Mini Symposia and Open Mic Sessions 2024-2025
Welcome to a new season of Mini Symposia!
We have created a new page for this season so please check back regularly for developments in schedule and recordings.
The schedule is being developed so if you have any suggestions for speakers, please email me at
president@isss.org
This year, we plan to host sessions at different times to meet the needs of our international membership and presenters. As a result, please confirm the weekly times as they may change.
This page will contain the upcoming session along with the information and recording of the past session.
You can access the sessions using the link above. It will not change.
Upcoming Mini Symposia Presentation
If you would like to help organize future events then please get in touch with Jen Makar or Gary Smith
Richard Berry

Saturday 15th March
Data Variety – The Subtle and the Stark
The notion of requisite variety, often referred to as Ashby’s law, highlights that only variety in a system can absorb the variety placed upon it. Demand variety therefore informs the nature and extent of systemic regulation required. This presentation draws from observational, event and system-actor evidence which indicates that data variety is amplifying challenges for policing and justice as core forms of societal regulation. It questions if requisite responses are being provided.
Peircean reasoning and combinatorial theory were used to interpret evidence gathered during immersed engaged-scholarship. A Data Requisite Variety Framework (DRVF) was developed to explore digital perturbations within systems of policing and criminal justice. An Evidence Inference Confidence Framework (EICF) was developed to rate research evidence.
Data varieties emerge from many intelligence and evidential sources used in policing and security e.g., device forensics are influenced by many factors such as probabilistic algorithmic analyses and varying human interpretations. These dynamic and dissipative systems naturally generate varying truths. The EICF thus offers a prospective means of calibrating evidentiality in legal settings.
Impacts: In the stark light of critical and recent miscarriages of justice, a case is made for the subtle complexities of data variety and evidential inference to be explored further.
Associated areas: Leadership of data complexity. Institutional ultrastability and systemic pathologies including the possible value of álgos (pain) signaling.
Past Mini Symposia Sessions
Bruce McNaughton
Saturday 25th January
Honolulu, USA Sat, 25 Jan 2025 at 05:00 HST
Los Angeles, USA Sat, 25 Jan 2025 at 07:00 PST
New York, USA Sat, 25 Jan 2025 at 10:00 EST
London, United Kingdom Sat, 25 Jan 2025 at 15:00 GMT
Cape Town, South Africa Sat, 25 Jan 2025 at 17:00 SAST
New Delhi, India Sat, 25 Jan 2025 at 20:30 IST
Adelaide, Australia Sun, 26 Jan 2025 at 01:30 ACDT
Systemic Management Practice and Management Systems in the Enterprise.
My research focus from 2010 has been to understand Good Management Practice Principle 1 from the book, The Puritan Gift, by Kenneth and William Hopper:
“All successful organizations, however simple, consist of systems within a system”
My research questions are: what are the systems? and why is it the first management principle?
The book focuses on the Rise and Decline of American Management Practice and proposes 25 Management Principles to reclaim good management practice. I was fortunate to have conversations with Will Hopper to understand more about the key elements of his book. This led me to reflect on my own management and systems practice. I realized that I learned my management practice at the peak in an enterprise with good management practices.
This presentation will explore the systems concepts from Rosen, Fritjof Capra, Ackoff, Bertalanffy, Checkland, Peter Senge and systems engineering to share the systemic management practices I learned and practice using Management Language and my explorations into Management Systems.
I will build on Saturday Presentations from: Judith Rosen (14-December-2024), Richard Beasley (7-December-2024), and Jon Rains (5-October-2024). I will also integrate Living Systems (Fritjof Capra and his Capra Course) and Organizational Learning (Peter Senge).
Judith Rosen
Saturday 14th December
Anticipatory Systems, Evolution, and Extinction Cascades
When we think about evolution— specifically the entailment underlying the process of change in species of living organisms, over eons of time, which we call “evolution”— and as we seek to increase our scientific understanding of it, one glaring omission I see is that there is no mention of the fact that living organisms manifest patterns of behavior that are radically different from non living systems. Life does not just react, the way all non-living systems do; life also Anticipates. Therefore, we need to factor in the Anticipatory nature of all life into our models (both our mental models and scientific models) and see where that leads us in our understanding. I contend that this peculiar Anticipatory pattern of behavior is, in fact, the “signature” of life. According to my father, Robert Rosen, the Anticipatory pattern is ubiquitous in biological systems, at all scales of organization, and is common to all life forms regardless of species. In higher life forms, such as homo sapiens, it is the very same pattern that characterizes mind as well.
