Mapping the Systems of Science and Technology:

Assessing Tools for TeamworkOctober 28-30th, 2013 | The Presidio, San Francisco, CA

hosted by:

Yámana Science & Technology

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Open Space SessionNotes

Amen!

MondayOctober

28th

2013

Promoting Collaboration in

ResearchR&D can be considered

‘re-use’ of basic science. It requires:

• Infrastructure• Interactions• Information• Plans• ActionsLeading to:• Outcomes

Promoting Collaboration in Research

There should be symbolic value of Systems Thinking & how it works in society.

Science is currently:

• Competitive• An Inefficient System• Needs to move to

Collaboration

Promoting Collaboration in ScienceSuggestions:• Promote dialogs between researchers, funding

agencies, and policy makers• Decrease funding if there is less collaboration• Have skilled referees• Rules should be set by funding agencies to promote

collaboration• There should be open grant management system

where:• Grantees meet & share regularly• Share management tools• Promote organizational development• Collaboration training should be considered.

Promoting Collaboration in Science

A good model to test would be the recent Brain Initiative by Obama:

• One funding agency• Has track of all

researching agencies involved

• Collaboration is a requirement

Promoting Collaboration in

Science

How to bring all this to the policy makers??Answer: Present to them (ie PUBLISH)

Quantify:• progress -> of science• problems of science• researchers leaving

science

How to Engage Young People in Science

Challenges of Engaging Youth in Science:

• Lack of perception of relevance to life• Focus on textbook learning (answers are already

determined)• Way of transmitting knowledge is not interactive• When you begin change (to educational institutions)

you meet resistance• Youth are being told that they are too young to

understand complex scientific issues

How to Engage Young People in Science

• Limitations of classroom teaching (pressure to meet standards)

• Lack of rewards or time for scientists to communicate scientific knowledge to public in engaging, non-jargon way

• Students/teachers fear "getting it wrong"; there is an idea that science has right/wrong answers and you either know it or you don't; this leads to students defining themselves as either "science people" or not

How to Engage Young People in Science

• Scientific research being perceived as boring• Larger society does not appreciate/

understand the importance of science

How to Engage Young People in Science

Recommendations: • Cross-disciplinary, interactive approaches (ie, using

the arts)• Using real world examples (making science

RELEVANT to students' lives)• Connecting students to their inherent joy of

discovery/ innate curiosity about the world• Incorporating play into the learning of science

How to Engage Young People in Science

• Project and place-based learning (this puts more responsibility on the teacher to scaffold/ guide the educational process)

• Incorporating science across the curriculum; telling students that they are all the "scientists of their own lives", regardless if they are going to be professional scientists or not

• Using mindfulness, teaching the art of listening deeply as a scientific act

• Encouraging students to take ownership of their own learning (i.e., inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, etc)

Science Education•Low status of America in Math/Science + Literacy•Emancipatory Education (see eg Freire)•Project/Place based learning•Relevance

Science Education

•Ways of Knowing•Modes of Inquiry•Recognition of Value•Asking Questions

•What’s important to you?•What do you want to know?

•How we frame Not Knowing

Relational Competence

Science = Who did it,

who wrote itvs

What idea

Poo-pooing:Isolates others

Includes the ‘tribe’

Relational Competence

Acknowledge + work with hierarchy

•schools•publications•tenure•Funding

Successful cooperation....while acknowledging competition

Seek alternatives to direct confrontation

Relational Competence

Recommendations:How to Enhance Relational Competence:1. Have multiple tools that allow people to see differently - that come with authority to which parties have given beliefExamples:

•Strength Finder,•Myers-Briggs,•Soc. styles

2. Role play3. Framing techniques4. Teacher/Mentor/Facilitator5. Coaching

Relational Competence

Reflections of the Day:

•Unhealthy deference to outdated system

•How to Fix?•Bottom Up and Top Down•Declaration of Independence to IMAGINE

Reflections of the Day:

•Collective good vs individual good•Science does not have much of a future IF we don’t have the same picture

•Fear and anxiety vs

• Relational Competence

Reflections of the Day:

Context is SHIFTINGFrom: Funding is most important

•Teach to the test = Write to the Grant

To: Contribute to Future, Others

•TALENT•FUN

Future Health Professionals:

•Exploration•Discovery•EXCITE!

