'Mapping the Systems of Science and Technology: Assessing Tools for Teamwork' represents the next stage in convening critical conversations for the future of science via Yámana Science and Technology's Science 'UnSummit' working conferences. The first were held during the USA Science and Engineering Festival - in 2010 looking at the topic of 'Shifting the Effort/Reward Ratio in Science' and in 2012 'Innovation - a Global Conversation.' We explore current data, successful initiatives and emergent trends from various science and technology oriented domains, in a cross-functional/cross-sector setting. We utilize Open Space sessions, where participants convene discussions around topic areas of greatest interest and urgency to them.
Open Space Session notes: Mapping the Systems of Science and Technology
1. Mapping the Systems of
Science and Technology:
Assessing Tools for Teamwork
October 28-30th, 2013 | The Presidio, San Francisco, CA
hosted by:
Yámana Science & Technology
6. Promoting
Collaboration in
Research
R&D can be considered
‘re-use’ of basic
science. It requires:
• Infrastructure
• Interactions
• Information
• Plans
• Actions
Leading to:
• Outcomes
7. 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
8. Promoting Collaboration in Science
Suggestions:
• 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.
9. 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
10. 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
11. 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
12. 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
13. How to Engage Young People in
Science
• Scientific research being perceived as boring
• Larger society does not appreciate/
understand the importance of science
14. 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
15. 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)
17. 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
19. Relational
Competence
Acknowledge + work
with hierarchy
•schools
•publications
•tenure
•Funding
Successful
cooperation....while
acknowledging
competition
Seek alternatives to
direct confrontation
20. 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 belief
Examples:
•Strength Finder,
•Myers-Briggs,
•Soc. styles
2.
3.
4.
5.
Role play
Framing techniques
Teacher/Mentor/Facilitator
Coaching
23. 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
24. Reflections
of the Day:
Context is SHIFTING
From: 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!
25. 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 & Community
Business Training
Skill to connect with
the audience
26. Reflections
of the Day:
Working within the
system versus and/or
changing the system
Artists + Actors + Scientists
A new wave of
opportunity
27. 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
28. 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
30. 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)
31. 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
34. 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
35. 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"
36. 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
37. 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
42. 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.
46. 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?
49. 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.
50. 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.
51. Collaboration
Some 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)
52. Collaboration
We desire a platform that operates like a
"liberating structure" and enables
collaboration.
Other instructive modalities that provide
examples are
• lean/kanban and
• scrum
53. Collaboration
The 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)
54. 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’
55. Public Service
Contracts
US Science &
Technology
Out of the Ivory
Tower
Co-Fund Basic
Research
Applications
Service Contracts
Implementation
Impact Investing
Return of citizen scientists
56. Public Service
Contracts
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
good
For more information,
examples, & policy
papers see here
57. 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.
63. 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.
64. 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.
65. 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
66. 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.
67. 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
68. 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 own
Health 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