Richard Beasley
Saturday 7th December
"Systems Engineering (and so Systems Engineers) are Part of a System"
Drawing from many years of hard won experience, Richard will provide his reflections on how SE actually delivers its value (the link between the value statement and the activities), and how Systems Engineers must not become yet another new silo.
Jason Jixuan Hu
Saturday 30th November
Developing Capabilities of Leaders to
Navigate in the Complexities of Our Time
In this talk, we will explore a new framework for the sciences and the critical role of systems and cybernetics (S&C) knowledge within it. The world is calling for a hard-core, structured education program in systems and cybernetics, and it is up to leading organizations like WOSC, WCSA, ASC, ISSS, and others to shape and drive this initiative.
We will present five key "seeds" that can form the foundation of this educational revolution:
1. A Learning Map: Guiding young students toward mastery of systems and cybernetics through a core curriculum.
2. Communicatics: Expanding cybernetics into a tool for effective team building and collaboration.
3. A Taxonomy of Systems Thinking: Offering a comprehensive "tool-store" of metaphoric models to support learners and practitioners alike.
4. A Frontier Research Program: Mapping out cutting-edge areas where further research is needed to refine and advance the curriculum.
5. AI-assisted Learning Center: Leveraging internet-based, AI-powered tools to facilitate hands-on learning and collaboration.
Attendees are invited to join this evolving project, contributing to the ongoing development of a transformative educational program. By signing up, participants will gain access to key documents and resources to be part of this hands-on effort.
Amar KJR Nayak
Saturday 23/11/2024

AIESS & Regenerativeness –
Philosophical & Methodological underpinnings
Rising Imbalances and Degeneration in different ecosystems across the globe represent a host of Global Problematique. All Interacting Evolving Systems Science (AIESS) is the science of understanding and addressing the complex dynamics of change, whether degenerative or regenerative. It rests on four axioms—interconnections, interdependence, interactions, and intentionality—which shape its ontology, epistemology, logic, and axiology.
The changes we observe in reality—whether in ecological, social, political, or economic aspects of an ecosystem—are understood through the interactions between various factors within and among these dimensions. The changes in reality (ontology) are an outcome of the interactions (epistemology) of the interconnected and interdependent nature (logic) of the variables, factors, and dimensions of a system. The nature of change arising out of the above logic and epistemology is a function of the intentionality (axiology) of the decision-maker (s).
While the first three axioms of interconnections, interdependence, and interactions operate naturally, the fourth axiom, intentionality, is the only degree of freedom of thinking to act and influence change in an ecosystem. Intentionality lies on a spectrum ranging from self-centred to other-cantered. Depending on certainty, temporal certainty, or uncertainty perspective, a thinking being may or may not acknowledge the first three axioms and will choose features of design factors of different dimensions accordingly, anywhere along the spectrum of each factor. The phenomenon of change is shaped by the interactions of the chosen features of factors within a system or ecosystem.
The seminar will focus on the core ideas of the book, Regenerative Ecosystems, discussing, first, the basis for regenerativeness in different ecosystems, viz., natural, urban, rural, and industrial, and second, how the eco-systemic transdisciplinary factors and variables are operationalized in different sub-systems or ecosystems to initiate regenerative cycles.
Janet McIntyre
SUNDAY! 17/11/2024
"All life communicates"
Indigenous custodians ‘know it’ What can we do about it? Why does it matter that indigenous knowledge systems are ( largely) ignored?
Benjamin Taylor
RedQuadrant
Saturday 26th October 2024
How can we engage positive dynamics of differentiation and integration in developing systems/cybernetics/complexity?
Benjamin will introduce the four organisational dynamics (and their systems | cybernetics | complexity roots), their pathologies, diagnosis, and associated prescriptions:
• Segment – separating out into teams and specialisms
• Blend – coming together to work effectively as one unit
• Empower – each person to use their specific skills and talents
• Harmonise – bringing everyone together to focus on a common goal
He will then discuss how we might apply these to our own extended field, and invite discussion on whether and how we can use these concepts to positively influence more effective organisation.
