but yet again there was almost nothing about the national papers or the Guardian itself. A strange comment about Boris I could not understand as the main thing he said that I noticed was what a wonderful thing print is and please don't go online. Not that officially there is any announcement to go online anyway.
The editorial shows off an excellent journalism dodge. A future is imagined in which the UK High Street is in trouble, referenced to Comet as current news, maybe a sign. So let us talk about the end of printed Guardian Mon-Fri at some mysterious fact in the future, say 2015.
Last week Printweek suggested that the Guardian may go to contract printing. This might explain why the Express and Echo is on a Thursday. Sunday would make more sense, to develop as a magazine and to complement the Western Morning News. But maybe the same presses that produce it for a Thursday are also producing a weekend national as well. regional weekly titles could be phased to suit the remaining kit. Just a guess.
But please stop the reporting of the regional press as if the Guardian itself can just be assumed as never changing.
I still have to read it to find out about Haymarket. Though actually I think the most disruptive info on the UK may well come from the Daily Beast.
The LCC is about "digital media" and "games design". Please explain. What to think?
This week is the occasion for the latest Futures conference at the London College of Communication.
I have been to a few previous ones but they change quite a lot given changes in the College. Clearly these changes are in the past but they offer some clues as to what is in the future.
The name changed from London College of Printing. Then printing was part of Printing and Publishing. Then that went and now there is Design and Media. I am quite confused as to what the difference is or if there is a difference why any student would choose one or the other for a practical project.
The site for the conference mentions "Digital Media" and "Games Design" . Are these in different schools? Is all design now about gaming? Most web sites seem to set you a task and award points even if the original interest was in something else.
From the websites
Media
We offer courses in subject areas including photography, film, video and broadcast, journalism, media and cultural studies, animation, documentary film, screenwriting, sound arts, print media, public relations and publishing.
Graduates from the School of Design include John Brown (John Brown Citrus Publishing), Neville Brody (Typographic Design), Ruth Rogers (River Café), Jason Kedgley (Tomato), Angus Hyland (Pentagram), John Hegarty (BBH) and many others at the forefront of our subject.
There is also a link to Typography and Letterpress. So design may be mostly graphics.
Meanwhile through #mtw3 ( see recent posts of search) I have become aware of "Design Science" . So design has become a large subject with a base in management and teaching. Not sure when it becomes media though.
This morning on the Wild Show, Phonic FM we talked about Jackson Cooper and Riviera FM but knew not a lot about either. Now a bit of searching on blogs reveals a Twitter name and a YouTube channel.
So we can play some of this tomorrow if nothing else works out. 10-12 in morning
I have copied this and deleted some text. MoSO is a closed group and you need to join the CQI one first but I think they are both open enough, you won't need a subscription to the CQI. If there is a problem please comment. Search "MoSO CQI" should find .
I am trying out connections on LinkedIn this week. There is one copy below from #mtw3 so there is some basis.
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Teaching as a Design Science
I think the recent book by Diana Laurillard opens up a space for quality ideas to connect with learning, as theory and as organisations. she has commented on my blog post so I think I am not way out of scope so far. There is theory behind quality even if American Pragmatism is not often studied in the UK. But if an organisation is lacking in known ploicy, then something like design science comes in.
Tony Brown • Will there is teaching old knowledge and new knowledge and organisations need to adapt new knowledge to move on. This knowledge must have practical application on new products and service to add value to the organisation.
Will Pollard • Tony, I have added a bit to a cloud in cloudworks, a site by the Open University.
this started as an online version of a conference and so far the most interesting ideas are teaching as design science and also scientific leadership. Not sure what this is though. I'm hoping more will turn up in Cloudworks. Leadership as Design Science? I can sort of see how it would fit together but can't find any academic references. Not that this should stop us thinking of course.
found diagram in Facebook group on virtual worlds, this may fit
Follow Antony
Antony Upward • Perhaps I am mis-understanding - but I believe there is a huge amount of work on management, leadership and teaching from the design science perspective - works by Herbert Simon, Russel Ackoff and Roger Martin (The Design of Business) come strongly to mind - is this the type of thing you were thinking of (if so I can provide more links / ideas)?
Will Pollard • Antony, please say some more. I can well believe there is work already existing that is not widely known or maybe described differently in another context. Tony Brown above works on quality systems and I think this relates to design and possibly scientific leadership. But I don't find much putting design in some sort of quality loop or descriptions of system review as a process.
(Aside: if this thinking of interest to CQI/MoSO we should talk further. Send me an email; BTW my philiosphical stance in this research is "critical pragamatism", and while I'm in Toronto I hail from the UK!)
OK to your question: design, quality and systems. Wow where to start.
Herbert Simon (1969, p.139) said: "Everyone designs who devises course of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones." Clearly anyone undertaking a TQM program is looking to improve situations. Hence by this definition any TQM program involves designing (at various levels).
Simon, H. A. (1996, first published 1969). The sciences of the artificial (3rd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America: MIT Press.
