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The
New PDF Files:
CyberSyn and the reconstruction of a holistic nature.pdf
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We are constantly reconstructing the world’s essential characteristics. This is the outcome of the on-going evolution of our relationships in a world full of surprises and challenges. The world changes as society absorbs new developments and we develop new cognitive capabilities. Our recurrent interactions construct new relationships, which provide the foundations for new organisational forms. The invention and deployment of technologies play a key role in this evolution. My purpose in this paper is exploring this evolution. I want to explore the constitution of information and communication technologies in social relationships that re-construct the world’s nature. We are challenged by threats and opportunities that require of all our ingenuity, inventiveness and stamina to maintain viability. Technologies, considered as tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems problem, have helped us in these endeavours from immemorial times. I argue here that learning to use them requires understanding their systemic context. The key conceptual construct I use for this contextualisation is that of complexity and more specifically the Law of Requisite Variety (Ashby 1964). The specific application domain for these reflections is the CyberSyn project during the Allende’s government in Chile (Beer 1981).
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Presentacion de Raul Espejo en Transmediale 08
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This is a pdf file of Raul Espejo's presentation at the Transmediale Conference in Berlin the 30th of January 2008. This is a document in Spanish
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Cyberfilter manual
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Syncho Ltd
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This manual offers an introduction to the Cyberfilter Software, which was developed by Syncho in the late 80s. The computing aspects of this development were done in the Forth language by Forththought, a company based in London, UK. Cyberfilter is a management system, based on the management of performance indices. It relates to issues similar to those addressed by the balanced score card.
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Cybernetic Methodology
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Author:
Raul Espejo
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This paper was originally published in the book "Organisational Fitness" edited in 1993 by Raul Espejo and Markus Schwaninger. It develops a methodology to approach interaction problems in an organisational context.
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Stafford Beer explaining management in real time
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Author:
Stafford Beer
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Syncho developed in the 1980s the Cyberfilter Software. Stafford Beer wrote this short paper as an appendix to the software's manual.
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What is Systems Thinking?
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Author:
Raul Espejo
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This paper explores ideas about systems thinking using variety and requisite variety as drivers for these reflections.
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To be and not to be, that is the system; a tribute to Stafford Beer
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Author:
Raul Espejo and Markus Schwaninger
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This is the main document introducing the CD-ROM that Raul Espejo and Markus Schwaninger edited/facilitated to celebrate Stafford Beer's 70th birthday in August 1996.
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Cyberfilter: A tool for distributed planning
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Author:
Raul Espejo & Osvaldo Garcia
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This paper was published in the proceedings of the Orwellian Symposium and International Conference on Systems Research, Information and Cybernetics, held in Baden-Baden, Germany, 1984. It was the outcome of collaborative work between Raul Espejo and Osvaldo Garcia. The paper had two purposes; first, structure the conceptual framework of the work that Raul Espejo had done in Chile in the early 70s under the direction of Stafford Beer and second, support Syncho's development of the Cyberfilter Software in the 80s. An early attempt to implement this software was developed in Chile by Osvaldo Garcia and colleagues. However a working version of Cyberfilter was finally implemented on behalf of Syncho by the software house Forthought in London in the late 80s.
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A practical tool to recognise individual and organizational learning obstacles
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Author:
Alfonso Reyes A.
Email:
areyes@uniandes.edu.co
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Associate professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad de los Andes.
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The paper addresses the methodological problem of observing individual and organizational learning obstacles in a particular organization. These obstacles impinge on effective distributed leadership and management. First, we use Kim’s revisited model for organisational learning presented by Espejo et al [1996] to classify major individual and organisational learning obstacles. Then we present a method to observe these obstacles in a particular organisation. Some final remarks are discussed from the use of the method in specific organizations.
Key words: Organisational learning; individual learning; learning obstacles.
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Aspects of identity, cohesion, citizenship and performance in recursive organizations
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Author:
Raul Espejo
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This paper develops the idea of complexity and its implications for our understanding of organisations and society. One such implication is the constitution of autonomous units within autonomous units. This notion is at the core of recursive organisations. Each of these autonomous units requires strengthening its identity, cohesion and citizenship in order to perform well in its medium. However, in contemporary societies the rule is fragmented institutions rather than whole organisations. Further research is necessary in order to understand how to make more likely the emergence in society of recursive organisations.
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Auditing as a Trust Creation Process
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Author:
Raul Espejo
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This paper offers an account of processes to build up relations of trust in organisations. The conceptual base of the discussion is centred upon the idea of managing complexity. Specifically, trust is observed not only as a form of making the world predictable and therefore an attenuator of complexity, but also as a most powerful amplifier of social complexity. In the paper the distinction is made between contextual trust and responsible trust. It is argued that responsible trust is necessary in order to accept diversity and increase the organisation’s performance in a demanding environment. This, in turn, suggests the necessity to move from hierarchical organisations to recursive organisations. The system in focus of this work was the Colombian State and, in particular, the National Audit Office of Colombia that begun a process to support the development of self-controlled organisational systems.
KEY WORDS: Trust, second order auditing, managing complexity, recursive organisations, autonomy, control dilemmas, individual learning, organisational learning.
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The experience of the National General Auditing Office
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Giving Requisite Variety to Strategic and Implementation Processes
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Author:
Raul Espejo
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This paper is based on a talk given by the author at the London School of Economics in November, 1997. The transcription of this talk was edited by Malcolm Peltu and further elaborated by the author for the purpose of the JAIST Conference in Ishikawa, Japan, September, 2000
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VIPLAN: A METHOD TO STUDY ORGANISATIONS
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Author:
Raul Espejo, Diane Bowling and Patrick Hoverstadt
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The Viplan Learning System is software develop to aid learning about Beer’s Viable System Model. This is done with the support of the Viplan method to help in its application to a wide variety of organisations. The five activities of this method are explained with examples. First, it offers an approach to understand and discuss organisational Identity through analysis of stakeholders. Second, it describes structural modelling of activities, which is followed by the crucial idea in the method of unfolding the organisation’s complexity. Fourth, it shows a tool for studying the distribution of resources and discretion in an organisation. Fifth, and finally, it offers a form of relating these resources to the VSM, thus allowing the development of diagnostic points. The paper ends with a short description of the software itself.
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P.M. Manufacturers: The VSM as a diagnostic Tool
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Author:
Raul Espejo
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This paper offers an application of the VSM to a small manufacturing company in the West Mindlands of the UK. It highlights the VSM's diagnostic powers.
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Introduction to Viable System Model
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This is a succinct description of the VSM, which has been used for several years as a first introduction to the model.
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