Peter Tuddenham

Stafford Beer: profile and vision of a forgotten genius. Article by Rodrigo Fernández Albornoz in Interdisciplinaria, Chile

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Rodrigo Fernández Albornoz, sociologist and master in economics and information technologies, presents in this article Stafford Beer, one of the fathers of the information age and a relevant actor for global technological and scientific development. In Chile, Beer was the creator of the Cybersyn program, one of the most advanced interdisciplinary projects of the 1970s, which began to be implemented during the government of Salvador Allende, but was not fully developed due to the civil-military coup. 1973. Technology, science, art and design were intertwined in the social transformation initiatives to which Beer gave himself completely.

… https://interdisciplinaria.dicta.cl/stafford-beer-semblanza-y-vision-de-un-genio-olvidado/

2024 Conference 16 – 17 September 2024

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Save the date:

Please treat this post only as a diary marker. Since additional pre- or post-Conference events may be organized, please wait for an update or confirmation.  Do not book travel or accommodation yet.

The dates below apply only to the main 2-day Conference.

Metaphorum 2024 Conference

Creativity and Viability

16 – 17 September 2024

Berlin, Germany

The Metaphorum 2024 Conference is set to take place in Berlin, Germany, at the end of September.

This two-day event will span from Monday September 16th to Tuesday September 17th.

This year’s conference theme centres around the role of creativity in sustaining viability. The primary conference activities are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, to be held at The Change Hub, an innovative space dedicated to creating sustainable transformation and social impact.

Additionally, the Annual General Meeting (AGM) will take place on Wednesday, September 18th.

Optional pre/post-conference events and/or VSM trainings are under consideration. Nevertheless, one thing is already clear: It will be a highly interactive event!

We encourage our community to save the date and are eager to announce more details about the Metaphorum 2024 conference as soon as possible.

(Please note for your planning that the WOSC 2024 is scheduled to take place the week before, in case you are interested in attending both events.)

Remembering David Beatty

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Remembering David Beatty 19 August 1943 – 12 January 2024 from Allenna Leonard

Dr. David Beatty was among Stafford’s first friends and colleagues in Toronto and was instrumental in organizing his multi-university 1984 semester appointment that met at the McLuhan Centre at the University of Toronto and also organized the first Toronto pre-Syntegration experiment in the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse and its first complete event for the World Government Organization (with which he continued to be involved). He continued as one of the founding Board members of Team Syntegrity and remained involved in promoting and organizing Syntegrations.  During this time he also  held several university faculty appointments.  David also participated in several of the early Metaphorum Conferences – always with a focus on enabling young people. Most recently, he was part of the team designing and implementing Metaphorum’s e-Syntegration experiment during the pandemic, being part of Joe Truss’s Book of Codes team and a number of other activities from his base in the Netherlands. He will be much missed by the community.

More at https://metaphorum.org/in-memoriam

Webinar Series for the 1st Semester of 2024

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We are very pleased to announce the forthcoming Webinar Series for the 1st Semester of 2024.  In 2024 we will have two types of webinars:

a) webinars to share ongoing developments of the Metaphorum community – in the format of an online workshop. We will start the year with two of this type of webinar:

  • 10thJanuary: Announcing our most recent development: the Metaphorum Operations Group (MPH Ops). Krishan Mathis is launching our strategy to offer a VSM certification service developed by expert VSM trainers and coaches within our community. We invite all our members interested in participating in this initiative to join us.
  • 31stJanuary: We will begin the discussions on the VSM and Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAO)s, one of the topics agreed in Manchester to develop ‘Special Interest Groups’ on topics of interest to our community.   It will be led by Michael Zargham, who will be sharing his experience of their DAO community, designed and run as a viable system. If you are interested in this workshop (which will start one of the special interest groups emerging from our Manchester Conference), please join us.
  1. b) The rest of the Webinars in this series will be invited researchers, opening new fields of exploration in cybernetics, hopefully inspiring further developments of Stafford’s theories.

 

We begin with Andrew Pickering, discussing Bateson’s insights and the environmental crisis.   This is followed by Pile Bunnell talking about the way language imposes constraints on how we perceive, think and act and the consequences for viability and ethical living, The semester ends with Peter Robinson discussing “The Sapient Paradox as the consequence of a cybernetical bifurcation in evolution.”

See the Webinar 2024 page for more information:

Metaphorum Webinar Series – 2024

Wolfgang Lassl: My concept study on the VSM 2.0

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Dear all,

I hope you had relaxing and enjoyable holidays, and that you refilled your personal energy for your great program 24!

I just wanted to let you know that I have now finished my concept study on the VSM 2.0 in the form of a paper and that you (and everyone else interested) can download it from our company’s webpage: https://www.qwinnt.com/en/research-and-publication.

Best regards and looking forward to your thoughts,

Wolfgang Lassl

Video recordings of Metaphorum 2023

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The video recordings of the Metaphorum 2023 Conference in Manchester, England are now linked from the conference webpage https://metaphorum.org/conference-2023 . The video recordings were made by the College of Exploration video production service as a pro bono contribution to Metaphorum. Peter Tuddenham assisted by Gail Franklin recorded all the sessions that the presenters had agreed to be recorded and created the web page with links.  If you have questions about the video recordings please email peter.tuddenham@metaphorum.org

Book Launch Wednesday 31st May, 3.30 – 5pm (GMT) Sustainable Self-Governance in Business and Societies: The Viable System Model in Action

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Centre for Systems book launch Wednesday 31st May, 3.30 – 5pm (GMT)

Sustainable Self-Governance in Business and Societies: The Viable System Model in Action

Dr Angela Espinosa
Centre for Systems Studies, University of Hull, UK

Online event. Please register here

Please distribute flyer:

Angela Espinosa (GM) May 31st 2023