Cognitive Edge

Many years ago I read Max Boist's Knowledge Assets and Rosetta Stone came across his I-Space model which inspired an early version of the Cynefin framework. I have always acknowledged the debt, but at no stage laid any claim to Boisot's original model. This is basic academic integrity; acknowledge your sources but take responsibility for what follows. Integrity also requires its practitioners to not claim status by association; a form of plagiarism that should probably evoke sympathy as much as condemnation. Since the Cynefin framework achieved some fame I have seen various responses which can be roughly grouped as follows: (i) use and development of the model, with proper acknowledgement of source, (ii) various uses of the model to domains with which I have varying levels of knowledge and (iii) what I will call the vindication response. The first two of these are legitimate and a stimulus to thinking, equivalent to my work with Boisot. The vindication approach is one where someone seizes on the model as vindicating something they have believed for a long time, but have not been able to secure the attention they feel they deserve. All too often they have not even read the material, just seized on some of the language and and key phrases with which they resonate, and then use the model to vindicate their own ideas; bootstrapping credibility. This is the second form of plagiarism that I reference above and I will confess I generally get irritated before I realise that sympathy or indifference is probably a better response. That said I always try my best to engage with the individual concerned.Observers of the twitterverse will by now have realised that I am referencing recent disagreements with Tom Graves, self described as an Enterprise architect, business anarchist and confusionist. I hadn't paid much attention to the most esoteric of these descriptors but over the last month ago I have gained more appreciation! Tom Rosetta Stone Language is also into water and pendulum dowsing, "earth-mysteries" and personal development based on the nordic concept of Wyrd; an interesting combination of interests which has some relevance to what follows.Origins of Cynefin in Systems ArchitectureThe original reason I engaged with Tom is that he appeared to understand that a systems architecture is not just about IT systems. This contrasts with my first encounter with the subject, back in IBM days where the founding father was generally considered to be J A Zachman and his IBM Systems Journal paper A framework for information systems architecture is still a classic. There are two interesting links here. The first fully refereed article on Cynefin was also in the IBM Systems Journal, and the referees made several references back to Zachman. Secondly there was an extended discourse between the Cynefin group in IBM and various systems architectural initiatives. IBM was then (in a CEO sponsored initiative) engaged in a research programme to take the ideas of a CEO (possibly with the involvement of his/her board but I got the sense that was optional) and translate them into IT systems with minimal human intervention. That discourse which went on over a couple of years had a profound impact on the emerging Cynefin framework. The "Probe-Sense-Respond" nomenclature along with the catastropic fold between simple and chaos all come from that period. Since that time the Rosetta Stone American English application of the Cynefin framework to business design has continued, but there is also a significant technical interface in our development of both tools and methods.