Emergent Collectives. Engineer or Bricoleur?

1. CONTACT
dr.ir. Jan Devos, MBA
ELIT Lab
Howest
Graaf Karel De Goedelaan 5
BE-8500 KORTRIJK - BELGIUM
T: +32 56 24 12 72
F: +32 56 24 12 24
e-mail: jan.devos@howest.be
e-mail: jgdvos.devos@ugent.be
linkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jangdevos
Blog: jangdevos.wordpress.org
twiiter: @jangdevos

2. Emerge of the Engineering Model

3. Emerge of the Engineering Model

4. Emerge of the Engineering Model
Tot 19de eeuw waren er uitsluitend
'militaire' ingenieurs.
De ingenieursuitvindingen zoals
(heer)wegen, bruggen, forten, have
ns, kanonnen, enz. hadden een
strategische bestemming.
Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci
en de Vlaamse Simon Stevin
waren beroemde 'militaire'
ingenieurs.
James Watt (1736-1819): de eerste
'burgerlijk' ingenieur.
Zijn stoommachine luidde de eerste
industriële revolutie in. Die ging
gepaard met een groeiende
(K.U.Leuven, http://eng.kuleuven.be/algemeen/geschiedenis) behoefte aan hooggeschoolde
technici.

5. Successes of the Engineering Model
Good logistics alone can't win a war.
Bad logistics alone can lose it.
—General Brehon B. Somervell
Commanding General
Army Services Forces, 1942

6. Successes of the Engineering Model

7. Successes of the Engineering Model

8. Ideal type of an Engineer…
Businesses
Governments
… and
Education

9. The illusion of modeling …
Ever seen a pure geometric figure in nature?

10. The illusion of modeling …
… is that we tend to forget that the real world has vague
and murky contours… (Ciborra, 2002)
E. Husserl (Phenomenology) and Galileo Galilei
• Galileo introduces geometry as a sort of generalization
• The gap between scientific objectivity and the everyday life world
(everyday reality is real, outcomes of abstractions and models are ideal)
• Lack of ‗spiritual‘ dimension in technological advancement
• Problems are solved by reduction
• (practical) Relevance versus (academic) Rigor ?

12. Separation of Creation and Use

13. Amoral theories ?
• The MacDonaldization
• Of Society
…is the process by which the principles of the fast-
food restaurant are coming to dominate more and
more sectors of American society as well as of the
rest of the world. (Ritzer, 1993:1)

14. MacDonaldization of society
© Jan Devos - 14

15. MacDonaldization of society
• Efficiency
• Calculability
• Predictability
• Increased Control
• Replacement of Human by Non-human
Technology
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16. Foundations for the Engineer
Natural Sciences (positivistic perspective)
Control Theory (Coase, 1937, Eisenhardt, 1989)
Alignment of interests
Agency Theory (Jensen & Meckling, 1976)
Contracts (Incomplete Contract Theory)
Moral Hazard / Adverse Selection
Mistrust in human behavior (Ghoshal, 2005)
Amoral theories ?

17. Ideal type of an Engineer…
Engineer
A priori hierarchical order: top down approach
Reduction/decomposition (analysis – synthesis – model)
Openness, transcending boundaries
Linear time – Cartesians
Distant knowledge, representation
Knowledge about structural characteristic entities
Specialization
Search for the adequate, project-oriented means
Projects and designs
Respect of prior specifications: exact design requirements
Evaluation through expected level of performance and quality
Separation of creation and use
Outcomes respond to field norms

18. Collapse of an Engineering Model

19. Collapse of an Engineering Model

20. Research on IS failures
Resistance against change
1983
Power, Politics and MIS implementation (Markus)
20 years later:
- 2003, "Computers can land people on Mars, why can't they
get them to work in a hospital?" - Implementation of an
Electronic Patient Record System in a UK Hospital (Jones)
- 2004, Informating the Clan: Controlling Physicians' Costs
and Outcomes (Kohli & Kettinger)

21. Organizational Change
Nov. 2010

22. Organizational Change

23. Alternative approaches to PM
• PM does not guaranteed success nor eliminates failures
• PM too much focused on ‗how-to-do‘
• Management of meaning iso management of control ?
• Critical perspective on projects: focus on values (technology is not
neutral), ethics and morality equally important than efficiency &
effectiveness ?
• Trust vs Control ? (Devos, 2009)
• ―Political‖ PLC
2003, The chimpanzees‟ tea party: a new metaphor for project manager (Drummond & Hodgson)
2006, New Possibilities for Project Management Theory: A Critical Engagement (Cicmil & Hodgson)

