Accidental Vagrant

    Advanced Systemic Design Prospectus https://www.academia.edu/110744521/PROSPECTUS_Systemic_Design_Flight_School  

Chapter just published:  The Promise of Systemic Designing: Giving Form to Water  Learning, Design, and Technology pp 1-50 |  Cite as Harold G. Nelson (1) Email author ( nelson.group43@gmail.com )  1. Computer Science, University of Montana, , Missoula, USA  Abstract The world is understood to be more complex and dynamic than previously thought. Design is understood to be a deeper mystery than previously assumed. Design creates reality. Humans have engaged in design activities – designing – from the beginning of history, but little is known of its true nature or full potential. Familiar approaches to design and design education no longer match the real-world necessities and expectations of modern societies. Everything is connected, and it is difficult, or it seems often impossible, to determine what course of action is prudent when designing within such complexity. Systemic design is an emergent means for creating desired change that takes a broader ...

This is the abstract for a chapter in a soon to be published Springer Major Reference Work:  Systems Thinking and Change Volume  (2017) This chapter is an overview of why systemic design is important, what it looks like and how novices can be prepared to become practitioners of systemic designing. The chapter provides only an overview of systemic designing, introducing ideas that will be developed in much greater depth outside the space limitations of this chapter in a forthcoming book. However, it is important to first become acquainted with the ideas and their interrelationships, which is the purpose of the chapter. The world is understood to be more complex and dynamic than previously thought. Design is understood to be a deeper mystery than previously assumed. Design creates reality and humans have engaged in design from the beginning of history but little is known of its true nature or full potential. Familiar approac...

  Reviewing Don Norman’s most  recent blog  on design thinking on Core 77’s  site , I was drawn to an earlier post by Norman on the need for  design education to change . I agree that design education needs to change but for other reasons than posted in Norman’s piece. I don’t think design should be scientized or that designers need to become design scientists. I believe that good science is important to the work of designers and that designers need to work with competent scientists, and know how to recognize good science when they see it. It is ideal to have good scientists focused on researching design related issues. For example, sociologists and anthropologists can contribute descriptions and explanations of human behavior to the processes of design inquiry and action, thus assuring better outcomes in the end. Design is not just a form of science anymore than it is just a form of art. It is disciplined and rational but it has its own funda...