Reflections of the Day:

Open-ness •at the Top•at the Bottom

Our humanity matters•Humility•Evolve oneself•Take on the challenge

Leadership Focus on People & CommunityBusiness TrainingSkill to connect with the audience

Working within the system versus and/or changing the system

Artists + Actors + Scientists

A new wave of opportunity

Reflections of the Day:

Reflections of the Day:

Follow what you deeply care about

•Current requests of us•Our passion•Do Good for the World

What are techniques to dig out of this hole?

•Improv•Play Good Projects like JAZZ

Reflections of the Day:

GLOBAL•Is consensus possible?•Are my choices going to matter in the future?

Reward system we want

•Freedom to follow passion•Education Infrastructure

SQUANDERED OPPORTUNITIES

Reflections of the Day:

Sense-making Filter•A new one needed?•Starts with me?•Courage

Some way to SORT for meaning

•Urgency•Importance

How to Engage more scientists to deal with the Big Messy Issues

A FUTURE for ALL•All species are thriving•Funding for Creativity•Measure of success is ability to solve wicked problems •(Wicked Problems resolved one by one)

How to Engage more scientists to deal with the Big Messy Issues

HOW•Integrated Solutions across nations•Aligned Value Systems•Sensemaking communities•Make it tangible to all the world’s people

Science & Spirituality•Personal experiences•Transformation of ourselves and system

•spirituality, not religion•tolerance (for different ideas)•forgiveness•recognition of impermanence•gratitude•Okay to fail

Science & Spirituality

•Negative results in clinical trials• (honesty, rationality)

•Drive to confirm rather than to disprove (irrational)

Science & Spirituality•Intuition is not ‘rational’•Grounding/confidence to be open to other ideas•Grounding -- in harmony with the world (provides reservoir of strength)•Different levels of spirituality

Science & Spirituality

•Now need to integrate the whole but does not deny the beliefs of each of the levels, defined by values, ethics, etc.•Subjectivity exposed•On verge of digital reformation: intuition will change (reading differently, for example)•Kahneman "Thinking Fast and Slow"

Science & Spirituality

• Spirit is energy (intellectually) but personally, it's how we "live out" human potential• Feminine/Masculine energies are changing• uncover and live your purpose•Conscious evolution• Magnificence of human spirit• Scientists & mystics are similar• Humility

Science & Spirituality•Tension between collective and individual good

• If I'm not for myself, who am I?•If I'm only for myself, what am I?•If not now, when?

•Rabbi Hillel• Take responsibility• Judgment is really about the person who is judging• Look for all of it in the same moment

Improv vs

Science/Tech

‘Playing off of each other’

vs Being precise,

analytical

What would change in your personal/work life if you were able to be more creative?

CREATIVITY

•Novel Approaches•Playfulness•Intuition•Surprise

vs

“Clueless dysfunctional companies that want to be more functional…”

What Stops us from being

Creative?

Measuring Learning

How we frame our questions, and how we handle not knowing, deeply influence the experience of learning and how different ways of knowing are valued. The most lasting learning begins with an inner connection and spirit of wonder.

Measuring Learning

•Up/Down communication•Hierarchy for the sake of sustaining hierarchy•Stability•Veto suppression•Cautionary disclosure

vs …

Measuring Learning

•Quality•Communication for learning•Developing leaders throughout the organization•Reward system tied to transparency, openness, both within units and out to public

Measuring Learning

Metrics:Baseline

+Goal

=Measurement

Individual Quality of Work:

•Collaboration•Self-management (emotions)•Questions Quality

Measuring Learning

Meta-Index:•Which project is likely to complete ontime/budget•Turn into optimization

Team metric•Allows reflective change/action in team

vs Shrouded corporate internal metrics

•‘Tweaks’ to change system

Who is doing the measurement?

Measuring Learning

WednesdayOctober 30th

2013

Collaboration

• Basic concept is to create a tool to support collaboration.

• The desire is to create the recognition that collaboration is an invisible operating system that merits becoming an acknowledged system, a supported norm.

