Gregory Vigneaux

design foundations

In Defense of Hierarchies

The distributed control promised by networks can shrivel up with the wrong leadership. In the same way, it can be conceived that the centralization of authority in hierarchies can be distributed. The contention here is that hierarchies are not the problem. It's not hierarchies, it's us.

update

An Audible Longing for Theory Part 2

A "something for everyone" approach to the communication of theory may be most appropriate to answer the call of an audible longing for theory found throughout the emergency management and wildfire communities.

Insights

The Adjacent Emergency

This post discusses the discovery of the present's capacity to tip over into an emergency state as events unfold and mitigations fail. Locating this tipping point is explored from the angle of experience in wildland firefighting.

matrix

Trivariate Relationships in Organizational Change

The objective of the matrix is to get all involved to think prospectively about the events they may encounter over time and then link those events to the type of responses they may trigger.

Insights

Making Decisions Under Uncertainty with Niklas Luhmann: Insights for Managing Emergencies

The concept of uncertainty absorption is important for anyone making decisions to understand but is especially relevant to those making decisions regarding what actions others should take.

update

An Audible Longing for Theory Part 1

While there is certainly still value in presenting theory that has the primary goal of getting an audience to think differently, there are at the same time pressing issues that theory should be mobilized towards. Both points are valid.

Insights

Organizations as Complex Adaptive Systems: Insights for Managing Emergencies

A look at complex adaptive systems followed by a discussion of the relevancy of the theory to practice.

update

The Cluster Approach: Another Incident Response System

A short post on the Cluster Approach used in some humanitarian emergencies. Founded on coordination, the cluster approach sits somewhere near the opposite end of the spectrum from the command and control Incident Command System.

matrix

A Matrix About Change: Adaptive Capacity, Transformation, & Dissolution

Part 2 of a discussion of the talk I gave at Red Hat "Risk, Vulnerability, and the Precarity of Identity." This post focuses on bringing together the theory in post 1 to discuss change.

matrix

A Matrix about Change: The Precarity of Identity

Part 1 of a discussion of my talk "Risk, Vulnerability, and the Precarity of Identity" given at Red Hat Open Shift Commons. This first post discusses the key theory.

Insights

Chaos and Complexity Theory: Insights for Managing Emergencies

An overview of chaos and complexity theory with discussion of how both theories might be used in managing emergencies.

Insights

Organizations, Systems, and Constraints: Insights for Managing Emergencies

While reading for the last post I came across Edgar Morin's work on constraints. Given constraints were touched upon in the last post, I thought it would be interesting to devote an entire post to the topic and further elaborate on striking a balance between disorder and order.

Insights

Planning & Organizing with Edgar Morin: Insights for Managing Emergencies

This series begins by exploring the familiar discussion of planning and organizing for adaptation from the perspective of French sociologist Edgar Morin.

Insights

Insights for Managing Emergencies Series Introduction

This series explores the application of theory to the planning, organization, and management of emergencies.

How Complex Situations Feel: Edgar Morin

Pursuing the question "How do complex situations feel?" through the work of Edgar Morin and others.

domains

How we have Experiences: Domains of Reality

"The world we live in every moment is the realm of all the distinctions that we make, that we think we can make, that we thought we would make, or that we thought we could not make as human beings in the course of our living" - Ximena Dávila Yáñez & Humberto Maturana

update

Introduction to Systems Thinking Self-Study Course at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security: Update

Introducing and sharing the first round of updates on the Introduction to Systems Thinking course coming to the Naval Postgraudate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security late this fall.

domains

Domains of Reality and Their Dynamics: Seeking an Applied Philosophy through Wildland Firefighting

An expanded look at Maturana's domains of reality and their dynamics through the use of wildland firefighting as an example aided by the introduction of visual approach to domains.

domains

Domains of Reality and their Dynamics

"We always live in one domain or other. Each domain is complete in itself, and only partial if we imagine a whole in which they all exist. Yet each is different in its internal coherence, its relevance, and its possibilities" -Bunnell "

design foundations

Design Thinking in Emergency Management: On Design Thinking

Folded into practice, design thinking as an awareness is envisioned to have the capacity to change how we are present with our work and how our work is present for us.

update

Design Thinking for the End of the World: Slide Deck

The slide deck from my talk titled "Design Thinking for the End of the World" delivered on February 26th at the Colorado Emergency Management Conference.

update

Thinking Out Loud: Stories and Boundaries

I like to talk about distinctions as the emergence of things. It is through the process of drawing a boundary and pulling it into the foreground that something comes to exist to us.

stories

A Brief Look at Storytelling and Problem-Solving

All the stories someone has told provided a basis for the stories they tell in the present. Moving into the future, the stories we think we might tell later affect the ones we tell now.

matrix

Defining Organizational Risk with Autopoiesis

Maturana's domains of structural determinism provide a set of questions for figuring out what the risk and the hazards faced by an organization are as well as discerning how big of a punch an organization can face.

design foundations

Designing Change in Emergency Management: Why emergency managers need to make history

The problem is not only that others live with risk but what they do while they live with it as well (Coppola, 2015). What is needed, then, is a fundamental change in the way people understand and act in the world around them that can comprehensively address how we live with risk.