24. PLC and the „Political‟ PLC
Inception
PLC Wild enthusiasm
Design & Dev.
“P”PLC
Search for the guilty

25. Organizational Change
―(Computer-based) Information
Systems defeat their own purpose
because they create complexity.‖
(Weick 1985)

26. Emergent Collectives

27. Emergent Collectives
Ant Colony

28. The Ant Colony
Scalability
Value for everyone

29. The Ant Colony
Limited Durability

30. The Ant Colony
No central control

31. The Ant Colony
High Degree of Informality

32. The Ant Colony
The user defines the content
anywhere
&
any time

33. The Ant Colony
Control is in the protocol of the collective
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34. Examples
• Wikipedia
• Sharing of pictures van foto‘s (Flickr),
music (iTunes)
film (YouTube)
• Anytime – Anywhere WIFI
• Open Source Software communities
• Edushock
• TED
• ……………………………
Behavior and outcome of an EC is hard to
predict
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35. An EC is hard to predict…
Charlie bit my finger – again!
Charlie movie
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36. Why do EC‟s occur ?
Digitalization
of society
Broadband
access

37. 2011 The Arab Spring and Twitter

38. Most compelling example of EC
Arpanet (70s)
A story of ‗bricolage‘, improvisation, and serendipity
Build to allow scientists to share computer resources at
a distance
Not about e-mail, personal communications, …
Not really a very large success….

39. Most compelling example of EC
Arpanet becomes the Internet (90s) and now….
• 2 billion Internet users in the world
• 2 billion more waiting to get online
• Policy makers: UN-UGF, ICANN, ISOC, supra-national
governments
• Movement from IPv4 to IPv6
350 trillion trillion DNS numbers available

40. Why do EC‟s occur ?
• Social Motivation: People want to contribute to
something bigger than themselves
• Personal Motivation: e.g. ‗self-advertising‘, blogging
• The Homo Ludens
• Globalizing World
• Increasing Uncertainty
• Growing Abundance
• Increasing Complexity
The ‗social fabric‘ is no more virtual
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41. Why do EC‟s occur ?
The Flatteners …
• Collapse of the Berlin Wall
• Internet (Netscape)
• Workflow Software
▫ Uploading, Sharing, Down loading
• Outsourcing
• Off-shoring
• ‗Steriods‘
iPhone, PDA, iPad, … (BYOD)
2005
•…
© Jan Devos - 41

42. Again Central Control ?

43. The Walled Gardens

44. Predicting EC‟s
• Computer models of the human mind
• Explaining attention and the lack of it
• Subjective Time
• Simulations (role-based): e.g. Second Life
• Focus on learning and improvising
• Design Science Research?
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45. Subjective Time (Gruber et al. 2000)
 The age-related decline in human information-
processing rate is party responsible for the ―quick
passage of time‘‘
 Life‘s duration (and longevity) can be measured by:
 Chronological age
 Total amount of Information one has processed
 Human longevity can be increased by increasing
chronological age and by increasing the
information-processing rate
© Jan Devos - 45

46. HRO concept
Organizing for High Reliability:
Processes of Collective Mindfulness (Weick, 1999)
• Preoccupation with failure (―Failure is not an option‖)
• Reluctance to simplify interpretation
(beware of ‗frameworks‘, ‗models‘, ‗mindsets‘, …)
• Sensitivity to operations (―situational awareness‖)
• Commitment to resilience (―continuous management
of fluctuations‖)
© Jan Devos - 1

47. Facilitating ECs
Push vs Pull model van Hagel & Seely Brown
How can we bring the resources together to do something?
Engineering model: analyse → synthese → model
Education is organized in an Engineering Model
Standard curricula
Codified Information
Pre-determined (linear) sequence of
experience
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48. Facilitating ECs
Pull model van Hagel & Seely Brown
- Opportuniteiten zien als gevolg van onzekerheid
- Mensen samenbrengen om een antwoord te geven op
gebeurtenissen die niet beantwoord worden
- Steunen op een steeds groter wordende groep van hoog
gespecialiseerde, maar verspreide middelen
- Geen dictaat van te nemen acties
- Netwerking aanmoedigen als een manier om middelen samen
te brengen
- Helpen te leren en te innoveren bij de participanten om de
bekwaamheden te verhogen, om volgens hun behoeftes
Vinden → Verbinden → Innoveren → Reflecteren
© Jan Devos - 48

