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search & research — setting & maintaining a course of action for organizations, institutions & agencies

  Accidental Vagrant Substack: search & research - design inquiry https://hnelson.substack.com/p/search-and-research?r=asq7d
Recent posts

Accidental Vagrant Substack

First two posts to the new Accidental Vagrant Substack (Harold's Substack) 1 welcome https://hnelson.substack.com/p/welcome?r=asq7d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true   2 stop scaring people https://open.substack.com/pub/hnelson/p/stop-scaring-people?r=asq7d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

educational trends

  As I work on starting a new school in 'systemic design' I have discovered that the trends against serious professional and scholarly endeavors are quite real—an extension of the American anti-intellectualism that fuels some of the political agendas in the US nowadays—probably not the best time to try something like creating a new educational experience. Still... This substack by Ted Gioia is an example of some of the trends against investing in serious educational/professional ventures: https://lnkd.in/gxSbniAg The challenge is to find those who do not want to participate in these trends. Gioia and others claim that they are out there. I believe that to be true. The question is how to network with them. They do not, by definition, reside in echo chambers.

Critical Systems Thinking

 Michal C Jackson is a leading scholar in systems thinking, particularly Critical Systems Thinking . This video is highly recommended for those who have a serious interest in systems thinking. Critical Systems Thinking Michael C Jackson   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyOUlTmwel8

Why 'reactive' approaches dominate change

  It appears that the case nowadays is for most anyone to take initiative or action they need to be under cover of a perceived ‘problem’. A problem that is probably what Horst Rittel called a ‘tame’ problem. Rittel called situations that were not amenable to being solved, in a straightforward way that tame problems were, ‘wicked’ problems. But when faced with wicked problems, the response is to try to transform wicked problems into tame problems — problem solved. The default to ‘reaction’ instead of ‘proaction’ may be a modernized habit of thought, distinct from historical approaches, but in any case, it is the dominant approach nowadays. I have often asked people to consider refraining from using the term ‘problem’ for a day or so. Turns out it is nearly impossible. Try it. There is no denying that there are problematic situations. Things can be broken, malfunctioning, unknown, threatening, undesirable, or a host of other attributes—all called problems. For some, it is clear what need