I was asked late last night for my definition of a complex system. I slept on it, thought a bit, played with options, & came up with something. Too long for a single LinkedIn post, so I asked Claude to tart it up a bit as an image, and it did! A tad pretentious, but here it is for comment.

Soltise summary of all posts since the spring equinox published thecynefin.co/summer-solst...

A frustrated and exploratory post on the dangers of manufactured binaries and the false assumption that they have to be bridged. Using Mary Midgley, Mary Douglas, and the film The Mission to illustrate a different approach to reconciliation of practice and belief. thecynefin.co/two-marys-an...

A few weeks after my dialogue with Adam Kahane on the second edition of his classic 'Collaborating with the Enemy'. In that discussion, I raised a question about his use of Tillich (following Martin Luther King) and promised to write it up, so here it is: thecynefin.co/a-promise-to...

Three plays with a theme of power & hope, and the relationship between a production and its e audience. Two by Brecht and the RSC's new Prospero, a vehicle for Branagh, but just as Quirrell was taken over by Voldemort; Branagh has been taken over by Lockhart thecynefin.co/verfremdungs...

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that any sufficiently original idea in organisational change must be in want of a Buddhist antecedent." Continuing (and summarising) the theme of misappropriation in consultancy and other practice. thecynefin.co/a-marriage-m...

I'm close to getting into the top 10% sponsorship group for the London-Brighton Cycle Ride in a few weeks. Just under a hundred kilometres at age 72 - so please donate, it all goes to the British Heart Foundation. page.justgiving.com/fundraising-...

Final post (for now, there is more to come) in the Theory of Change (not to be confused with Theory of Constraints) series, this time moving to some of the work we have been doing based on anthro-complexity and its potential. This is an invitation to discussion thecynefin.co/toc-3-3-unde...

I'm taking on the London to Brighton Bike Ride for the British Heart Foundation. Just under 100 km and one big hill at the age of 72. Please sponsor me! I've hit the base target, going for the stretch goal, so please help www.justgiving.com/davidsnowden...

Second post in the Theory of Change series, this time looking at the ontological shift needed and the need for complexity to be front and central thecynefin.co/toc-2-3-onto...

First in a three-part series on the Theory of Change issue, stimulated by a recent useful publication from the Centre for Development Impact (Institute of Development Studies & UEA). thecynefin.co/toc-1-3-fore...

"The system does not lack what you think it lacks. The question is what you are willing to risk becoming." Creating a balance between three models: (i) assumed deficit, (ii) innate capacity and (iii) formative encounter. The triquetral form of Cynefin is used. thecynefin.co/a-trialectic...

A critical reflection in tribute to Edgar Morin, who has just died. I am having to write too many obituaries at the moment. thecynefin.co/edgar-morin-...

A polemical post about an emerging problem involving straw-manning, progressive antecedence, epistemic evasion, and attention harvesting by the trivial pretending to depth of praxis thecynefin.co/of-poachers-...

My tribute to Karl Weick, the founding father of sensemaking. thecynefin.co/karl-weick-1...

A follow-up to my earlier post on the 'consciousness upgrade industry', looking at engagement as the basic scaffolding of change and understanding, not the neo-colonial imposition of 'inner change' thecynefin.co/common-groun...

The consciousness upgrade industry: a critical reflection on a recent article by Otto Scharmer, in Homeric rhythm. thecynefin.co/the-consciou...

A brief tribute to Peter Checkland who died at the weekend thecynefin.co/peter-checkl...

The first post by our guest blogger (you get relief from me for a few days). Alice is a new contact and an interesting one. She will also be an Eagle at our July event in Dublin on the balance between AI and human decision-making. thecynefin.co/the-less-kno...

Reintroducing Guest bloggers on the Cynefin site, and a brief reflection on the community with reference to Isherwood thecynefin.co/come-hear-th...

Final post in the trialectic series, pulling together the material along with responses to some of the comments. It looks at different possible representations of the ‘threes’ and creates a provisional table, matching each trilectic to the different Cynefin domains. thecynefin.co/three-withou...

"The practitioner does not supply what the system lacks. The practitioner creates conditions in which what is already present becomes operative." Penultimate post in my trialectics series moves from systems to the individual practitioner. Tomorrow, a triquetral Cynefin. thecynefin.co/conditions-n...

Some 30 years ago, DataSciences participated in the British Heart Foundation's London to Brighton Charity Ride, just under 100km. At the ripe old age of 72, I will repeat the experience on 21st June to raise money for the British Heart Foundation Please donate! www.justgiving.com/fundraising/...

Continuing the trialectic series with organisational change: perturbate, transit, and transform. It also brings together some material from an older 7-part series on culture change. The three are mapped to Cynefin, but also to scaffolding types thecynefin.co/neither-repa...

