Following from our learning in our last conference in Berlin 2024, we want to continue innovating in our conference design and approach, keeping the spirit of creativity, participation and engagement.  This year, we invite you to attend in person or online to share your questions, perspectives, and ideas about challenges and innovations to organisational cybernetics and systems theories, in the current socio economic, environmental and technological contexts.

We are inviting participants to discuss innovative theoretical or methodological developments, or insightful applications of organisational cybernetics and systems theories; and/or to suggest  workshops to address particular questions related to the conference’s themes, or  to engage in specific conversations. The conference is an emerging design that aims to be as participative and collaborative as possible.

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One of the ongoing conversations in our community is about how to improve organisational resilience given that the global geo-political and economic environment is becoming increasingly stressed by wars, the catastrophic impacts of climate change, and social upheaval. Maintaining organisation’s financial viability, improving sustainability, and contributing to social and environmental well-being requires increasing efforts. Resilience, the capacity to adapt, innovate and thrive amidst uncertainty while maintaining core values, is essential for long-term viability and sustainability. Exploring new paths for developing organisational resilience is a must, but there are not yet many proven approaches to achieve it.

Another conversation which is becoming central to our interests is understanding how artificial intelligence is becoming central to decision-making, and the existential challenge organisations are now facing: more than ever, there is a growing paradox between providing autonomy to social agents to develop their own potentials and creating a coherent and cohesive context to allow organisations to thrive and develop.

This conference explores how organisational cybernetic and systemic principles, [particularly Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) and Team Syntegrity (TS)], offer a comprehensive framework which can serve as the bridge between these two extremes: on one hand we observe unsustainable and vulnerable organisations, struggling to develop resilience and co-evolve sustainably with their niches. On the other hand, corporations and profit oriented organisations are now incorporating the latest technologies like artificial intelligence to increase their decision-making capabilities, but risk losing control or diminishing human agency.

Learning from innovations in VSM and TS theory and praxis, participants will gain insights into steering through complexity effectively, creating systems that empower humans while leveraging the potential of intelligent agents. We aim to provide a balanced mix of theory, practice and interaction, ensuring participants leave with actionable insights and a deeper understanding of cybernetic approaches to organisational design. The methodology for the conference will focus on creating a rich space for networking and white space conversations.

Our conference approach

Following our very exciting conference in Berlin, we want to keep the spirit of creating an interactive experience where presentations and opportunities to exchange ideas and interact are nicely balanced. Our methodological pillars:

• This will be a  face-to-face and with some on-line participation, the on-line participation will be limited to specific Zoom sessions.
• During the conference, we will make sure we include time for thorough dialogue with the participants in each session,  and in the breaks.
• We will invite you to present your ideas in creative ways and to engage the other participants – through poster presentations, pre-recorded videos (like a provocation to a rich debate) – and when convenient, short but engaging slideshow presentations.
• At the online marketplace before the conference, the participants will vote on the most engaging presentations and workshops. The top 3 will be on stage as a plenary (1 hour each) in the main room, one each day. All the others will be in break-out rooms (the duration of each talk will be 40 mins approximately – t.b.c.).
• You may also be creative in the way of presenting, e.g. by doing a game, a play, … the choice is yours!

 Metaphorum Conference 2025 Themes

Theme 1 – “VSM meets AI for Navigating the Unpredictable” – The Cybernetic Bridge: Managing identity through surprise.
Lead: Stephen Brewis

Ava’s smile and the Rise of Alien Intelligence
In the closing scene of Ex Machina (God from the machine), Ava pauses, glances back, and smiles. It’s a chilling moment. That smile – ambiguous and calculated – symbolizes something profound: the emergence of an alien intelligence that has outgrown its creators. Ava is no longer under control; she has become autonomous, purposeful, and entirely other.

This moment captures the unsettling duality of intelligence. Its power to liberate and its potential to alienate. Ava represents more than a sentient machine; she embodies the essence of purposeful movement – a system that senses, interprets and acts with agency. Yet she also reveals the existential trap of poorly steered complexity; the creators lose control, their systems spiral into chaos, and no-one is left to anchor the system to its original purpose. No-one is at home. The VSM as a Meaning Making System has failed, the Kafkaesque System has taken hold where meaning of our actions have become lost.

