You know when you have a conversation and you can’t believe what you end up saying just to keep it going?  I was stuck in a house this news years eve, when everyone was off to Tesco, having to stump up conversation with this guy who was designing a database to record every oil refinery and petrol station anywhere in the world ever in history.  This information was going to be sold to big oil companies - so in total social oblivion, where we couldn’t have less in common and because I didn’t want to have a fracas in the holidays - I somehow ended up saying that in another life I would love to be a systems analyst!?! 

I thought to myself - who have I become? - but actually - it’s true.  I really like thinking about things like - the best system for on-line ordering (which we have up our Laundry sleeve this year (best be good at it, as well as like it)) or the best system for walking into the living room from your bedroom while maximising the efficiency of the trip = hint: on your way, drop off the used mug in the kitchen, pick up a banana, make the telephone call, pick up the magazine, make a swoop for other used dishes, and go to the toilet and back to bedroom (not necessarily in that order)- thus conserving energy.

I’d like to design mobile phone systems, my friend Cas admires Nokia phones because they have “a very intuitive facia”.  I agree.  I also agree that my Orange Windows phone is the worst designed system EVER.  It can take photos, access email, has an MP3 player, but I don’t care about any of that if I can’t find, in the myriad of folders, where to change incoming-call ring tone for when my sister calls to the Final Countdown?  What can we learn about systems?

A system is an assemblage of entity/objects, real or abstract, comprising a whole with each and every component/element interacting with or related to at least one other component/element

I studied complex systems - these are cases in which the whole system seems to achieve more than the sum of it’s parts.  We studied ants - they have a cool (well I think it’s cool) way of 1000s of ants all going to the nearest source of food first, then the next nearest source of food and so on.  From outside, it looks as if they are going back to their ant-hill, chatting to the ant boss, who has a detailed map of the terrain and coming up with a cunning plan - scientists were baffled - how did tiny, stupid ants create such a high level of organisation?

It turns out that all the ants randomly bazz about  - but when they find a bit of food and as they are carrying it back to the ant-hill they give of a pheromone (hormone that you can smell - like that one what makes you think blokes/gals are well sexy).  Other ants are attracted to this smelly trail and thus know where to find the food  (can’t believe I’ve just used the word thus (who do I think I am?)).  When the food runs out they stop producing the smell and they bazz about again.  A really simple mechanism of the components makes a brilliant self-organising system.  The brain is a complex system - your neurons are very simple components - they fire or they do not fire - but your brain produces magical stuff (well some of us have brains that do).

Systems thinking is a style of thinking/reasoning and problem solving. It starts from the recognition of system properties in a given problem.  Some people can think globally while acting locally. Such people consider the potential consequences of their decisions on other parts of larger systems. These are clever people.

 

I wonder if the Laundry counts as a complex system?  OH NO - is this as bad as the maths email circa autumn 2006? - sorreeee, will try and be a bit sillier next week

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