49. Facilitating ECs
Engineering Model is dominating in almost everything
business, governments, education, but…
Most interesting innovations come from outside the
traditional educational institutes
Examples
- Demand for certification can not be fulfilled by traditional
educational institutes
- University of Phoenix
- Cisco‘s e-learning platform
- Learning through apprenticeship (Open Source Software)
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50. Facilitating ECs
Push Pull
Anticiperen op de vraag De vraag is onzeker
Top down ontwerp Emergent ontwerp
Centrale controle Decentraal initiatief
Procedureel Modulair
Sterke koppelingen Losse koppelingen
Participatie gelimiteerd Participatie open
Beperkt aantal participanten Veel (diverse) participanten
Focus op efficiëntie Focus op innovatie
Beperkt aantal grote inspanningen Snelle stapgewijze innovaties
Externe beloningen domineren Intrinsieke beloningen domineren
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51. Facilitating ECs
Creativiteitslagen (nieuwe middelen scheppen)
Netwerken van creativiteit
Creatieve focus
Procesnetwerken (Nike, Cisco)
Aggregatienetwerken (Ebay, Netflix, Amazon, …)
Technisch focus
Faciliteitslagen (bestaande middelen meer beschikbaar
maken)
Technologie (Wiki‘s, web services)
Sociale netwerken (Facebook, Twitter, …)
Infrastructuurlagen (verbindingen leggen)
Service netwerken (email)
Logistiek en communicatienetwerken (bv. internet)
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52. Bricolage
Concept of ‗Bricolage‘ (Lévi-Strauss)
Trinidad Steel drums (pans)
© Jan Devos - 52

53. Bricolage
• Bricolage - French anthropologist Lévi-Strauss,
• ‗La pensée sauvage‘ (1962) (Vrij vertaalt: het wilde denken)
• ―doe iets met wat je liggen hebt‖
• Bricolage is related to (Duymedjian & Rüling, 2010)
• organizational resilience
• improvisation
• sense making (management of sense making)
• enterpreneurship
• use of technical artefacts
© Jan Devos - 53

54. Bricolage
From the seminal work of Lévi-Strauss, three constructs
can be inferred to characterize bricolage:
1) 1) repertoire or the material and immaterial resources
that are collected independently of any particular
project or utilization,
2) 2) dialogue or the activity of assembling objects and
3) 3) outcome, which‘s refers both to the process and its
results (Duymedjian and Ruling 2010).
© Jan Devos - 54

55. Bricoleur vs Engineer
Bricoleur Engineer
Everything matters A priori hierarchical order
Complex, interconnected system Reduction/decomposition
Closed universe Openness, transcending boundaries
Cyclical time Linear time
Intimate knowledge, familiarity Distant knowledge, representation
Knowledge about relationships implying a low Knowledge about structural characteristic entities
functional fixedness bias
Versatility implying resilience Specialization
Collection through unplanned encounters Search for the adequate, project-oriented means
Unclear outcomes Projects and designs
Dialogue with elements in stock (resources) Respect of prior specifications
Assemblage, substitution, …‘it‘s working‘ Evaluation through expected level of performance
and quality
Creation and use cannot be dissociated Separation of creation and use
Outcomes look unlike anything else Outcomes respond to field norms

56. Bricolage
• Is Bricolage a theory?
• Seven oxymoron‟s as propositions (Ciborra, 2002)
• Value bricolage strategically (VBS)
• Design tinkering (DT)
• Establish systematic serendipity (ESS)
• Thrive on gradual breakthroughs (TGB)
• Unskilled Learning (UL)
• Strive for failure (SFF)
• Achieve collaborative inimitability (ACI)
(Devos et al. 2012)
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57. Oxy-1 Value bricolage strategically
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58. Oxy-2 Design tinkering
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59. Oxy-3 Establish systematic serendipity
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60. Oxy-4 Thrive on gradual breakthroughs
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61. Oxy-5 Unskilled Learning
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62. Oxy-6 Strive for failure
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63. Oxy-7 Achieve collaborative inimitability
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64. Best tweets of 2012
Example

65. Assignment
• Create a Twitteraccount
▫ voorbeeld: @jangdevos
• Announce it to all your fellow students of the group
• Follow each other
• Send at least 20 tweets during the semester about
course topics.
© Jan Devos - 65

66. Best tweets of 2012

68. References
• blogs.hbr.org/bigshift/
• www.johnhagel.com/index.shtml (From Push to
Pull- Emerging Models For Mobilizing Resources)
• www-cdr.stanford.edu/~petrie/
• www.emergent-collectives.be
• www.cosmicplay.net (K. Pohn)
• … and the full Web-of-Science !