Events
Managing in Complexity Series

This series features speakers well-versed
on the ideas of complexity theory and organisational management.
They will share how organisations and leaders can better make
sense and react in a world of great complexity and uncertainty,
as well as how best to organise themselves and their organisations
to be ready for future challenges.
22
& 23 April 2008
Dr Pierpaolo Andriani
Dr Andriani is Senior Lecturer in Technology
Management from the Durham Business School UK. His current
research focuses on the theory of Complexity as an interpretative
framework and on its application to industrial clusters and
New Product Development in distributed environments. Dr Andriani
will be in Singapore to deliver a series of focused seminars
for selected public sector agencies.
Why the Future
Happens: Socionomics and the Science of Surprise
13 September 2007
Dr
John L. Casti
Co-Founder of The Kenos Circle and Research Fellow at
the Wissenschaftszentrum Wien
Collective human social events, such as
the outcome of political elections, trends in film and fashion,
the outbreak of war and the rise and fall of civilisations,
are generated by a population’s changing social mood,
and these changes in mood follow patterns that are predictable.
This fact has led to the emerging field of socionomics,
which is nothing less than a “science of surprise”.
In this lecture, popular author and mathematician
Dr. Casti presented the story behind the development of socionomics
and how it seeks The lecture examined the relationship between
thoughts, actions and events, the phenomenon of herding instincts,
and how bets people place about the future self-organise into
an overall collective social mood.to forecast social trends,
through the use of numerous examples and stories. See
Lecture Notes.
Dr Casti has had a wide-ranging career experience,
having served on the faculties of the University of Arizona,
New York University and Princeton, and at the RAND Corporation.
Complexity and Network Theory: Basic
Key Concepts and Their Applications
26 July 2007
Lam
Chuan Leong
Senior Fellow, CGL and Ambassador-At-Large, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs
This 101-style workshop is an introduction
to the world of cognition and complexity and the developments
and current thinking in this field. It will be followed with
other events and speakers, which will go more in-depth into
specific aspects of complexity. Mr Lam’s workshop will
serve as an excellent foundation for those with an interest
in complexity and management. Some of the topics include:
• the role of cognition -- pattern
recognition and selective perception;
• the functioning of complex organisations, and how
organisations can best function in a complex environment;
• how to influence and change behaviour in a complex
environment; and
• the network effect and its impact on the Singapore
Economy
Exploration and Experimentation: The
Organisational Imperative
21 March 2007
Max Boisot
Professor of Strategic Management at the Birmingham Business
School, University of Birmingham
Governments and businesses face massive
uncertainty about the effects of their actions. Outcome is
seldom the same as intent. Conventional strategic planning
and economic forecasting models-based on the assumptions of
causality, control and prediction-are often too mechanistic
and fail to capture the complexities of the economy and society.
Successful innovations or good policies are rarely the result
of superior foresight or accurate prediction. Instead, they
are often the result of learning-by-doing, constant experimentation,
and flexible adaptation.
This roundtable explored the limits of traditional
planning approaches in an uncertain, inherently unpredictable
world. It will also propose frameworks to guide our organisational
learning and knowledge management practices in a way that
builds organisational resilience and adaptability.
Session
Summary of Roundtable
Slides
from Prof Boisot |