Resilience

"The combination of fast and slow components makes the system resilient, along with the way the differently paced parts affect each other. Fast learns, slow remembers. Fast proposes, slow disposes. Fast is discontinuous, slow is continuous. Fast and small instructs slow and big by accrued innovation and occasional revolution. Slow and big controls small and fast by consrtraint and constancy. Fast gets all our attention, slow has all the power. All durable dynamic systems have this sort of structure; it is what makes them adaptable and robust."
- Brian Eno as quoted in The Clock of the Long Now by Stewart Brand

Resilience is something I want to understand better. It is an interesting word and weaves throughout our conversations whether they are focused on health, ecosystems, economies, communities, chemistry, engineering, businesses or design.

Last year I thought about my body's resilience while undergoing surgery and chemo therapy. Resilience is defined as the ability to bounce back from major shocks and in the process become stronger, more adaptable. Cancer kills and chemo therapy kills cancer. Is my body strong enough to take this double whammy? Will it bounce back stronger than before cancer? Perhaps.  I can't rush it though. There is a lot of slow taking place. I have good days, good weeks, I feel solid again and then something puts the brakes on and slows me way down and says "Not so fast".  My doctors and nutritionist tell me I have another six to eight months to go before my body has woven itself back together, before slow stops nagging me with sudden nerve pains, falls, headaches, and tiredness.  Fast makes multiple trys over time to assert itself so that I feel I can do anything! It's interesting because the fast and slow parts of my essence don't seem to be working together. How do I come to know my body's resilience? Is it a matter of just biding time, eating right, exercising and sleeping well?

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Gail Taylor podcast

Eugene Kim of Blue Oxen Associates (and Tomorrow Makers board member), has posted a podcast with Gail in a conversation that goes back through time to the origin of Group Genius and what she learned from very young children.

Following the Paradigm Shift

A Paradigm Shift is when a significant change happens - usually from one fundamental view to a different view. In most cases, some type of major discontinuity occurs as well.

Thomas Kuhn wrote about Paradigm Shift during the early 1960s, and explained how "series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions" caused "one conceptual world view to be replaced by another view."

In laymen terms, Paradigm Shift is a popular, or perhaps, not so popular shift or transformation of the way we Humans perceive events, people, environment, and life altogether. It can be a national or international shift, and could have dramatic effects -- whether positive or negative -- on the way we live our lives today and in the future. Compiled by Carol Ann Bailey-Lloyd

All of the MG Taylor models are recursive and fractal in nature. The models can be applied at many different levels. While the model of the creative process is most often used at an individual or enterprise level, it equally applies to a global paradigm shift. In 1979 when Matt and I brought our ideas and visions together to create MGTaylor, we started tracking the evolution of what we then were calling the Information Economy. We were watching the birthing of a new science paradigm being formed from quantum physics, cybernetic systems, and complexity science. We watched ideas begin to spread outside theoretical papers and move into more lay-science articles and magazines. Authors began taking the work of these scientists and working them into adjacent fields and into everyday technology. Metaphors began to appear to help ordinary folks like me come to know at least a sense of what was forming. Some religions and science began thinking together, coming full cycle with universal ideas. One early book I can remember is The Tao of Physics. In 1990, Danah Zohar wrote The Quantum Self, a landmark book for me. Suddenly the 1990s were rich with books and stories. Two of my favorites are Out of Control, by Kevin Kelly, and Leadership and the New Science by Meg Wheatley. I draw on these books continuously.

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Creating New Wealth

A tool is a cup, a hammer, a computer. An industrial economy is a tool, and so is a dollar bill. Tools were developed long ago, when somebody discovered that a bowl carries water better than a cupped hand. Tools are essential to the survival and well-being of humanity." Matt Taylor and Richard Goering, Rebuilding the Future, 1975

Yesterday, my beloved Audi TT's battery gave out and I had to get her a new battery. Jr., the owner of the garage, assigned an apprentice to replace the battery. With nothing better to do, I watched as Jose did his work. He had learned just enough English to communicate at very basic levels but his hands seemed to know what he was doing. He was slow and meticulous but my watching did not seem to bother him. At one point he dropped a bolt into the engine cavity. Ut-oh, I thought as he got down on his knees to look under the car to see if the bolt had fallen through. No luck.  He disappears and returns soon with a magnet with a long handle and within seconds had retrieved the bolt.

I had this sudden awareness as I looked around that there was great wealth all about me in this garage.  Over the years thousands of tools have been invented to serve the auto industry. One problem became someone else's product design.  These tools, probably for the most part, were the genius of ordinary folks with a good idea. They saw a problem (un-retrievable bolts) and solved it with a new product. This ordinary person became an inventor and a wealth creator. He is the millionaire next door type of guy. 

I wonder what on earth we are thinking about today as we bemoan the fact that we have to become green; we must change our ways, do things differently.  Going green means thousands of new inventions by ordinary people.  New ecosystem are being created before our eyes. Each new industry needs ordinary folks seeing with fresh eyes.  It's a great time to be a tinkerer and a designer!  Our new environmental needs are creating a new generation of wealth and prosperity.  What will the tools be to serve our new industries?

This Moment in Time

"In the market, language grew. Became bolder, more sophisticated. Leaped and sparked from mind to mind. Incited by curiosity and rapt attention, it took astounding risks that none had ever dared to contemplate, built whole civilizations from the ground up."
The Cluetrain Manifesto, 2000

Matt and I created MG Taylor, inc. in 1979 for the purpose creating a new way of working that would facilitate individuals and enterprises escaping from the existing paradigm to another. Generally, new paradigms are escapes from a system no longer functioning, to a higher order. We were hopeful, optimistic, and naive as to how long and hard the old paradigm could hold on and constrain new organizing patterns.

With our mission in hand, we went forth as a for-profit business wondering if we could put our ideas and ethics into the market place and be profitable. Over the years we facilitated many good events and worked with clients on their stickiest problems. No one was interested in paradigm shifts however. Whether for profit or not, it was all about near term, bottom-line scarcities and/or profits.

This month that changed. I had the opportunity, in collaboration with The Value Web, to design and facilitate a workshop called This Moment in Time.

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