To enhance linking capabilities and create a yet another emergent path through
our website.
| Adapting
Environment to Process: Structure Wins |
A passage from Leaping the Abyss: Putting Group Genius
to Work. |
Quote of the Week 1997.09.28 |
| The
Age of the Navigator |
"The rise of navigators as independent businesses is
destined to be one of the most dramatic aspects of deconstruction. It is
also destined . . . to drive fundamental power shifts among the other players."
A passage from Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms
Strategy. |
Quote of the Week #154 |
| All
You Ever Need to Learn: The Law, Principle and Measure of Froebel's Kindergarten |
Touching on the importance of unity, self-activity, and play.
A quote from Inventing Kindergarten, by Norman Brosterman. |
Quote of the Week #138 |
| ANDMap® System: Key
to Shape Identification |
Part of a longer how-to essay on numbering ANDMap® Systems,
this is a direct link to matching the shapes with the type of interaction
they represent. |
Journal of Transition Management, Spring 1997 |
| The
Anomaly of the Industrial Age |
The wealth-creation system of the Industrial Age stands apart
from the systems that preceeded it, and what is emerging from it. A passage
from Infinite Weath: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the
Knowledge Era. |
Quote of the Week #156 |
| Architecture,
A Model of the Scope of |
Five areas in which a "master builder" must maintain
leverage and influence. |
MG Taylor Philosophy & Practice of Architecture, 1978 |
| Are
You Part of a Mature Organizational Ecosystem? |
Ten characteristics of systemic health and sustainability.
Taken from Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, by Janine Benyus. |
Quote of the Week 1998.03.08 |
| Attending
A World |
"My attention is not something I control,
not something I fully own, much less a resource from which I might dole
out payments." A passage from Mary Catherine Bateson's Peripheral
Visions: learning along the way. |
Quote of the Week 1998.10.25 |
| The
Bottom Line |
"You can't have a different
value system for work and for home." An exerpt from Jeannette Batz's
Half Life: What We Give Up To Work. |
Quote of the Week 1998.09.13 |
| The
Brain's Time Machine |
"Think of your brain as a post office that assigns a
date to a letter earlier than the actual date of the letter." A passage
from Clifford Pickover's Time: A Traveler's Guide. |
Quote of the Week #136 |
|
|
| The
Canvas of Your Venture |
"It becomes a courageous act to make a mark on that canvas.
Once the mark is made and the initial anxiety overcome, a tension is set
up on the canvas; a dialogue between you and your work is now possible."
A passage from Audrey Flack's Art & Soul: Notes on Creating |
Quote of the Week 1998.03.01 |
| Celebrating
the Seeds of Knowledge: Ignorance & Curiosity |
"Only people who know they do not know everything will
be curious enough to find things out. To celebrate the pursuit of knowledge,
we must confess our ignorance; both the celebration and that confession
are central to dynamic culture." From Virginia Postrel's The Future
& Its Enemies. |
Quote of the Week 1999.01.24 |
| Change,
the Individual, and Commitment |
An exerpt from Charles Handy's The Hungry Spirit: Beyond
Capitalism: A Quest for Purpose in the Modern World. |
Quote of the Week 1998.03.15 |
| The
Changemaker |
"Changemakers may be CEOs or managers,
team leaders or team members. They are individuals who not only champion
the idea but also help steward it through the organizational ranks."
A passage from Why Change Doesn't Work: Why Initiatives Go Wrong and
How to Try Again--and Succeed, by Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley. |
Quote of the Week 1998.08.23 |
| Chaos,
Community, & Self-Organization |
An example of a self-organizing system from Seven Life
Lessons of Chaos by John Briggs and F. David Peat. |
Quote of the Week #148 |
| Choice |
Passages from Robert Fritz's Creating: A Guide to the Creative
Process and Danah Zohar's Quantum Self: Human Nature and Consciousness
Defined by the New Physics. |
Quote of the Week 1999.04.18 |
| The
Clamshell Model |
This model was developed in the spring of 1996 by a team of
Knowledge Workers who had gathered to look at the issue of fitness in the
MG Taylor network. |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1997 |
| Competing
Economics, Embedded Compromise, and Releasing Value |
Seperating the economics of information from the economics
of things. A passage from Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information
Transforms Strategy, by Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster. |