Benjamin Taylor, is a dedicated amateur in the systems | cybernetics | complexity space. He is on the board of SCiO (systems and complexity in organisation), the systems practice professional body, teaches on the level 7 systems thinking practice apprenticeship, and at times has been the noodle in every soup in the field… he runs a network consultancy in the UK, RedQuadrant, and a social enterprise, the Public Service Transformation Academy. He regularly blogs and writes in the space – all links at antlerboy.com
Angela Montgomery
Co-founder
Intelligent Management Inc.
Saturday 19th October 2024
Addressing the Human Constraint in Organizations through a Systemic Approach
Most companies and organizations are still stuck in a traditional top-down, siloed organization. They lack the knowledge, method and tools to understand and manage their organization as a system. Over the years of helping companies embrace a systemic model of management, we see that the major barrier to change is in the mental models and assumptions trapping the decision makers. It is what we have come to call a cognitive constraint. A systemic approach to thinking can unblock them and also lead to breakthrough solutions.
Mark Enzer OBE FREng
Saturday 12th October 2024
Co-creating a shared understanding of systems thinking in the built environment

It’s time that we saw the built environment differently, not as a series of construction projects, but as a system of systems whose explicit purpose is to enable people and nature to flourish together for generations. This is not just a nice concept; it is a powerful necessity because the key challenges of our generation are systemic: achieving net zero, climate resilience and the circular economy are all systems-level challenges that demand systems-based solutions. Therefore we must use all the means at our disposal to understand our built and natural systems better and to intervene more effectively. This presentation will make a case for advancing systems-thinking and driving systems change in the built environment, starting with the co-creation of a shared understanding to foster meaningful communication, align our efforts towards common goals, and enable effective collaboration.
Mark is a keen champion of outcomes-focused systems-thinking, collaborative delivery models, digitalisation, connected digital twins and the circular economy in the built environment. Mark is the Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in the digitalisation of the built environment at the University of Cambridge, and he is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London. As Strategic Advisor at Mott MacDonald, Mark provides advice to key clients on digitalisation and broader industry transformation. Previously, Mark was the CTO of Mott MacDonald and the Director of the Centre for Digital Built Britain, where he was the Head of the National Digital Twin programme.
Jon Rains
Saturday 5th October 2024
Exploring the systemic implementation of an innovation strategy using ISO 56002

An innovation strategy aims to provide guidance in terms of direction and prioritization regarding innovation efforts. This study explores the formulation and implementation of innovation strategy in the context of a case study of an organization that explicitly deploys the guidance standard for innovation management systems ISO56002. Interviews were conducted and were analyzed together with an abundance of company documentation, spanning a time period of over seven years. The empirical results convey how intertwined the work on innovation strategy was with the formulation of the company’s innovation management system (based on ISO56002). The study also shows the innovation strategy as part of the leadership element in ISO56002 influencing the other system elements within the innovation management system, hence demonstrating systemic relations, which supports the benefit of utilizing a systemic approach for innovation management. Finally, the importance of considering a system of systems to integrate an IMS and the OMS/BMS and other management systems whilst retaining the flexibility to innovate within an organization.
Jessie Henshaw
Saturday 28th September 2024
How Words First Anchored Our Minds to Nature
A systems view of “what words mean” can be discovered by questioning what value words would have if they were only metaphors and just defined by usage. The path leads to finding they’d be unanchored, prone to change, and incapable of reflecting the meaningful relationships of the natural world that language is, in fact, so very useful for helping us navigate. So, how was it that language developed its deeply rooted meanings that different languages even tend to share, as seen in how the many Indo-European languages use words to refer to much the same things, behaviors, and values of observed natural phenomena? Well, it’s a long story that seems to imply a very slow but faithful cross-talk along the exploration and migration patterns of the three great human diasporas, homo-erectus, heidelbergensis, and sapiens.
