The author's model of co-evolutionary design, organizations or society, with influences from Dubberly, von Foerster, Geoghegan, Pask.
Presentation
To “design our world” has been the goal of every human generation since the first conversations for design occurred “between mind and hand” at the dawn of our species.
This goal has enticed generations of cyberneticians from Heinz von Foerster, to Gordon Pask, Stafford Beer, Francisco Varela, and Humberto Maturana, to Ranulph Glanville and Edith Ackermann. They showed how the processes and epistemology of cybernetics impelled “actions for designing” that are ethical as well as effective. Their work charts a course toward a methodology of design practice that is grounded in formalisms of variety and feedback, language and conversation, intention with action.
From their foundations, this lecture expounds cybernetics as design — that is, learning by constructing together. This comprises design as conversation and design for conversation — that is, cybernetics as conversation for action.
DownloadP Lecture Slides [10MB Final Distro]
DownloadP Audio Recording of Lecture and Q&A (60 mins) — best heard in conjunction with the slides above
DownloadPCybernetics and Design: Conversations for Action
DownloadDesigning for Socially-Conscious Design
DownloadNotes on the Role of Leadership and Language in Regenerating Organizations
DownloadA Systems Literacy Manifesto (prose paper) or (PDF of slidedeck) by Hugh Dubberly
DownloadBlog Posts on Conversation & Design
DownloadLinks about Designing for Conversation
Design for a Self-regenerating Organization—Paper on Requisite Variety and Organizations, co-authored with Paul Pangaro
The Island of Macromol—The Birth, Life and Decay of Innovation (print version) or (Kindle version)
Thanks to Karl Stocker, Daniel Fabry, Hugh Dubberly, and Pooja Upadhyay.
Paul Pangaro’s career spans research, consulting, startups, and education. He relocated to Detroit in 2015 to become Chair of the MFA Interaction Design at the College for Creative Studies. He has taught systems and cybernetics for design at School for Visual Arts, New York, and at Stanford University in Terry Winograd’s Human-Computer Interface program. His most recent startup is General Cybernetics, dedicated to new ways of reading and writing in digital media based on Gordon Pask’s Conversation Theory. He has worked with and within startups in New York and Silicon Valley, in product and technology roles. His consulting clients include Du Pont, Nokia, Samsung, Instituto Itaú Cultural (São Paulo), Ogilvy & Mather, Intellectual Ventures, and PoetryFoundation.org. He has lectured in São Paulo, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Linz, and in cities in the US. His writing explicates “designing for conversation” from his research and his implementations of software and organizational processes. He was awarded a B.S. in Computer Science/Humanities from MIT and was hired by Nicholas Negroponte onto the research staff of the MIT Architecture Machine Group, which morphed into the MIT Media Lab.