Me, Myself and I

Some Volunteer Works

just because....

BC Lacrosse Association

"The fastest game on two feet...and Canada's National Sport" ... I have performed volunteer work at the club, league, and Provincial Sport level for many years now.

Cloverdale Community Football Association

The CCFA presents the opportunity for young men and women to develop both as players and people.

Over the years I've played a small part in this organization at the board level but the real contribution has been by my wife and two sons - who have helped organize and coach in one of the finest youth sport organizations of all.

My Library

My General Bookshelf

This is my largest collection of books... from across the entire Library of Congress classification scheme.

My Systems Bookshelf

This bookshelf has books on the software industry, information technology and other systems technology areas.

My Management Bookshelf

Bookshelf relating to the art and science of management

My Cybernetics Bookshelf

Bookshelf exclusively devoted to the areas of cybernetics and General Systems Theory

return to Connective Summary

Squidoo: Business and Finance

Viable Systems Model

This lens is dedicated to exploring the work of Stafford Beer and the development of his Viable Systems Model (VSM).

It is especially concerned with the applicaton of cybernetics to the field of organizational design, management and control.

Management Matters

This lens is based on a very simple premise....that Management does indeed matter, each of its modules looks at a different aspect of management that inturn matters to the overall practice of effective management.

While the aim of this lens is not to provide a TOE of Management (thats theory of everything!) a collection of these kinds of thought is going to have to be taken into anything that does profess to be such a creation.... but nothing, as yet, has come anywhere close to matching the body of works laid down by Stafford Beer in this managerial cybernetics, vsm, and team syntegrity models (which of course can be traced through this lens). In the meantime this lens can serve as a Macroscope aimed at the infinitely complex field of Management.

Complex Event Processing

Complex Event Processing (CEP) is the use of software to analyze and control software event systems -- that is virtually all IT systems in use today.

Squidoo: Education

Educational Cybernetics

Educational Cybernetics is concerned with improving both formal educational ventures and learning conversations.

It is based on Cybernetics - the science of communication and control - but is often influenced by the more general System Sciences including the thoeries surrounding embedded systems (ecological) modeling.
It is normally approached through the form of "action research" and should be considered as part of the sphere of Second Order Cybernetics as studying education systems is of course the studying of people systems and the process of studying systems we are in causes the systems and us to change.

Squidoo: People and Society

Me, Myself and I

This Lens it self !

Squidoo: Reference

Lens on Lens

This lens is really a personal journal, rather than a traditional Squidoo Lens.

I am using it to record some of the design criteria I have tried, used or abandoned in attempts in the very early beta stages of Squidoo.

Some Ideas are likely to have wide spread applicability (indeed some that I used very early on were discoverd by others independently ... for example use of internal links to specific modules within a lens) while other (especially those being used in the Massive lenses I have developed (which in some ways seem to be the antithesis of the Squidoo concept) may not prove viable in the end....

Squidoo: Invention and Innovation

A look at Invention and Innovation over the ages -- with a special focus on construction and control of complex systems.

Squidoo: Errors

An investigation into errors, especially those where poor design sets up humans to make mistakes

Squidoo: Science

Cybernetics

A simple view of Cybernetics is as the science of communications and control in animal and machine.

Cybernetics, and the related domain of systems science , is the study all forms of "organized complexity", that is how different components can be assembled in a way that is neither random nor repetitive so as to form a "system".

Pursued to its logical conclusion, this is a study about how a system of components can arranged in such a way as to fulfill a certain purpose. In this sense, Cybernetics is the study of viable system organization.

General Systems Theory

The notion of a system may be seen as simply a more self-conscious and generic term for the dynamic interrelatedness of components.
Von Bertalanffy

General Systems Theory is closely related to Cybernetics... this lens concentrates on the former but also examines the relationship and where the two fields overlap and can be used to give better insight into the workings of complex and emerging systems.

A Cybernetics Library

Over the years I've accumulated a small library (<~4000 volumes)... among these are many fine books on Cybernetics, General Systems Theory, and Systems Thinking....

Some of the books that should be considered for any 'serious' cybernetics library are covered in this lens.

There is also a section of "classics" that are available now, free, on-line that are fairly difficult to find otherwise.

Second Order Cybernetics

Second order Cybernetics considers the impact that the observer has on the system being observed.... as such it covers all most all aspects of human endeavor.

In effect, those involved in second order cybernetics have turned the principles of cybernetics upon the field of cybernetics itself. In order to qualify as second-order cybernetics, the observer of a system must be described and explained -- the explanation can not be based purely on the system observed as if the observer did not exist.

Cybernetics history and Biographies

This lens details with the development of Cybernetics (and to a lesser extent General Systems Theory) and the early research and philosophies of the founders of the disciplines.

Cybernetic Journals

To dig deeper (much deeper) into the rich tapestry of our world and how complex systems really work.... consider these academic resources.

Macroscope

"The macroscope is unlike other tools.
It is a symbolic instrument made of a number of methods and techniques borrowed from very different disciplines. It would be useless to search for it in laboratories and research centers, yet countless people use it today in the most varied fields. The macroscope can be considered the symbol of a new way of seeing, understanding, and acting." Joel de Rosnay.

Applied Cybernetics

Cybernetics, the science of communication and control in animal and machine has found practical application in almost all fields of human social endeavor as well as the physical sciences.

Socio-cybernetics

"Sociocybernetics can be defined as 'Systems Science in Sociology and Other Social Sciences' - systems science, because sociocybernetics is not limited to theory but includes application, empirical research, methodology, axiology (i.e., ethics and value research), and epistemology."

(The Research Committee on sociocybernbetics, RC51)

Synergetics

Synergetics is just at the beginning of constuction... please forgive the dust

General Cybernetics

k2 = general cybernetics (incl. connectionism, systems theory, synergetics, decision theory, information theory)

This lens also takes side glimpses at K1 and K3:

k1 = core cybernetics

k3 = applied cybernetics (incl. Medical Cybernetics, Biocybernetics, Quantum Cybernetics, Educational Cybernetics, Anthropocybernetics, Technical Cybernetics)

Systems Science

Systems Science and cybernetics are closely related disciplines... this lens concentrates on the former and discusses where the two come together.

Anthropocybernetics

Macro-Anthropocybernetics - Human cybernetics as they affect social systems.

Micro-Anthropocybernetics - Human cybernetics in their application to human individuals.

Biological Cybernetics

"Biological Cybernetics" is the experimental, theoretical and application-oriented study of information processing in organisms, including sensory, motor, cognitive, and ecological phenomena.

Squidoo: World

Global Brain

The emergence of mass mind

New Link List Module

Viable

tbd

Cybernetics

tbd

Seeker at the gate

tbd

Some Personal Glimpses

43 Things about David Soul

Things I want to do

When I was nine I had a list of the 10 things I wanted to do before I die...

Some of the things remain undone... but the list has actually expanded...

Some of the more mundane are on this list...

Oh the Places You'll See

A map with places I've been marked in blue,
and places I've been in orange... when I find the time, I'll enter some journal entries of the neat things to see....

And the People you'll Meet

Just a few of the poeple I'd like to spend some time with.