The Electronauts
ETA Toronto

Systems of Systems

This deck from some nice people at Undercurrent highlights some elements of systems thinking that I like.

As I've written before - systems architecture is one of the big challenges we face in an ever more complex world. 

The nature of systems, like the concept that media are/is one system, relies on the parts inter-operating and effecting each other dynamically. 

Changes in any one part of the system don't simply make the system more complex, they change the system itself.

Inherent in the idea of human behaviour is a need to follow relationships and influence and attempt to understand the emergent properties thereof - individual behaviour does not scale in a linear way, due to the dynamic interactions between agents. 

The deck highlights some tools and concepts mapped out at MIT to describe different system structures to help understand them - feedback is an inherent quality, but how that promulgates through the system is crucial and can be distinct. 

"All models are wrong, but some models are useful" - a system approach looks to absorb as many different viewpoints, points and relationships as may have relevancew which seems like a model worth considering.