Latest in the trialectic series, this time on human reasoning. It maps deduction, induction and abduction to Cynefin. AI, in any current form, cannot abduce, that is, generate a genuinely novel hypothesis from an anomaly. data.https://thecynefin.co/the-shape-of-knowing/

Second trialectic post up, this time going back to where this all started in opposition to the marketing taking Nonaka's SECI out of context in an error which has been repeated in AI - the reduction of human knowledge to the explicit. thecynefin.co/what-we-cann...

First full post in the trialectic series - this one on scaling. thecynefin.co/decompositio...

A new series on trialectics, a concept which has been in development since 2021. It is a new category in anthro-complexity, alongside frameworks, methods, acronyms, and tools. trialectics are heterogeneous while dichotomies, dilemmas, & dialectics tend to homogeneity. thecynefin.co/thinking-in-...

My 'perstringent and peroratory' attack on the misuse of the Box aphorism produced an interesting question on the role of abduction - this is my response. thecynefin.co/where-the-ab...

The Sediment of Signs, responding to a rich set of comments on questions on yesterday's post. So now we address semiosis over time, naturalised constraints, and survival in informal containers. thecynefin.co/the-sediment...

Today's follow-up post to yesterday's on Ingold may seem a little academic, but it is important to understanding anthro-complexity. Narrative commitment in anthro-complexity as Peircean rather than Saussurean thecynefin.co/signs-all-th...

Another post in the series seeking to define anthro-complexity in relationship to other bodies of both theory and practice. This one, which is tentative, looks to the work of Ingold. thecynefin.co/reading-ingo...

Mayday reflections and the need to rethink both government and governance - still a little obsessed with estuaries, mind you. thecynefin.co/beltane-and-...

Anyone else fed up to the back teeth with people misusing Box's 'All models are wrong"? The aphorism was never a licence for epistemological indifference or downright laziness. thecynefin.co/all-models-a...

Follow-up to the Stacey post is live. Leadership in the Estuary takes the argument into Art of Hosting, systems leadership, & the political economy of distributed practice. This one maps the terrain, names the power dynamics, & acknowledges what it cannot yet answer thecynefin.co/leadership-i...

Chris Mowles has announced the commissioning of a revised edition of his book. This is a response from a different tradition because the questions his work raises matter for the whole field. Thanks to Mark Downham for the generative dialogue that shaped it. thecynefin.co/stacey-unres...

A concluding note, for now, on the Channel and the Estuary series, this time using the Elephant's Child from Kipling's Just So Stories for additional meaning-making. It includes a table and a question ... thecynefin.co/all-set-abou...

Adding braided rivers to estuaries, fjords, deltas, salt marshes, and flood plains thecynefin.co/the-braided-...

Further thoughts on elephants and estuaries, in the main responding to some very interesting comments on the previous two days. thecynefin.co/the-estuary-...

Big Red Elephants Dance Rather Thoughtfully; more thinking about estuaries as a metaphor for the organisation. A provisional post, so comments welcome thecynefin.co/big-red-elep...

An important new post (well, I think it is) that starts a major extension of the estuarine metaphor & mapping: fjordic & deltic modes of suppression, the adjacent fertility of floodplains & salt marshes. All plus creating a substrate for serendipity thecynefin.co/fjordic-delt...

Continuing with the brownfield series, this time on lessons learning, narrative enhanced doctrine and training LLMs thecynefin.co/lessons-lear...

Conrad Taylor 1954 - 2026 thecynefin.co/conrad-taylo...

Second post in the brownfield/greenfield series, recognising co-creation from the comments to the first thecynefin.co/always-in-br...

The first of two posts looking at change in organisations and society through the metaphor of building on brown-field and green-field sites. thecynefin.co/on-a-brownfi...

I finally caught up with reflections on my two earlier posts on anthro-complecity and aspects of cybernetics, in which the comments on Boyd's OODA loop were the most substantive, so this post addresses those specifically thecynefin.co/i-can-destro...

A three-part series that examines the idea of wild places and innovation in Brittonic & Goidelic Celtic traditions and in the Welsh Poets. I'm working on the concepts in European traditions that allow us to reimagine the world without misappropriating others. thecynefin.co/the-wild-pla...

Today's post is about sacrifice, through a theatrical lens, but with some anger at what I consider a lack of solidarity with Ukraine thecynefin.co/the-shoulder...

First of the promised occasional SF series, this one contrasting the approaches to communication and reconilliantion in Star Trek (in particular Darmok) with the Dark Forest assumptions in the Three Body Problem thecynefin.co/sf-dark-fore...

Ashby Inverted: a reflection on requisite variety, constant overhead, and the structural case for distributed sense-making thecynefin.co/ashby-invert...