Ackoff's work on Ideal-seeking Purposeful systems (i.e. in Deming's terms, the system management is reponsible for) talks about how redesigning such systems is they way to improve them (For an up to date Ackoffian perspective on this try: Gharajedaghi, J. (2011). Systems thinking: managing chaos and complexity : a platform for designing business architecture (3rd ed.). Burlington, Massachusetts, United States of America.: Morgan Kaufmann.
See these works of Ackoff's for a good introduction to his original thinking:
* R. L. (2004). Opening Speech: Transforming the Systems Movement. Third International Conference on Systems Thinking in Management (ICSTM '04), University of Pennsylvania, United States of America.
* R. L. (1974). The systems revolution. Long Range Planning, 7(6), 2-20. doi:10.1016/0024-6301(74)90127-7
* R. L. (1971). Towards a System of Systems Concepts. Management Science, 17(11, Theory Series), 661-671.
Another place to start is a video of a meeting between Russell Ackoff and Edwards Deming - while it takes them a while to align on terminology they are saying the same thing - Ackoff from a systems and design perspective and Deming from a quality and systems perspective. A Transcript is available: http://ackoffcenter.blogs.com/files/dr.-ackoff-dr.-deming.pdf of the conversation which took place in 1992 and was edited and released as Volume 21 of The Deming Library series in 1993. It is called "A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers" It is available from CC-M Productions and includes a second DVD with discussion/teaching guides for it and the rest of the Deming Library at The CC-M website at http://www.managementwisdom.com . (But I'm sure I watched this online somewhere - but right now can't lay my hands on the URL),
Of course more recently there is the great work by Vangard Consulting CEO John Seddon. In this video he talks about his work with Deming (and others) to adapt TQM to Service Organizations (with an explicit consideration of systems and design concepts). Wonderful stuff... also he has lots to say about IT too .. (He takes a bit of time to get the service systems examples).
And this one on "Its the System Stupid"
(Also let's not forget the groundbreaking work in the 1950s of the UK Tavistock Institute's Emery and Trist -both worked with Ackoff later; Emery & Trist came up with design principles for organization design for high quality, efficient AND enjoyable jobs!)
Also as a practitioner example I came across this week proactively integrating design, systems and quality thinking check out this newsletter: http://goo.gl/qqRtp
OK...time for feedback... is this useful... or am I drifting off your original question and telling you stuff you already know?
Will Pollard • Feedback, this is extremely useful. Thanks. I have found the Deming / Ackoff conversation on YouTube starts with a diagram very similar to MoSO. I will look at the rest of your links. I am working on another online occasion for Management Theory at Work "#mtw3" at the end of this month. So will copy much of this to fit better there.
Will Pollard •
I copied some of the post from Antony Upward to the #mtw3 group ( this is a sort of online conference. Here is a copy of a comment by John Burgoyne-
• well I looked at the video on You Tube. It seems to be saying all the right things, but in a very dull and expert and 'we know best' kind of way, the medium seems to contradict the message! And I don't think they allow enough space for the 'emergent properties' of the systems they are trying to improve and control - that is the unexpected and the excercise of free will
Antony Upward • #mtw3 group - John Burgoyne- - "• well I looked at the video on You Tube. It seems to be saying all the right things, but in a very dull and expert and 'we know best' kind of way, the medium seems to contradict the message! And I don't think they allow enough space for the 'emergent properties' of the systems they are trying to improve and control - that is the unexpected and the excercise of free will "
Sounds about right; the video was i think in the early '90's if memory serves... so they were both in well into their "guru-hood" by that point! For better delivery specific to high quality service systems design the links to Vangard's CEO John Seddon has more pizazz and a more recent perspective...
But yes... more could be done to make the messages clear and more fun!
I am continuing #mtw3 on LinkedIn this week and also contributing to two radio shows around the South West Music Awards in Exeter.
#mtw3 is shaping around design science. Still not sure that everyone has the same understanding of what this is. But it is a theme that connects management and teaching.
Do we actually design radio shows? JD has almost accepted this on the Wild Show but he stops at the idea of science. Radio requires skill he reckons. It cannot be planned exactly.
Thursday night Chris Norton intends to video some of the Awards event on an iPhone and load very quickly to YouTube, maybe Soundcloud. I think this is the main news item so far. I know this is possible but I don't come across it. I use a Kodak Zi8 myself so upload a day or so later. I have bought a Nexus 7 but there is only one camera. Not sure how this will work.
We have a lot of tracks from YouTube already. See playlist
There will be two shows, the normal Wild Show 10-12 on Thursday and a special same time on Friday. It should be possible to play anything we get to YouTube or Soundcloud direct to radio. So unless some of the recording works out both shows may be much the same as the playlist.
Came across this. I used to get Pandora by mistake till they realised I was not in USA.
Is it even possible to think that Apple would do such a thing? Trouble is I think that all USA quoted companies are rated on strange expectations and they sometimes do odd things to survive. Will Apple have any partners at all in a couple of years?