The inter/trans-disciplinary balancing act: the exclusive/inclusive determinants, processes, and consequences that impact our socio-economic systems

In order to understand present conditions and the complexities, a review of past thinking that links us to a range of future, emergent possibilities may be necessary. Financial, digital and social landscapes are seldom static and those with the responsibility of maintaining and striving for natural-socioeconomic equilibrium, have a never-ending task of sweeping back a dynamic, systemic tide. The undesirable impacts of an unbalanced ICT (information, communication technology) focus based progress was voiced almost two decades ago by Huesing and Selhofer (2002), an argument that was reflected in the term 'info-exclusion'. Observations regarding the digital age being 'not so much as exclusion from information but rather by information' (ibid). This discussion relates purely to humans, not consider other species and other impacts. Fast-forwarding to current experiences and observations, and we see how the close links between societal structures, financial landscapes and individuals currently interact. There seem to be echos from the past regarding basic questions of imbalance between the pace of ICT infrastructures, and the skills sets or accessibility of the societies it strives to service. This imbalance seems to suggest an emergent result, one of disconnection (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015) but also cyclical, emergent impact (Nousala & Whyte, 2010) that repeats when the imbalance approaches a tipping point between the determining elements of the natural-socioeconomic fabric

The inter/trans-disciplinary balancing act: the exclusive/inclusive determinants, processes, and consequences that impact our socio-economic systems

In order to understand present conditions and the complexities, a review of past thinking that links us to a range of future, emergent possibilities may be necessary. Financial, digital and social landscapes are seldom static and those with the responsibility of maintaining and striving for natural-socioeconomic equilibrium, have a never-ending task of sweeping back a dynamic, systemic tide. The undesirable impacts of an unbalanced ICT (information, communication technology) focus based progress was voiced almost two decades ago by Huesing and Selhofer (2002), an argument that was reflected in the term 'info-exclusion'. Observations regarding the digital age being 'not so much as exclusion from information but rather by information' (ibid). This discussion relates purely to humans, not consider other species and other impacts. Fast-forwarding to current experiences and observations, and we see how the close links between societal structures, financial landscapes and individuals currently interact. There seem to be echos from the past regarding basic questions of imbalance between the pace of ICT infrastructures, and the skills sets or accessibility of the societies it strives to service. This imbalance seems to suggest an emergent result, one of disconnection (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015) but also cyclical, emergent impact (Nousala & Whyte, 2010) that repeats when the imbalance approaches a tipping point between the determining elements of the natural-socioeconomic fabric

A Systemic, Socioecological Approach for Community Resilience: The case study of the World Music School

This paper presents research and a discussion on aspects of community resilience informed by literature and the case study of the World Music School (WMS) focusing on the human community resilience impact through (and with) their immediate environments (both social and environmental). The observation of our close environment and the links between human beings and our current environment suggest an emergent result, one of disconnection (Holt 2015). Despite using digital ecosystems (Vaidhyanathan 2018) services to sustain themselves, individuals are cognitively severed from the remaining link they could have with their close biophysical environment (Kesebir 2017). In addition to this phenomena, the individual can also be isolated among their peers, sharing increasing superficial connections and relationships with fewer deep interconnections. Consequently, such a social system shows signs of acute weakness in its resilience towards shocks and disturbances, with emergent sets of characteristics. Its weakest components being the less connected (Walker and Salt 2006)

Process improvement and ICTs in Australian SMEs: a selection and implementation framework

This article describes the development, modification and testing of a tool designed to assist small firms in making more appropriate decisions regarding information and communication technology (ICT) selection and implementation. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, a number of possible tools were initially developed to support firm-based self-diagnostic exercises. Research outcomes from a joint European–Australian research project were regionalised for Australian conditions through collaborative product development with a number of Australian SME manufacturing firms. This article reports on the pilot implementations and the outcomes achieved with these Australian SMEs. These implementations have shown successful outcomes for the trial SME participants and have led to the creation of an online self-assessment tool to allow wider access by interested SME

Introduction to: The Value of Living Systems Beyond a Price

Nowadays, the main topic on everybody’s lips, corporations’ and governments’ heads but also common citizens’, is “sustainability”. This term is often abused to capture attention but it can be understood only by defining the contextual structure of what is intended to be done for achieving a sustainable state or process. Core problems: human life and nature life distancing, which is creating a generational gap, proven by the population growth and movement towards cities. Our youth have never learnt to be in relation with life and other living systems, because they are already the result of being at least 3rd generation of a family that has moved from the countryside to the city. Who is going to transmit the knowledge, experiences and culture to the future population? How? Losing the perception of value of our basic needs what come strictly out of nature, in particularly plants, which are the primary producers in the world and our primary source of food. If we lose the knowledge and experience of obtaining things naturally, and the recognizance of this principle on wide scale and every age for generations we will not be able to sustain us from our natural resources, so our sustainment will remain unsustainable in relation with the entire living biosphere. Plants are organism that pre date human, are highly adaptive and reactive as we humans are. The only difference being is that we cannot provide for ourselves without them. Even if we think on technological solutions, we need a natural source for any synthesizing process we may plan to consider as solution, for example in terms of food: ‘Cultured Meat’. Out of these, is emerging that all our solutions are actually already in nature and plants because of their high reactivity and relation in living systems are the most sustainable technologies to solve our problems. The process and the approach shown in the following paper and case study scenario are explained through multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, multicultural and multigenerational contributions, that are necessary for fundamental ways for shaping long-term relations between citizens and plants. This approach opens new dynamic potentials for re-establishing viewpoints when considering plants as living processes as sustainable technologies. This thinking is applicable at any scale and context, and will require new approaches to learning, creating in turn, new educational paradigms

