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The Primer Project of ISSS was an ambitous effort to capture some of the essence of General Systems Theory on a previous ISSS website.

 

We moved the ISSS website to a new server in May 2020 and so the old primer site became unavailable.

 

Rob Young with support from Peter Tuddenham has revived and updated much of this primer website. Thank you Rob Young for your work on this project.

 

You can find it here https://web3.isss.org/primer2/

 

If you find errors or links not working please email webadmin at isss.org

 

This year, because the Operational Research Society of the UK cannot do a face-to-face conference, it is arranging a free event that anybody can sign up for. Instead of regular streams, each topic area has a representative 60-minute session. The Systems Thinking session will be delivered by Luis Sambo (Visiting Professor, Centre for Systems Studies; Ex-Director of WHO Africa) and Mike Jackson (Emeritus Professor and Founder, Centre for Systems Studies). Luis Sambo will talk about how Critical Systems Thinking informed his leadership of the WHO response to Ebola in Africa, and then Mike Jackson will follow up with lessons for handling covid-19 today. Subject to confirmation, this session will be at 1pm on 15 September 2020.

 

One of the plenary speakers is Ellen Lewis, Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Systems Studies (and a 2016 graduate from University of Hull Systems  PhD program).  She will be talking about the systemic evaluation of development projects, with a focus on gender, environments and marginalized voices. Also subject to confirmation, this will be at 1pm on 16 September 2020.

 

More information https://www.theorsociety.com/events/annual-conference/

Over the three years of my time as President-elect, President and Past-President of ISSS I have worked with William (Bill) Smith to develop and use his approach "Understanding Lightness, Darkness and Color (LDC),as a Systems Language" to understanding systems in relation to ISSS as an organization and also to the development of Systems Literacy. Read more about Bill and his life's work at http://www.odii.com   

 

With respect to ISSS in 2020 Bill invited ISSS members to complete a color selection activity as a way to gather information about individual preferences.  He has combined  the individual results to produce a group picture as well as a male and female portraits. All three come with recommendations for how ISSS can make better use its purpose power relationships and achieve balance between male and female.

 

The results are posted here 

 

Media1 from ISSS on Vimeo.

The University of Washington, Tacoma School of Engineering and Technology announces its new PhD program in Computer Science and Systems: https://www.tacoma.uw.edu/institute-technology-intranet/phd-computer-science-systems 

While the core of the program will emphasize the CS part, I have a number of computer-based research projects in modeling language for systems, a tool set for modeling systems, and the design/implementation of an efficient knowledgebase for systems. Please pass on this to anyone you think might be interested in pursuing such a doctorate degree.

 

Contact for more information

 

Saturday 28 June 2020 was, as far as I am aware, an unique occasion in the ISSS history, perhaps the first since the founding in 1954. The President -elect Delia Macnamara, the current President Shankar Sankaran, the Past-President Peter Tuddenham, the VP Admin Jennifer Makar, the VP systems Practice Gary Smith, and Saturday online meetings coordinator and facilitator Deeanna Burleson all co-presented and co invited consultation of members on the future directions, actions and activities for ISSS.  As a member you can view the recording at  https://www.isss.org/systems-science-integration/

Rob Young and I are building the Digital Library here for ISSS. You can see more under that Library menu tab.  One of the related tasks is to research and discover as much of the ISSS history as we can. One project from years ago is called the Primer Project. We are working to "restore" the web-based project to new servers.

 

In the course of this work I came across the image below showing four systemic domains.  This is also relevant to other ongoing work at ISSS to chart the course for the future of ISSS. In the Primer Project there is also reference to the Four Winds. Here is a capture of that page from the Primer Project.

 

the purpose of the ISSS is described as "to encourage the development of theoretical systems which are applicable to more than one of the traditional departments of knowledge", this and the aims: 

Invitation to a submit papers to a special issue in IJMSR Due 30 July 2020

Five of us from different corners of the world (Netherlands, Australia, United Kingdom, India and South Africa) are putting together a special issue on behalf of the  Academy of Management's Interest Group  on Management, Spirituality and Religion. We are working  on a quick turnaround of  papers on the impact of COVID-19 on indigenous communities. around the world as well as what we can learn from those communities about managing and recovering from this crisis.

The call  for papers can be found at

https://bit.ly/jmsr-covid19-special-issue-call
Please consider submitting a paper.

Shankar Sankaran
Professor - Organisational Project Management
School of the Built Environment
University of Technology Sydney. Australia
President - International Society for the Systems Sciences

On behalf of special issue editors:
Sharda Nandram (Vrije University/Nyenrode Business School, Netherlands), Paresh Wankhade (Edge Hill University Business School, UK), Puneet Bindish (Indian Institute of Technology - Varnasi) and Albert Wort (University of Johannesburg)

Dear members

 

Our board has now ratified our request to cancel the annual meeting at Stellenbosch this year due the current situation with COVID-19. 

 

We are still considering the following activities related to our annual meeting. So the Board is still busy and holding mini focused meetings to deal with the following items.

 

1. Holding discussions on the Grand Challenge of Water that we agreed to do with INCOSE this year. 

2. Continue to call for papers and publish submitted papers after review. Outlets are being discussed.

3. Discussing whether we can provide awards for student papers as we do every year.

4. Publishing the year book in SRBS as we usually do. Discussing how we can secure contributions for this issue.

5. Discussing virtual meetings, regional get together events in small numbers and next year's meeting

6. Calling for nominations and organizing the AGM, Council Meeting and Changeover of the Board in July.

 

We will keep you posted.

 

Please stay safe.

 

On behalf of the board

 

Shankar Sankaran

 

 

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