Comments on: Alternatives to the ‘Cynefin’ term, please?

By: Tom G

Tom G — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:36:55 +0000

(Posted on behalf of Roderick Lim Banda, @rlimbanda )

@tetradian “Llenguasidi” a play on language of dynamic systems in Catalan but is based on Peter Senge’s work.

By: Paul Jansen - @pauljansen

Paul Jansen - @pauljansen — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:25:16 +0000

OK, just found another $0,05: How about ‘Vitruvius Framework’? Not only because of the three elements Pollio declared essential to any human organizing/engeneering effort: Utilitas, Firmitas, Venustas (utility, stability, attractivness), but also because it puts the Human at the center of such framework, as the famous drawing of Leonardo da Vinci illustrates, which also combines the flat square (framework) with the ’sphere’ (circle).
You could also think in the direction of ‘multidimension’…

By: Dave Snowden

Dave Snowden — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:49:54 +0000

I’m not sure what practitioners you are talking about. You are creating a model (s) based on your views so I suggest your own culture, Then if people like it and use it, you have a network. Solution Space is your phrase, I’d take it from there in your shoes.

By: Tom G

Tom G — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:30:28 +0000

Dave – agreed, understood, and already indicated above.

A practical and non-trivial problem here is that since practitioners in this space hail from just about every nationality and culture across the globe, what would “authentic to your own culture” be?

By: Dave Snowden

Dave Snowden — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:11:36 +0000

I suggest something authentic to your own culture …

By: Tom G

Tom G — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:40:23 +0000

Paul – many thanks, and I do like the layering of ‘Gwydion’. Yet under the circumstances, unfortunately, might it not be wiser to avoid Welsh? Is there a Belgian/Flemish/Walloon equivalent, for example?

By: Richard Veryard

Richard Veryard — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:01:19 +0000

I’m looking forward to getting my copy of the GWYDION bible.

By: Paul Jansen - @pauljansen

Paul Jansen - @pauljansen — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:48:39 +0000

The GWYDION framework: Gwydion – (GWID-yon) from Welsh gwyd “knowledge” + -on, divine ending. Gwydion ap Don was a powerful magician in the Mabinogi. In Welsh, Caer Gwydion (Gwydion’s Castle) is the Milky Way.
And then there is also: The ‘Graves Framework’, the ‘SolSpa Framework’ (Sol and Spa are nice and also abbr. for Solution Space); the ‘Holl Framework’ (also short for Hollistic), … but Gwydion would be my first

By: Dave Snowden

Dave Snowden — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:35:36 +0000

Just to make it very clear. Cynefin is the name of a model defined in a series of articles and based on five domains defined by their actual and perceived level of constraint and/or the relationship between cause and effect. I have no objection to Tom taking the basic shape of the model, changing the labels and definitions and saying “look here is something better”. I think from what I have seen so far that it isn’t but that really doesn’t matter. However if he does that he should call it something different while acknowledging the ancestry. Cynefin started from Boisot’s I-Space, but I didn’t say it was a better version of the I-Space, it was (and is) something different, with a different name.

Incidentally Tom, Cynefin is an IBM Trademark in software, training and consultancy. OK they haven’t used it since I left but you need to be aware of that. The only use of Cynefin over the past decade has been as the name for the model, and (for an 18 month period) for the Centre I ran in IBM post the IKM. It has never been used for the “solution space”. Organic KM was an original here, social complexity another and currently naturalising sense-making.