Lynn Rasmussen
Saturday, 14/09/2024
A Systems View of a Catastrophic Disaster
Yoram Vodovotz, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh; Field Chief Editor, Frontiers in Systems Biology
Saturday, August 31st, 2024

Systems Biology has evolved over the past 20+ years to include clinical applications, which we originally termed Translational Systems Biology in 2008. As Systems Biology continues to evolve, addressing unmet clinical needs requires an integrated, interdisciplinary approach leaving methodological silos based on distinct disciplines and methods. Our group has attempted to integrate data-driven and mechanistic modeling with a clinical focus using a variety of approaches. Dynamic biological network analyses have provided a unique perspective on how cytokines and chemokines, proteins that mediate inflammation, interact with each other across tissues to up- and down-regulate systemic inflammation. Taken together, these studies implicate IL‐17A and the vagus nerve in the cross‐tissue spread of inflammation. Ultimately, we seek to use parsimonious as well as large, multi-compartment, mechanistic mathematical models in conjunction with novel data-driven modeling approaches to gain new perspectives on inflammation.
Joe Velikovsky
Saturday, August 24th, 2024

A scientific solution to the narreme, the unit of story - via Evolutionary Culturology & Systems Science
Stories / narratives appear in most media, including within the domains of literature, film, theater/theatre, television, music, religion, the visual arts, video games, and other media. The question (the scientific problem) of the universal unit of story, also known as the unit of narrative, also known as the narreme, within all domains of culture was a long-unsolved problem, dating at least to the 1960s. A 2016 PhD study of creativity in cinema presented a solution to this problem; that solution is summarized in this paper. As stories / narratives are also units of culture, the same scientific discovery that revealed the unit of story (the narreme) also applies generally to units in all domains in culture, and has resulted in a meta-meta-science known as Evolutionary Culturology, also briefly summarized herein, and which provides a solution to consilience, the unity of knowledge (E O Wilson 1998), enabling both the Social Sciences and Arts/Humanities to fall under the purview of Science. `Culture’ is defined in Evolutionary Culturology as all: ideas, processes, and products. Scientific tools of Evolutionary Culturology are useful for all analytical and synthetic studies of culture.
This 40-minute invited PowerPoint talk (& 20-minute Q&A) for the ISSS is a précis of the paper `A scientific solution to the narreme, the unit of story’ (Velikovsky of Newcastle & The EthiSizer AI, 02023).
Please find a link to the (2023) preprint version of the paper,
here
& a link to the Ev Cult weblog,
here
Saturday, August 17th, 2024
R. Eva King, Ph.D.- ABD, MA-ODC, MDE, BSBA
Quantum Decision-Making in Groups -> Quantum Social Learning
A Model for Cultural Transformation Using Quantum Entanglement
This paper uses a quantum theory-based approach to explain a theoretical model for cultural transformation. Braiding concepts from cognitive science, quantum theory, and Indigenous ways of knowing, the model includes key cybernetic elements such as framing and Maturana’s languaging. The model becomes a complex adaptive system where each system is entangled with the others.
Quantum theory provides many concepts that allow us to move past binary or Cartesian thought. The theoretical model in this paper focuses primarily on entanglement, which is when two or more objects are connected in space-time over a distance. Entanglement can be applied as a metaphor to create transdisciplinary bridges between normally siloed systems in theoretical models. This paper will not include quantum quantitative modeling and will focus on a strictly theoretical model, braiding concepts and systems together to focus on a potential path to cultural transformation.
As technology exponentially increases, most cultures rely more on technology than the natural world around them. Reclaiming Indigenous ways of knowing brings important concepts such as relationships and value for the natural world into the larger system. Many Indigenous cultures already see much of the world through a quantum lens. Language then serves as the entanglement to cultural change, much as Maturana describes.
Cognitive science describes the critical period, or crucial learning time, when humans create frameworks to experience the world. These times entangle with brain changes. These changes may be developmental, as a child matures to human, or environmental, including trauma or dietary changes. Machine learning also has a critical period, as do animals, such as the imprinting of birds on parental figures. Understanding the commonalities will help us to transcend into a time/ space of a more-than-human world.