Quote of the Week #164 |
| Composing
a Life |
"Composition is a process of organization, very much
like architecture. As long as you can conceptualize what that organizational
process is, you can be a 'composer' - in any medium you want." Thoughts
of Frank Zappa as quoted in Creators on Creating : Awakening and Cultivating
the Imaginative Mind. |
Quote of the Week 1999.04.04 |
| The
Context-Age |
Data, information, knowledge and wisdom. A short
exerpt from The Caterpillar Doesn't Know: How Personal Change is Creating
Organizational Change, by Kenneth R. Hey and Peter D. Moore. |
Quote of the Week 1999.03.28 |
| Corporate
Adolesence |
From Ichak Adizes' Corporate Lifecycles: How
and Why Corporations Grow and Die and What To Do About It. |
Quote of the Week 1998.04.12 |
| The
Corporation As Conversation |
"A single 'corporate story' is a fiction in a world of
free conversation. Corporate stories, like corporate cultures, are informed
by individuals over time through many contacts, conversations, and opportunities
to tell stories." Taken from The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of
Business as Usual. |
Quote of the Week #167 |
| Counting
Out Time |
A passage from Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine
a True and Accurate Year |
Quote of the Week #161 |
| The
Courage of Innovative Thought |
"The courage of innovative thought is not a distinct
virtue that can be practiced in and of itself. It is rather a by-product,
a strength that is the simple consequence of loving our work and knowing
why we love it." Thoughts of Robert Grudin from The Grace of Great
Things: Creativity & Innovation. |
Quote of the Week 1998.05.03 |
| Craftsmanship
and the Weight of the Prize |
"He who looks too hard at the outside gets clumsy on
the inside." A passage from Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings. |
Quote of the Week 1997.11.30 |
| Creating
the Problem, Living on Intent, Finding the Solution |
"In the black cave of unknowing, when
one is groping for the contours of the rock and the slope of the floor,
tossing a pebble and listening for its fall, brushing away false clues as
insistent as cobwebs, a touch of fresh air on the cheek can make hope leap
up, an unexpected scurrying whisper can induce the mood of the brink of
terror." A quote taken from Horace Freeland Judson's The
Search for Solutions. |
Quote of the Week 1998.06.14 |
| Creative
Chaos Means Each of Us |
"Creativity is not just about what takes place in traditionally
recognized creative fields. It's what happens in our small and large moments
of empathy and transformation, the moments when we contact our authentically
individual and therefore universal experience of truth." An exerpt
from Seven Life Lessons Of Chaos. |
Quote of the Week 1999.01.31 |
| The Seven Stages of the Creative Process: Bipartite
Model |
Creating the Problem and Solving the Problem |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| The Seven Stages of the Creative Process: Tripartite
Model |
Scan, Focus, Act |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| The Seven Stages of the Creative Process: Septpartite
Model |
Analysis, Synthesis, Use, Analysis, Synthesis, Use, Re-evaluate |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
|
|
| Design Event Work Products: Conceptual
Varieties |
Summary, synthesis, and evolutionary |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| Design Event Work Products: The
Creation Process |
A summary of guiding steps to creating rich, value-added work
products. |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| The
Design of the Evolving Venture, and the Elimination of Options |
"To evolve is to surrender choices. To become something
new is to accumulate all the things you can no longer be." Taken from
Kevin Kelly's Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systemsm,
and the Economic World. |
Quote of the Week 1998.01.12 |
| The
Design of Knowledge Work |
"Knowledge work by definition does not
result in a product. It results in a contribution of knowledge to somebody
else." A passage from Peter Drucker's Management: Tasks, Responsibilities,
Practices. |
Quote of the Week 1998.06.21 |
| Emergent
Group Genius |
"So the appearance of control is always an illusion.
But the DesignShop® process rubs your nose in this fact." A passage
from Leaping the Abyss: Putting Group Genius to Work. |
Quote of the Week 1997.09.14 |
| Everyday
Emergence |
A poem from Karen Holden's Book of Changes: Poems |
Quote of the Week #159 |
| Everything
Works Upon Everything Else |
"The phenomenon perpetually folds in upon itself."
