Skip to content →

Tag: Complexity Theory

Fractal . . . and positive psychology

Published May 20, 2008 by Jo Jordan

Phoenix de Julia

So what does fractal mean in plain language?

In the social professions that are my milieu – psychology, HR, workplaces – fractal means “walking the talk”. It means using the working procedures you would like to see in an organization to bring those working practices about.

It means delivering democracy through democratic means.

It means having the same pattern of organization throughout the organization.

I attended the Bucks08 Social Media Camp

at Bucks New University in High Wycombe on Saturday 17 May 2008. It was organized by Chris Hambly and kindly hosted by Bucks.

It was an unconference. It is free, and registration is simple on an open wiki. Any one who wants to present, signs up in the room and time slot of their choice. It is gently organized with people changing rooms on the hour as they wish.

Around 60 people converged from as far afield as Brighton, Leicester, Nottingham and Sweden (yes, it was international with people from at least 7 countries there). Personally, I went to sessions on

How was this fractal?

Social media capitalizes on self-organization. We provide a framework where people can “read and write”. Social media is a framework in which the audience has a voice.

An unconference is minimally structured and, far from being disorganized, captures the energy of people with a purpose. So it is fractal in the subject matter is participation and the method of organizing is participative.

And then it becomes fractal again, because participants leave and blog about the conference on their own initiative and using their own resources. Before I had got home, a High Wycombe website designer, Paul Imre, had written up the session on metrics. Dan Thornton wrote up his take on social metrics with a parallel on reflecting on your marriage. Michael Clarke provided a running blog on the same session with comments on the whole day.

And it becomes fractal again, in that Dan & Paul summarized the discussion with the metaphors of marriages and  “investing in a dam” to build and release potential.  Dan’s metaphor was about managing social media.  Paul was talking about deciding how much to invest in social media.  In so doing, they effectively advanced the discussion and took it to another level. Within the afternoon, several people had replied, continuing the engagement, which I suspect will continue in other forums too.

Bucks New University must be very proud. They would have been happy, I am sure, with a smoothly organized event. This was so much more: it illustrated the power of social media, it supported a community of practice, it engaged new people, it generated new material.

To use Paul’s metaphor, investment that increases potential and to use Dan’s, when we enjoy ourselves, we come back for more!

PS The next media camp is at SAE in London on 5 July 2008.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
3 Comments

All the hype about positive psychology. Drill down to the essence. We must be real.

Published January 28, 2008 by Jo Jordan

What is Positive Psychology all about?

Positive psychology is about us.  What we like to do, and are not even necessarily good at, what brings us alive, and what we contribute to the world through the interaction of our stories.

Understanding positive psychology through computer games

The internet and computer games help us understand the structure of positive psychology.  As games become more sophisticated, the game is not even designed (c.f. Second Life).

The (mis) maths of positive psychology

Even the maths of positive psychology is different.

Old school psychology is based on regression.  I have variable X (which becomes a strength when positive psychology is misapplied), and I have something of interest Y that takes place independently of X and at a later time.  We are lined up on X and Y to see who is better or worse.  And all we ask is whether we can predict who will be better or worse at time Y, with the information we have at time X.  This is all we are doing with the statistics we learn so painfully at uni.  Are the differences between you and me at this minute going to persist in 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 days, etc.

Who cares, frankly?  It’s like people who predict the outcome of a cricket game rather than watch it. They’d do better to enjoy the game evolving ball by ball.  Better yet, they could take part with everything and have the real possibility of winning ~ and losing.

Understanding the maths of positive psychology

The new maths describes what is happening internally to one person (or group) and it understands that there will be several things happening and affecting each other (a recursive non-linear model).

So you spend some time thinking about the world. Then you spend some time reflecting.  Then you go back to reflecting about the world.

The point is we are vary our behavior all the time, and what we do at one minute is determined by what we did the previous minute and the reaction we got from the world and ourselves.  That’s obvious right.  Well, actually it is not built into standard psychology.

Happiness is simply being willing to engaged with this dynamic process of changing from minute to minute determined by who were a minute ago and the reaction from the world.

Positive psychology and story-telling

The strengths-based positive approach to undertanding psychology focuses on is our narrative.  We continually make sense of our lives and we are engaged in this to-and-fro business of making sense and taking action.  We like our stories and we do better when we are around people who like them too.  When we are ignored or our stories are deemed irrelevant, we sag.

Belonging is important.  I can study it with a questionnaire, true.  But I cannot make it happen with a questionnaire.

We need real people to listen to our narratives.  We need real people to like us.  And we need real people to like in return.

There are no guarantees either.  Real people may not listen.  They may not like us.  We may not like them.

But do we enjoy finding out?  Do we enjoy the adventure? What is it like to have the adventure?  What do our stories look like when we stop adventuring?  What happens to us when we stop adventuring?  Can we start again?  How would we start again?  How do 2 or more people adventure together?  How do our stories intertwine?

And most importantly of all?  How does the adventure of being a psychologist intertwine with the adventure of our clients?  Where are we going together?  When do we hear each other?  When do we like each other?

Oh, we must be real.  We must be real.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Leave a Comment

Useful coaching technique: a cloud journey

Published January 18, 2008 by Jo Jordan

Are you wise, sometimes?

Have you ever kicked yourself for making a dumb decision?  Have you ever sat there thinking, why did I do that?

Turn on your wisdom

There is a way to turn on wisdom.  Peter K Webbs describes the research evidence for promoting wisdom.

#1  Talk a decision over with someone else.  They don’t give you answers.  The talking brings a wider range of facts and figures to your conscious decision making processes.

#2 Go on a cloud journey.  Imagine traveling around the world.  Think of different places and cultures.  Then make you decision! This is Staudinger’s and Baltes (1996) ‘cloud’ journey.

Complexity in organizatons

Peter K Webbs summarized complexity theory in organizations and psycholoogy very well.

For a poetic account, read Paolo Coelho, The Warrior of Light & Strategy.  I particular like the ideas of accepting defeat as what they it is: defeat.  I like the idea of preparing to fight by imagining fighting oneself.  I like the idea that friends remain with you through good and bad times.  They share the journey and the ups-and-downs of the journey.

Leave a Comment