This week, I’ve been mulling over Eric Beinhocker’s book, ‘The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity and the Radical Remaking of Economics’ (see previous posts – an overview and a discussion…
How can Complexity and Systems Thinking end Malaria?
This is complexity week on the blog, pegged to the launch of Ben Ramalingam’s big new book ‘Aid on the Edge of Chaos’ at the ODI on Wednesday (I get…
The war for Twaweza’s soul: the hunger for clarity and certainty v the demands of complexity
…digging deeper into complexity, rather than retreating from it. One suggestion that moves in the right direction is to set up a ‘positive deviance lab’, dedicated to detecting and then…
Complexity Economics, Evolution and How Change Happens
Eric Beinhocker’s book, ‘The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity and the Radical Remaking of Economics’ (for review see previous post) challenges our understanding of how change happens and the role…
Campaigning and Complexity: how do we campaign on a problem when we don’t know the solution?
…of complex systems is that solutions are seldom obvious and often only emerge from trial and error. Elsewhere I’ve translated the offputting language of complexity theory into ‘how do you…
What does Tolstoy's War and Peace teach us about Causation, Complexity and Theories of Change?
…his frustration with the causal explanations of the day, he is banging on the doors of complexity theory. Some choice quotes, mainly from the concluding meditation on the nature of…
Using Graphics to Cut Through Covid’s Complexity
…because Covid-19 has multiplied this by a zillion. To try and cut through the tangles of complexity wrought by a global pandemic, I’ve been working with Peter Evans (and his…
Do fragile states evolve like forests? Insights from complexity thinking
Oxfam’s engagement with physics-trained complexity enthusiast Jean Boulton is starting to generate some really interesting ideas. Jean has been helping us think through our work in fragile states – the…
I had no idea that working across disciplines (on innovation, complexity and scale) was this painful, but it might be worth it
I went off to New York last week at the invitation of the UNDP Regional Center in Europe and Central Asia to discuss using complexity thinking to design a new…
A 3-fold theory of social change (and some great quotes on complexity, ambiguity and dreaming)
…not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side.” Oliver Wendell Holmes “Whosoever wishes…
Last word to Twaweza: Varja Lipovsek and Rakesh Rajani on How to Keep the Ambition and Complexity, Be Less Fuzzy and Get More Traction
…complexity we seek to understand. What we are aiming to do, particularly next year, is to set up a learning architecture which will use a variety of metrics, methods, and…
How complexity thinking cut malnutrition in Vietnam by two thirds
To end complexity week, another of the fascinating case studies from Ben Ramalingam’s Aid on the Edge of Chaos In December 1991, Jerry and Monique Sternin arrived in Vietnam so…