update Stories and the Trouble with Compression This post proceeds from the observation that there is a far-reaching desire to compress the big and complex into the small and simple, a concept similar to reductionism. The following will explain compression and argue it should be cautious, as compression can cause a loss of detail and meaning.
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.
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.
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.
update Things and the Things of Things: The Complexity of Stories While this may in certain contexts be a matter of mastery, I tend to think others telling simple stories about what we tell composite ones might more commonly have to do with reducing the complexity.
update Transforming Emergency Management in Colorado & the Work of Paul Cilliers I was fortunate today to be able to spend a couple hours with a group of like minded others working to find our way through the task of transitioning Colorado's emergency management system from bureaucracy to complex adaptive system.