Collaboration

• The discussion was about creating a platform, something that would do for collaboration what Facebook has done for networking. • There was always networking, but Facebook made

connections visible, and provided efficiencies for making old and new connections.

• We want to the same for collaboration.

CollaborationSome important literature on the topic:• Knotworking by Engeström (see for example this

description of his recent work, by Andy Coverdale)• Boundary Objects by Susan Leigh Star• Boundary Object Infrastructure by Geoffrey Bowker• Cynefin by Dave Snowden• The work of Doug Engelbart on collaboration (see eg The

Engelbart Hypothesis by Valerie Landau, Eileen Clegg and Douglas Engelbart)

CollaborationWe desire a platform that operates like a "

liberating structure" and enables collaboration.

Other instructive modalities that provide examples are • lean/kanban and • scrum

CollaborationThe fundamental idea of Global Sense Making is expressed

at knowledgefederation.org

One can"join the club" at globalsensemaking.net

Systems on which we can build include IBIS (issue based information systems)

Collaboration

Game mechanics as a way of addressing Wicked Problems:• The advantage is to allow more direct engagement in

wicked problems• ...and to provide an efficient means for people to

visualize issues and find each other in order to collaborate.

• See for example Salon’s 2013 article ‘5 Video games that could make the world a better place’

Public Service Contracts

US Science & Technology

Out of the Ivory Tower

Co-Fund Basic Research

Applications

Service Contracts

Impact Investing

Implementation

Return of citizen scientists

In a novel program, non-tangible assets of the UCBerkeley campus (copyrights, trademark, faculty, scientists, students and staff) were leveraged to provide services for the public goodFor more information, examples, & policy papers see here

Public Service Contracts

Public Service Contracts

•This approach is quite distinct from technology & IP transfer (very common in the scientific community). •It creates products for the public good in the local community. •In Berkeley, contracts for revenue of $1 billion dollars of unrestricted revenue was raised over a 15 yr period.•It is a new model for applying the know-how and assets of the Ivory Tower for local community good.

Headlines Now to 2020

Headlines Now to 2020

Headlines Now to 2020

Headlines Now to 2020

Headlines Now to 2020

Who pays for change?

Question: Who pays for culture change?

Example given ~ Singapore, 1960's •WAS a 3rd world country (infection rates similar to Africa's)•NOW, per capita income is greater than in the US. •They hit bottom - realized 'we die if we don't change‘•THEREFORE they thought differently.

Who pays for change?They asked the Ques: What do people want?

•Opened doors for new industry ("Singapore is open for business.” )

• Went through the normal selling process: 100 leads for one 'sell.' • IBM, National Semi-Conductor, Intel all came.

•Public education, public housing. •Two of the top wealth funds are now centered there.

Recommendation: Look at the environment, see what's needed.

Who pays for change?Higher Education:

•Entrenched entitlement, fortress mentality. •Model made after Second World War•Unintended consequences

• Grants with low product outcome• Education is almost an after-thought• Public service is not even in the picture• However, if we starve research, we starve the rest

It's like we're in a Gold Mine, and don't see the

veins of gold

Who pays for change?

Here, things like health care are highly inefficient: •In the US, health care is 17.6% of GDP; •in Singapore, it's 4%

• 17.6% is a lot of jobs. •How could a transition be planned?

•Institute of Medicine is currently saying that top down changes will not work. •Need to have local communities be systems for health.

Who pays for change?

Two more examples:•UCSan Diego used a NASA data analysis approach to lower hospital expenses for emergency visits by 70%

• Dept of Defense, Veteran's Admin, Health and Human Services were all involved.

• Collaborative effort•Northwestern found $280 billion is wasted every year to treat adverse affects of pharmaceuticals

Recommendation: Use underlying IT to capture monetary savings

Who pays for change?

There are many people ready to pay for the change• People are looking for grass roots answers• Because people at the top know they can't get answers on their

ownHealth Care is where change is, because it's where the cost is

Who pays for change:•Those who come to the table

Ques: How to find all the resources to address the complexity of wicked problems

Wednesday end of Day

Now time to start!

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