R. Eva King, Ph.D.- ABD, MA-ODC, MDE, BSBA
Quantum Theory, Cybernetics, and Social Learning
Ph.D. Student-Organizational Development and Change
Media, Technology, and Innovation Concentration
Fielding Graduate University, School of Leadership Studies
Faculty Governance Research Team, Student Member
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kingevar/
Research Gate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eva-King-2
Academia.edu https://fielding.academia.edu/REvaKing
Saturday, August 10 2024
Manel Pretel-Wilson, PhD
Systems Ethics: Pursuing Something Good or Bad
All science is systems science, but not all sciences study systems. Some sciences, such as the human sciences, study the human world in relation to human systems and, in particular, ethics studies the moral sphere of the human world in relation to human systems who realize values and reinforce countervalues. Furthermore, ethics is the fundamental human science just like physics is the fundamental natural science, in as much as the laws of ethics apply to the entire human world just like the laws of physics apply to the entire universe. However, we have a long way to go before we discover the fundamental laws of the human world. In this mini-symposium, Manel Pretel is going to share his finding in his attempt to make ethics a science whose object is not human happiness but discovering what brings value to the world around us and what does not.
Saturday, August 3 2024
Mehaad Tegally
Dimensions Surfacing Heuristics - revealing the dimensions of complex problems in organizations
The presentation will focus on the Context, Basis, Structure & Applications of DSH.
DSH simplify the task of coming up with all the influential dimensions of complex problems/issues that an Organization faces. In a structured and participative group discussion, the outcome can harmonize different worldviews. In a problem-solving situation, the burden of accurate problem-framing is lessened with the use of DSH. In a soft System-optimization process, DSH helps to address more than one complex problem at a time, to dissolve problems rather than solving them, and to future-solves anticipated ones.
DSH is similar in approach to CSH (Critical Systems Heuristics) in that it poses 25 questions in both the descriptive and normative modes, to make the dimensions-revealing process explicit. The Organization’s Value, Capability, Availability & Flexibility (V-C-A-F Optimization Quadrants) are defined in such a way that its characteristics (qualities, strengths & weaknesses) become systemic considerations. These embodied characteristics of the Organization are then revealed through an integral probing process with respect to the identified complex issues and general complexity-dimensions. The organization-environment relationship is also a key consideration during the process.
Saturday July 27th
Plans for Systems Education
Clifford Whitcomb
Meet newly elected ISSS VP Education, Professor Clifford Whitcomb as he shares his vision for systems education.
Professor Clifford Whitcomb from the Cornell University Systems Engineering program will introduce himself in the context of his new position as the ISSS VP of Education. He will provide a brief overview of a current initiative he is leading entitled “Towards an Common Core for System Science Education”. He would like to engage in an open dialogue with attendees about needs for Systems education from K12 through graduate school, in both formal and informal settings, and on into lifelong learning.
Learn more about Clifford
here

Saturday July 6th, 2024
A General Theory of Systemness (Not Systems)
George E. Mobus

Abstract
This paper proposes a somewhat different approach to the notion of there being a general theory of systems (GST) as originally proposed by von Bertalanffy (1969). The difference hinges on the use of the neologism ‘systemness’ as opposed to the generally used term ‘system.’ In this approach I will assert that there exists a primary set of conjoined and interrelated general attributes (and properties?) that constitute a holistic and, it is hoped, complete description of what it means to be a system, hence “systemness.” The attempt will be made to argue that this set of attributes constitutes a necessary and (potentially) sufficient means to describe or construct a ‘thing’ that every observer would agree is and a system. Thus, using this set of attributes analysts can decompose, without losing information, an existing system of any arbitrary complexity to grasp a deep understanding of something previously not understood (i.e., have predictable behavior) or engineers/practitioners can design functional/sustainable systems.
The theoretical framework advanced here can be applied to anything that one might regard a system, it provides an explanation for the ontogenesis of systems, in general, and it provides an explanation for how being a system is what leads to the next iteration of system construction, higher levels of organization, and greater complexity. The growth of organization and complexity, in direct contradiction to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is a natural consequence of being a “successful” system, i.e., having its existence for some duration.
Saturday June 29th, 2024
ISSS President Gary Smith: Towards an Integrated Framework for Systems Science
During this session Gary will present his strategy and vision for his term and how it relates to an integrated framework for systems science.