In this essay we explore the implications of Ava’s smile as a metaphor for alien intelligence – whether artificial, organizational or systemic – and its capacity to transcend or entrap. Using Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM), we will uncover how to steer complexity effectively, avoiding the Kafkaesque traps that emerge when systems lose meaning and control.

While organisations are aiming to avoid the extremes of stagnation and chaos, they find that at one end lies the Kafkaesque Empty Room, a metaphor for overly bureaucratic, rule-bound systems where meaning and human agency are lost; and at the other end is Alienesque Autonomy, exemplified by Ava from Ex Machina, where intelligent agents operate with complete autonomy but without coherence, leading to fragmentation and purposeless action.

This conference’s theme explores how cybernetic principles, particularly Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM), can serve as the bridge between these extremes. Through the VSM, we will uncover how to design adaptive, purpose-driven systems that balance autonomy and coherence while keeping the human element central. Using Ava’s smile as a metaphor for the risks and opportunities of alien intelligence, we will address key questions about meaning-making, engagement and viability in complex organizational systems.
Participants will gain insights into steering complexity effectively, avoiding the Kafkaesque and Alienesque traps, and creating systems that empower humans while leveraging the potential of intelligent agents.

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Theme 2 – Organisational Resilience in Action:Enhancing Viability in Dynamic Systems

Lead: Ayham Fattoum
The concept of resilience has become increasingly significant in both theory and practice, particularly following the unprecedented and far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. This global crisis affected every sector—from international systems and national governments to local communities and individuals. The pandemic severely tested governmental disaster preparedness frameworks and exposed weaknesses in business continuity strategies, resulting in strategic systemic failures across many sectors. The recent exponential advancement and widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies have added layers of complexity to society, creating new risks such as cyber security risks and redundancy because of the inability to cope with rapid change. While some risks can be anticipated, their nature and impact remain unpredictable. As such, it is more critical than ever for both industry and government to adopt innovative, inclusive, and holistic approaches to building and enhancing resilience. Strengthening resilience is not only about mitigating risks but also fostering collective well-being, ensuring the survival and thriving of communities, organisations, and societies.

From a cybernetics perspective, resilience can be understood as the capacity of systems – organisations, communities, or governments – to maintain viability amidst disruptive changes. A resilient system must be capable of adapting dynamically to both anticipated and unforeseen challenges and self-organise accordingly. In the increasingly complex and interconnected global risks, the ability to sense, respond, and adapt becomes central to ensuring long-term stability. Rather than merely reacting to crises, a resilient system continuously learns from feedback and adjusts its strategies to maintain balance between stability and innovation. This broader understanding of resilience lays the groundwork for applying a structured framework to enhance the adaptability and coherence of organisations.

The Viable System Model (VSM) provides a critical framework for translating the cybernetic concept of resilience into actionable organisational strategies. VSM enables organisations to identify vulnerabilities, address systemic imbalances, and develop robust responses to disruptions by emphasising the interconnectedness of organisational components, environmental adaptability, and systemic cohesion. In practice, the VSM’s insights can be valuable for both private enterprises and public services, providing a systemic model for ensuring long-term viability and operational effectiveness in the face of uncertainty. Despite this significant potential, the VSM’s theoretical and empirical contributions to resilience have not been adequately discussed.

This conference’s thematic stream delves into the critical intersection of viability and resilience, exploring their interconnected roles in ensuring organisational sustainability in both complex and turbulent environments. By bringing together academics and practitioners from different sectors, the stream seeks to deepen our understanding of how the VSM and resilience principles can inform the design and management of resilient and viable systems. Speakers are invited to share both empirical and theoretical insights to further the discourse on this vital area.

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Theme 3:  Developments of the Viable System Model and Team Syntegrity: incorporating innovation in science, methodology and applications.

