In this episode, we’re having a boundaryless conversation with Joe Norman, a complex systems scientist researching systemic risk and precaution in large-scale systems. Joe explores strategies for uncertainty, complex systems engineering, pattern formation in biological and social systems. Joe’s work brings amazing insights to creating new organizational development models that could be better equipped to deal with the asymmetric risk factors that we foresee these days, in light of rising complexity of the human society and of the destabilization of its support systems. 

We talk about decentralization and localism as a way to deflate such risks while changing the landscape of organising and influencing its salience. Joe underlines the importance of tackling challenges at the appropriate scale, applying a multi-scale variety lens. Our conversation further points in the direction of systemic health-embeddedness and the principle of subsidiarity and the precautionary principle as providing adequate constraints, rather than directions, for systems to evolve.

Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication. 

To find out more about Joe’s work:

> Joe’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/normonics

> Email: joe.w.norman@gmail.com

> Website: http://jwnorman.com/

Other mentions and references:

> Balaji Srinivasan On The Argument For Decentralization - Part 1, Pomp Podcast #295: https://youtu.be/SU6H-5kA0FA 

> Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture: 

https://www.amazon.com/Unsettling-America-Culture-Agriculture/dp/0871568772



> Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast



> Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music



Recorded on May 25th 2020

Ep. 14 Joe Norman - Organizations as Architectures for Complexity

This is high dynamic range music. Just raise the volume knob, you will be surprised...

Flaub, composer, performer and visual artist mainly orientated to avant-garde, experimental and ambient music.

With the aim of compiling sonic substance and creating new devices from old industrial machines and recycled scrap, I spent several years living into an abandoned factory reconditioned as a sound laboratory. Besides those post-industrial quests I use to travel around the world documenting sonic and visual material. Combining all that stuff with the research of new synthesis methods, this music not only describes pictures, it will transport you to a sort of surreal and Sci-Fi scenarios, images that are quite difficult to define.

Fernando Laub (Argentina, Austria)

Boundaryless helps global customers with Business Strategy and Organization Design for the age of Ecosystems.
We do it by creating openly accessible frameworks and by supporting a community of organizations, institutions, and individuals through workshops, training, and consulting services. 

In this space we host all our audio recordings, including the Boundaryless Conversations podcast, a show focused on exploring the future of large scale organising by leveraging on technology, network effects and shaping narratives. We explore how platforms can help us play with a world in turmoil, change, and transformation: a world that is at the same time more interconnected and interdependent than ever but also more conflictual and rivalrous. 

We used to be online at platformdesigntoolkit.com... now find us on our new website: www.boundaryless.io!

Email: hello@boundaryless.io