Dear Metaphorum members

We hope you are keeping well and safe in the middle of this COVID19 pandemic. Times have changed since our last Conference in Huizen in November 2019 and the challenges for individuals, businesses, communities and nations are only growing exponentially. More than ever, Stafford’s ideas become relevant and are urgently needed to creatively address the new economic and societal landscapes. 

It has been exciting to see that some of the Metaphorum members are actively leading different projects aiming at providing innovative cyber-systemic solutions to the post-COVID society and economy. We invite all of you to share your ideas, projects and questions with the Metaphorum community, to keep us all in a sharing, creative and learning spirit, which is  very much needed in this moment.

As we have announced recently in the Newsletter, we are designing the following conversational spaces for our community.

1. The 14th Metaphorum Conference is about: ‘Act to live! Viability in times of uncertainty’, in De Hoorn, Leuven, Belgium (it is 15 minutes train or drive from Brussels airport). It will be led by Ivo Velitchkov, Mark Lambertz, and Marcus Wetzler, with support from the Metaphorum Steering Committee. We are planning to hold it in June 2021, if the situation allows it. Details of the venue, costs and agenda are being finalised and will follow shortly.
2. We are launching this week (Nov 4th, 5-6 pm) a monthly webinar in Zoom, led by Metaphorum members who have either published innovative research in cybernetics and systems, of interest to the community, and want to share and discuss their ideas; or are involved in an innovative project and would like to share it with the community. You can see the detailed program in the following page.

http://metaphorum.org/metaphorum-webinar-series           

• Those interested in leading a webinar in 2021 should get in touch with us at metaphorum.org@gmail.com to suggest a topic and  agree on the agenda. We will be communicating the forthcoming seminars in this webpage, and through the Metaphorum Newsletter. 

1. A group of members (Allenna Leonard, David Beatty, Stephan Verveen,  Jon Walker and Angela Espinosa) have designed a protocol for an online ‘Syntegration-type of event’ (called e-Syn 2030). We have decided to create an opportunity for effective online team working, to co-design new ways or working and relating, inspired by healthy cybernetic principles and using the best of Beer’s invention. You can follow up news on this experiment and find the registration form at the E-Syn 2030 page in this site (coming soon); registrations close on November the 6th. Please contact us at metaphorum.org@gmail.com if interested in registering. We have  only a few places left

Yours truly,