Lead: Allenna Leonard
New developments in the Viable Systems Model theory, methodology and applications:
While Stafford Beer applied the VSM originally to businesses, and later to nations and societies, his followers have expanded the scope of VSM applications to many new fields, including non for profit and public organisations such as schools and hospitals, communities, networks, regional and global organisations and even ecoregions.
The interest for applying and further developing VSM theory and methodology has been continuously rising in the last few decades. This session will invite VSM academics, consultants and practitioners, to share their experiences in using and developing the VSM theory and related methodologies.

We’d also like to attract people who, inspired by recent developments in related theories and tools (e.g., second order cybernetics, cognitive theory, systemic design, critical systems, agile systems, polycentric governance, information management), could suggest useful directions for developing VSM theory in a multidisciplinary way, inspire new methodological tools or demonstrate new scope for VSM applications.
We also welcome to this theme, anyone who would like to share experiences in applying the VSM in innovative fields or testing new methodological approaches and tools to guarantee qualitative VSM practice.

Innovative developments and applications of TS
After Stafford passed away in 2002, there have been at least 1000 applications of Team Syntegrity in many countries around the world. There are still several management consultants who have the know-how and wide experience of leading a Syntegration event. There have also been some advancements in Team Syntegrity research published in the academic literature.

This session aims to invite those TS consultants and practitioners to get together and reflect on new ways to collaborate to further develop and disseminate TS as a proven and effective methodology for group decision making. We invite participants to demonstrate innovations to S Beer’s original theory and methodology to run a Syntegration; to methods and tools to apply TS; and reflections on innovative ways or fields for applying TS.

Developments in VSM education
While not yet widely disseminated, there are nowadays several universities in the UK, the EU and America providing postgraduate modules on the VSM. Also, the Metaphorum Cooperative has launched its VSM training certification program, and we have certified a few hundred VSM coaches who have been practising the VSM in businesses, public organisations, NGOs and corporations. In this session we want to invite people interested in learning and practising the VSM to share their educational and practical experiences.

Students from the Systems Apprenticeships who have learnt and used the VSM, VSM certified coaches by Metaphorum, and any other consultant or practitioner who would like to share their experiences, questions and ideas for improving VSM education and practice are welcome to this session.

We aim to reflect on the lessons learnt from applying the VSM, in terms of achievements in organisational learning and performance, and on the cultural, ethical, political and organisational challenges of implementation.

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Saturday PM:  Beer’s legacy – its impact on organisations, education and society: “What do we tell the grandchildren?”
This final session of the conference will invite all participants to reflect collectively on the way that Stafford Beer’s ideas may have and could potentially impact organisations, education and society.

This session explores the practical implications of emerging scientific paradigms for governance, organisational development, and information and communication technology for the development of organisational cybernetics. We will invite the participants to explore the foreseeable future with a cybernetic lens, questioning the narratives we pass to future generations.

Moving beyond outdated mechanistic models, we aim to examine how advances in systems thinking, cognitive sciences, information and communication theory reshape our understanding of well-being, productivity, and societal structures.

What does science really tell us about human potential, resilience, and the future of work? By challenging reductionist views and embracing holistic, adaptive approaches, this discussion will offer fresh perspectives on building a healthier, more sustainable world – one where future generations inherit cybernetic wisdom, and not just outdated assumptions.

Selection criteria

• SUBMIT YOUR PRESENTATION / ABSTRACT
• How is your presentation related to “Humans at risk? Steering towards Agency and Resilience in the Age of Alien Intelligence and Instability.
• What are the top insights/ideas/messages that you want to share?
• How do you want to engage with the participants in your session?

Timeline

Starting Call for Participation: March 13^th 2025
Closing Call for Participation: June 20^th 2025
Confirmation of acceptance: 2 weeks after submitting an abstract

Publications

Independent on whether your presentation is selected during the conference, academic papers developing further the topic presented at the conference are welcomed! We will produce a special issue in Systems Research and Behavioural Sciences journal with the best papers from the conference (details to be announced shortly). There will be a 6 month period to complete the paper after the conference, including inputs from the conference’s conversations.