:06:51,360 possibilities that surround it that could be included. Um, 107 00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:54,600 and maybe that should be included. So what are the, so the, 108 00:06:54,700 --> 00:06:57,080 the questions leave you with is, um, 109 00:06:57,360 --> 00:07:01,160 what are the possibilities and practices of systemic design? Uh, 110 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:05,750 what should they be? When is systemic design? When is it, 111 00:07:06,840 --> 00:07:11,580 uh, when is it a good idea? When is it just, uh, when is it possible? 112 00:07:11,580 --> 00:07:14,380 When is it practical? When is it radical? Um, 113 00:07:14,500 --> 00:07:19,260 I think these are questions that are, um, hard to ask, but good to, 114 00:07:19,760 --> 00:07:20,780 um, good to answer.