Systemic design agendas in education and design research

Since 2014, an international collaborative of design leaders has been exploring ways in which methods can be augmented, transitioning from the heritage legacy focus on products and services towards a broad range of complex sociotechnical systems and contemporary societal problems issues. At the RSD4 Symposium (2015), DesignX co-founder Don Norman presented a keynote talk on the frontiers of design practice and necessity for advanced design education for highly complex sociotechnical problems. He identified the qualities of these systems as relevant to DesignX problems, and called for systemics, transdisciplinarity and the need for high-quality observations (or evidence) in these design problems.  Initial directions found were proposed in the first DesignX workshop in October 2015, which were published in the design journal Shè Jì.  In October 2016, another DesignX workshop was held at Tongji University in Shanghai, overlapping with the timing of the RSD5 Symposium where this workshop was convened. The timing of these events presented an opportunity to explore design education and research concepts, ideas and directions of thought that emerged from the multiple discussions and reflections through this experimental workshop. The aim of this paper is to report on the workshop as a continuing project in the DesignX discourse, to share reflections and recommendations from this working group

Time and dynamic boundaries: the impact of action based learning

This work aims at opening for discussion the understanding of the "time" element that is critical for longitudinal development of robust group or action based community activity. The discussion is based on work occurring in multiple sites within a global project "The New Global". The learning cycles or epicycle processes are relevant for action-based investigation for organizational and social structures. The question of group behavior maybe influenced by their positioning within a larger adaptive system, the type of focus or determined goals and the type of connections that have been developed. The author has stated previously (Nousala 2014) that these types of community or group efforts be described as autopoietic systems, that are operating within larger adaptive societal web. The learning process involved in investigating these types of dynamic phenomena need to be themselves dynamic, providing methods that can explore, through longitudinal cycles expose these epicycles at work. The continuous recording of various processes through epicycles provide a means to "qualitatively measure" changes, which would normally go unseen (Hall et al. 2012; Hall et al., 2005; Nousala and Hall 2008; Wenger and Snyder 2000). These recorded shifts in process provide a means to apply the action-based knowledge gained through project based learning for problem based solving. The success of applying action-based knowledge outcomes really relies on the quality of providing meaningful longitudinal approaches for mapping and recording changes in epicycles. This work This work aims at an exploration through current discussion, discourse and literature regarding the importance of time within the longitudinal approach, posing the question, what lengths of time are required or relevant to develop robust groups or community based actions?&nbsp

SOCIAL ADAPTABILITY OF COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE CASE STUDIES: A review of indicators and developments for economic sustainability

Complex Adaptive Systems have been of interest to academic observers for approximately 60 years as a specialised area within complexity. Whilst some attention has been given specifically to Social Complex Adaptive Systems (SCAS), this area is not as well understood, with less attention and focus on both the adaptability of communities within SCAS and how they establish sustainable communities. Using case studies and paying attention to Communities of Practice (CoP) this paper will investigate specifically the use of CoPs to enhance an understanding of organisational dynamics and economic indicators for sustainable community development. This paper summarises some key elements regarding social complex systems and poses question for discussion; what are the fundamental relationship elements for socially adaptability of communities within social complex adaptive systems? To understand this question, elements from several case studies were highlighted and discussed, as a basis for identifying instances and their methodological approach that resulted in exposing interesting emergent properties that displayed through the following: 1.     A CoP developing sustainable areas of importance through mutual mixtures of interest and consensus on several levels, individual, group and external interaction with the group. 2.     Learning of the dynamics of interest and consensus interactive layers via a case of SME interacting with a larger organization for mutual sustainable business and economic developmen

Improving the peer review process: an examination of commonalities between scholarly societies and knowledge networks

Whilst peer review is the common form of scholarly refereeing, there are many differing aspects to this process. There is a view that the system is not without its faults and this has given rise to increasing discussion and examination of the process as a whole. Since the importance of peer review is based on the primary way in which quality control is asserted within the academic world, the concern is what impact this is having on an ever increasing diversity of scholarship, in particular, within and between science and engineering disciplines. The peer review process as is commonly understood, and increasingly considered as a conservative approach which is failing to adequately deal with the challenges of assessing interdisciplinary research, publications and outputs