A passage from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. |
Quote of the Week 1996.12.01 |
| The
Experience is the Economy |
The richness of a marketplace is created by far more than
the exchange of goods and services. A passage from Italo Calvino's Invisible
Cities. |
Quote of the Week 1998.09.27 |
| The
Experience of the Community Environment |
"Living and walking in the village each day was like
walking into myself, as a loving plane of existence. . . " A passage
from Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life. |
Quote of the Week 1997.11.09 |
| The
Feelings of Heart Work |
"We energize or deplete our mind-body systems with each
perceptual choice we make." Words of Charlotte Shelton from her book,
Quantum Leaps: 7 Skills for Workplace ReCreation. |
Quote of the Week 1999.02.07 |
| Finding
Your Own Hey |
The emergence of group genius. A passage from Nubar Alexanian's
Where Music Comes From. |
Quote of the Week 1998.10.18 |
| From Focus to
Act |
An analysis of which of these four states the participants
are "in" will help determine where to go with the design of Act. |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| The
Fusion of Movement, Thought, and Feeling |
"When personal desire prompts anyone to learn to do something
well with the hands, an extremely complicated process is initiated that
endows the work with a powerful emotional charge. People are changed, significantly
and irreversibly it seems, when movement, thought, and feeling fuse during
the active, long-term persuit of personal goals." A powerful and far-reaching
passage from Frank Wilson's The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language,
and Human Culture. |
Quote of the Week 1999.01.03 |
| Future
Waves |
"The present is a product not only of the past, but the
future as well." An exerpt from Lyall Watson's Gifts of Unknown
Things. |
Quote of the Week #172 |
| Getting
Lean to Get Muda Done |
Four interlinked elements of "Lean Thinking." A
passage from Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. |
Quote of the Week #153 |
| Gift,
Barter, Magic, Theft: Crossroads and the Emergence of Commerce |
A passage from Techgnosis: myth, magic & mysticism
in the age of information. |
Quote of the Week 1998.11.29 |
| High
Capability Means Higher Challenge |
The challenge of maintaining organizational fitness. Words
of Kevin Kelly from New Rules for the New Economy. |
Quote of the Week 1999.02.21 |
| Honoring
the Nature and Character of Your Materials |
A passage from John Lobell's Between Silence and Light:
Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn. |
Quote of the Week #151 |
| Innovation
& Unintended Consequences |
" In the post-printing-press era, human memory
powers have been sadly undervalued and neglected." What might we be
neglecting in today's highly innovative times? A passage from Jack Maguire's
Care and Feeding of the Brain. |
Quote of the Week #126 |
| Just
This Side of Ludicrous |
"A real innovation is suficiently different
to be dangerous. It is change just this side of being ludicrous. It skirts
the edge of disaster, without going over. Real innovation is scary. It is
anything but harmonious." A passage from Kevin Kelly's New Rules
for the New Economy. |
Quote of the Week 1998.11.01 |
| The Knowledge Wall:
Original Intent and It's Evolution |
A bit of history and context, and a way of interpreting the
intent of a knowledge wall. |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| Knowledge
Worker Skill Levels (Network) |
Explorer, Apprentice, Journeyperson, Speaker |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| Knowledge Worker Sponsorship: Purpose |
Why knowledge worker sponsorship is important. |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| Knowledge Worker Sponsorship: Feedback
Questions |
A useful model to initiate the feedback loops between k-worker
and sponsor. |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| Knowledge Worker Sponsorship: Responsibility
of Sponsor |
What is the role of a k-worker's Sponsor? |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| Knowledge Worker Sponsorship: Responsibility
of Knowledge Worker |
What is the role of a k-worker to her/his Sponsor? |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
|
|
| Living
& Working (Pattern 41) |
"Why should we accept a world in which eight hours of
the day are 'dead'; why shall we not create a world in which our work is
as much part of life, as much alive, as anything we do at home with our
family and with our friends?" From A Pattern Language, by Christopher
Alexander, et al. |
Quote of the Week 1998.02.01 |
| Living
Pattern Languages & the Design-Build-Use Process |
A passage from Christopher Alexander's The Timeless Way
of Building. |
Quote of the Week #173 |
| Managing
for Corporate Creativity |
An exerpt from Corporate Creativity: How Innovation and
Improvement Actually Happen, by Alan G. Robinson & Sam Stern |
Quote of the Weeek 1998.08.30 |
| MG Taylor Mission: To
educate, train, facilitate and support the Transition Manager. |
From the 1983 Mission of MG Taylor Corporation. |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| MG Taylor Mission: To
pioneer a new industry, and a new way of working. |
From the 1987 Mission of MG Taylor Corporation |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| Model
Building: An Invitation to Interaction |
"The value of prototypes resides less in the models themselves
than in the interactions - the conversations, arguments, consultations,
collaborations -- they invite." A quote taken from Michael Schrage's
Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate. |
Quote of the Week #170 |
| Models
and Modeling |
Some thoughts on models and modeling processes from J. Krishnamurti's
On Right Livelihood and John L. Casti's Would-be Worlds: How
Simulation is Changing the Frontiers of Science. |
Quote of the Week 1997.12.14 |
| One
Mind |
". . . If you had a number of people who really pulled
together and worked together in this way, it would be remarkable. They would
stand out so much that everyone would know they were different. . . ."
