Some interesting links that caught my eye this week. Why Black Hole Interiors Grow (Almost) Forever Leonard Susskind has linked the growth of black holes to increasing complexity. Is it true that the world is becoming more complex? “It’s not only black hole interiors that grow with time. The space of cosmology grows with time,” he said. “I think it’s a very, very interesting question whether the cosmological growth of space is connected to the growth of some kind of complexity. And whether the cosmic clock, the evolution of the universe, is connected with the evolution of complexity. There, I …
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In the world of non-profits, social change, and philanthropy it seems essential that change agents provide funders with a theory of change. This is nominally a way for funders to see how an organization intends to make change in their work. Often on application forms, funders provide guidance, asking that a grantee provide an articulation of their theory of change and a logic model to show how, step by step, their program will help transform something, address an issue or solve a problem. In my experience, most of the time “theory of change” is really just another word for “strategic …
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Most of my work lies with the organizations of what Henry Mintzberg calls “The plural sector.” These are the organizations tasked with picking up the work that governments and corporations refuse to do. As we have sunk further and further into the 40 year experiment of neo-liberalism, governments have abandoned the space of care for communities and citizens especially if that care clashes with an ideology of reducing taxes to favour the wealthy and the largely global corporate sector. Likewise on the corporate side a singular focus on shareholder return and the pursuit of capital friendly jurisdictions with low tax …
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An interesting review essay by John Quiggan looks at a new book by Ellen Broad called Made by Humans: The Ai Condition. Quiggan is intrigued by Broad’s documentation of the way algorithms have changed over the years, from originating as “a well-defined formal procedure for deriving a verifiable solution to a mathematical problem” to becoming a formula for predicting unknown and unknowable futures. Math problems that benefit from algorithms fall firmly in the Ordered domains of Cynefin. But the problems that AI is now be deployed upon are complex and emergent in nature, and therefore instead of producing certainty and …
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I was happy to be able to spend a short time this week at a gathering of Art of Hosting practitioners in Columbus, Ohio. People had gathered from across North America and further afield to discuss issues of racial equity in hosting and harvesting practices. I’ve been called back home early to deal with a broken pipe and a small flood in my house, but before I left I was beginning to think about how to apply what I was learning with respect to strategy and evaluation practices. I was going to host a conversation about this, but instead, I …