 My
recent conversations with my colleagues working on AHA! have taken some
intriguing turns, and since many of you have been very encouraging on
this project, I wanted to share them with you. Just as a brief reminder
on what AHA! aspires to be:
- A vehicle and methodology to explore and discover approaches to
complex issues, from global warming and violence and poverty in the
Mideast to the dysfunction and lack of innovation in large
organization. We know that complex issues can't be addressed using the
old merely-complicated approaches (like systems thinking,
reengineering, cause-and-effect analysis, etc.) -- three years later you
look back at the project you poured so much sweat into and nothing has
really changed. AHA! implements Einstein's advice that we won't solve
problems using the same kind of thinking that gave rise to them.
Complexity theory is new and largely untested in this area but there
are some fascinating and powerful techniques that seem well-suited to support a complex
adaptive system 'discovery-and-learning based' methodology.
- A group of people
who will develop AHA! and will then certify others who have the
capability to apply it to the many complex problems and challenges that
other methodologies and approaches have failed to solve -- people with the experience to know what works and what doesn't, and why.
- Completely open source and creative
commons licensed. We may charge for-profit organizations to help them
apply the methodology, but only for the purpose of funding sessions to
use the methodology to solve the world's most intractable problems for
free.
Some
readers have asked if AHA! will be based in one or more physical
centres -- we don't know yet. Other readers have asked whether AHA!
will be software -- it will be more than that, but there will
undoubtedly be software and other tools that will be part of the
methodology. And some readers have asked if AHA! will use Open Space
methodology -- we will use Open Space extensively in developing
the AHA! methodology, but we don't know whether it will be a
significant part of the final methodology. It will be what it will be.
My AHA! colleagues are agreed on the following:
- It is essential that AHA! differentiate itself clearly
from all the other methodologies out there that claim to have the ideal
approach to solving all the world's problems. Perhaps the only way to
do this is to use it to 'solve' a problem that none of these other
methodologies has solved.
- Developing and using AHA! is going to take a significant commitment of time and energy
of its core group, and ultimately of anyone who wants to use it
effectively. This is not a 'spare time' project. The purpose of the
design session is not academic, it is to set out a plan for a lot of
people to do a lot of work to accomplish some remarkable results.
- We need to just start. One initial design session, start of November, invitations to go out by the end of this month, invitations to be open to anyone (including you)
who is interested and can make it and cares enough to invest some time
and a bit of travel money (we are trying to get sponsors to cover other
costs) to get there (either Toronto or San Francisco) -- and that
session will:
- 'create the container' for what AHA! is,
- set the agenda for where AHA! goes from there,
- establish the business model for AHA! (how it will make money),
- identify what kinds of problems and challenges it is appropriate for, and
- then begin to offer it to the world
- AHA! needs to create a bridge between reasoned cynicism and reasonable optimism:
- it must appreciate why so many existing and promising methodologies have failed, yet
- it
must acknowledge that there are some astonishing activities occurring
right now (most of them very focused, one-off, but employing radical,
leading-edge thinking) that could be leveraged and incorporated into
AHA!
My AHA! colleagues also disagree significantly on the following:
- Should the objective of the initial AHA! design session be just to develop
the methodology (by grappling with why all the old 'complicated system'
methodologies don't work), or to simultaneous develop and apply it to
try to solve one intractable problem? Advocates of the former say the
latter is too ambitious for one session, while advocates of the latter
say that we'll attract more exceptional and diverse people if we really
stretch and focus on one 'burning platform' issue, than if we try to
'get people energized about process'.
- Will business be willing to invest in AHA!, or are business leaders too incapable of thinking outside the box, too timid and risk-averse, and lacking in any sense of urgency
for change to participate in this? We are quite split on this, and as a
cynic and an idealist I'm torn on this question. I had imagined
business funding AHA! (both to solve its own problems and also via some
altruistic funding of its use to solve broad social problems) and also
hoped business would bring some (often much-needed) business
perspective to intractable non-business problems that AHA! might
grapple with. But if business is going to opt out, we'd be better off
looking for other sources of financing and stick to people who really
will have passion around AHA! and what we believe it could accomplish.
It
would be presumptuous and premature (and contrary to the spirit of
collegiality and collaboration) to try to lay out some preliminary
vision of AHA! (I am willing to 'let go' of AHA!, and let it go
wherever the consensus of those involved see it going). But I think we
are agreed that it would be useful to create a list of some of the
problems, issues and challenges that a complex adaptive systems
approach like AHA! might be able to deal with to a degree no other
tried-and-true approach could.
So here's my list* of the world's
10 most intractable problems, and my preliminary assessment on the
degree to which (on a scale of 1 to 10) AHA! or some other complex
adaptive systems approach might address each problem better than all
the approaches that have failed so far:
- Creating a health care
system that works, based (probably) on preventative care and
self-diagnosis and self-treatment, instead of on learned helplessness
and dependence. (8)
- Creating an education system that is based on just-in-time learning by doing,
learning from acknowledged experts, self-discovery and peer-to-peer
collaboration, in the field, in critical life skills selected by the
learner and learned the way the learner learns (and graded by the learner), instead of on 'teachers' in expensive remote facilities in one-way lectures with grades assigned by the teacher. (8)
- Achieving energy and other resource
self-sufficiency and sustainability, based on renewable and
non-polluting sources and conservation, using mechanisms like radical
tax shifts, real R&D on sustainable energy, and local energy co-ops. (8)
- Creating a food system
that does not inflict massive suffering on animals, does not waste
billions of acres of land in inefficient monoculture, does not require
billions of dollars in annual subsidies to keep it afloat, does not
involve absurdly inefficient transportation and overpackaging of
products, does not exploit farmers and divert desperately needed food
from poor to rich, and does not create massive waste disposal problems
and contribute substantially to global warming. (8)
- Reforming corporate conduct through constructive public-private agreements and partnerships so that business is encouraged
(financially and through reputation and customer goodwill) to pursue
socially and environmentally responsible policies, instead of discouraged (through taxes, sanctions, laws, regulations and other often-unenforced or unenforceable means) from being irresponsible. (6)
- Creating integral, intentional communities
based on love and commonality of interest and beliefs instead of
economic standing and proximity to the workplace, and in the process,
weaning communities off cars -- by integrating personal and work life
in one place, by eliminating the roads that fragment communities, and
by making all transit public
(e.g. a shared fleet of community vehicles on the outskirts of the
community and a community-run bus/limo service for community members).
An essential part of this is resolving the tragedy of the commons,
so that instead of fragmenting and destroying community and collective
responsibility by making everything privately owned and laissez-faire,
we are encouraged to acknowledge that the value of community property
is much greater than the value of our individual share of it. (5)
- Reducing over-crowding and over-population
by e.g. using smart urban design (that creates more psychological space
than physical space), by eliminating space waste (more effective,
modular, changeable house configurations), and by developing physical
(not chemical) contraceptives with zero risk of unwanted pregnancy, use
of which becomes the easy, default behaviour until and unless
conception is actually wanted. (4)
- Reducing poverty (and economic and political inequality in general) and by doing so reducing violence (there is substantial evidence that levels of violence correlate closely to inequality, at every political level). (4)
- Increasing business innovation. (4)
- Increasing wilderness and biodiversity.(3)
If
you have comments on resolving the two areas of disagreement, or any
suggestions on approaches to any of these 10 problems that appear to really
work (or have a real chance of working, rather than just being wishful
thinking), I'd love to hear from you. More about AHA! when the date is
nailed down, and the invitation finally crafted (soon!).
* Jason Kottke loves lists, and I'm grateful for some of the new traffic he has brought to this blog. |
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