David Bohm, as quoted in Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership. |
Quote of the Week 1997.11.02 |
| Our
Place in History |
A couple of passages that add perspective and
context to our place and condtion. From Michael Ventura's Shadow Dancing
in the USA and Stewart Brand's The Clock of the Long Now. |
Quote of the Week #133, 134 |
| The
Paradox of Play |
"The impractical drive from which such practical
discoveries are born." A passage from Virginia Postrel's The Future
& Its Enemies. |
Quote of the Week #145 |
| The
Parts in Harmony |
"The problem is not that people cannot overcome
their surroundings. We all do, in ways conscious and unconscious, with efforts
large and small... We cope, but the cost can be high." From Workplace
by Design: Mapping the High Performance Workscape. |
Quote of the Week 1996.12.15 |
| The
Patterns of a Living Language |
An exerpt from Christopher Alexander's The
Timeless Way of Building. |
Quote of the Week #146 |
| The
Patterns of Organization |
". . . Organizations need not be designed
in such a way that they destroy human initiative. They are designed that
way because we have not been willing to be as inventive about organization
matters as we have been about hardware." A passage from Howard Gardner's
The Individual and the Innovative Society. |
Quote of the Week #149 |
| Project
Management: Organizing for Success |
Break free from convential, linear thinking. A
short passage from Bucky Fuller's Critical Path. |
Quote of the Week #128 |
| Rates
of Change, Scales of Time |
What enables a civilization - or organization
- to endure and thrive over time? Some thoughts from Stewart Brand's The
Clock of the Long Now. |
Quote of the Week #132 |
| Resolving
the Ownership Question in Open-Source Communities |
"What does 'ownership' mean when property
is able to be infinitely duplicated, is highly malleable, and the surrounding
culture has neither coercive nor material scarcity economics?" Thoughts
of Eric Raymond from his book The Cathedral & the Bazaar. |
Quote of the Week #166 |
| The
Rules of Design and Architecture |
A passage from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. |
Quote of the Week 1997.08.03 |
| The
Sensitive Observer |
". . . this is why it is so important to be lonely and
attentive when one is sad: because the apparently uneventful and stark moment
at which our future sets foot in us is so much closer to life than that
other noisy and fortuitous point of time as which it happens to us as if
from the outside." From Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young
Poet. |
Quote of the Week #150 |
| Something
for (Almost) Nothing |
A passage addressing decentralized systems of organization
from Mitchel Resnick's Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations
in Massively Parallel Microworlds. |
Quote of the Week #157 |
| The Sponsor's
Role in Design Events |
An understanding of what is required of an event sponsor. |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| Strategies
Revealing Detail & Complexity: Layering & Seperation |
"Confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes
of information." A passage from Edward Rolf Tufte's Envisioning
Information. |
Quote of the Week 1996.11.24 |
|
|
| Task
and Desire |
"By what sacred story are you living? What task have
you set for yourself? Can you tell your life story, accomplish your task,
from where you are?" A passage from Phil Cousineau's The Art of
Pilgramage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred. |
Quote of the Week 1998.12.28 |
| Three-Catting:
"A Sustainable Model for Inconceivable Development" |
An exerpt from Open Boundaries: Creating Business Innovation
Through Complexity, by Howard Sherman & Ron Schultz. |
Quote of the Week #139 |
| Time
Enough to Learn |
The infinite capacities and limitless boundaries of the human
ability to learn. Quotes from Robert Heinlein and T.H. White. |
Quote of the Week #130, 131 |
| The
Truthful Moment & Attaining Perfection |
Passages from Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in
Everyday Life and Everyday Sacred: A Woman's Journey Home. |
Quote of the Week 1998.02.08 |
| The
Uncompromising Vision |
"The only time you know for sure whether creating a result
is possible or not is when you have done it. All other thoughts on the matter
are simply speculation." A passage from The Path of Least Resistance
by Robert Fritz. |
Quote of the Week 1997.10.19 |
| The
Untellable Consequences of Our Own Best Actions |
A passage from Stuart Kauffman's At Home in the Universe:
The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity. |
Quote of the Week 1996.12.22 |
| Virtues
of Patience |
"To tap into the leisurely ways of knowing, one must
dare to wait. Knowing emerges from, and is a response to, not-knowing. Learning
- the process of coming to know - emerges from uncertainty." An exerpt
from Guy Claxton's Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases
When You Think Less. |
Quote of the Week 1999.04.11 |
| Waiting
at the Point of Highest Tension |
"The more obstinately you try to learn how
to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed
in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way
is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not
do yourself does not happen." From Zen in the Art of Archery,
by Eugen Herrigel. |
Quote of the Week 1998.03.22 |
| We
Live in a Time of Transition |
As a Knowledge Worker in the MG Taylor network,
your primary mission is to learn to play the role of a Transition Manager. |
Journal of Transition Management, Fall 1996 |
| Writing
Business Plans? Consider Randomness as the Root of Order |
Random fluctuations as the seeds from which structure
and order grow. From Turtles, Termites and Traffic Jams: Explorations
in Massively Parallel Microworlds, by Mitchel Resnick. |
Quote of the Week 1998.01.18 |
| Yougottadance |
Being in flow. A passage from the wonderfully
fun Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami. |
Quote of the Week 1998.06.07 |
| Your
Enterprise — Not Your Product — Is Your Ultimate Creation |
A passage from Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary
Companies. |
Quote of the Week 1997.11.16 |
