Seeking Order

We people tend to order everything. We are wired to see patterns and tend to describe them in structural language or mathematics. (the language of patterns)

We people tend to follow these rules in life:

• Better measure means better prediction means better control.
• Small causes have small consequences.
• More and better order (regularity) is healthier.

To understand the dynamics of large systems we need to know all the factors that play a role in it and we can make predictions.

Chaos everywhere: The butterfly effect

But the above is not true. When we began to study weather and economics it was impossible to find direct patterns. Scientist began to create computer simulations and began to see chaos but also underlying order in the chaos. The weather and stock market could not be predicted by looking at the larger picture. Even a small butterfly could cause a storm…

A new theory was born in the form of the chaos theory. It described that many processes are run by unpredictable factors and are determent by the initial conditions. The initial conditions set a dynamic system in motion and many small influences (butterflies) create very noticable large scale consequence (like storms) in the big system. (like weather)

Social systems

But this is also true for social systems! One person can have a huge effect on the whole organization. Organizations are thus also controlled by chaos theory systems. We people can also work as butterflies and cause huge effects. Look into our history and notice some legendary people that were some unnoticable persons at first. By coincidence they could have huge effect on our whole society and history. Their actions cannot be recreated to form the same legendary figure. It is all about timing and the initial conditions.

But why do we try to look deterministic to our social systems? A system that is ruled by a rigid top down structure can’t easily adapt for weather changes. By top down determination you dumb down all the factors that are really running the social process. It can be run by procedures but you are really ignoring a lot of factors that control a social system. Don’t kill butterflies!

Run by chaos

The process should determine the organization. Chaos should be allowed. Even in chaos there seems to be order. It is true that we need to find the right initial conditions. But once in motion it will adapt much faster by human passion and drive.

Don’t dumb down the process into easy schematic concepts! You will kill a lot of potential. We should favor adaptive organizations and design. The chaos theory could deliver some key insights in this new age.

Related:

• Leadership 2.0
• Big changes ahead for us
• Evolution – the beginning – forming order out of chaos

Companies are something set up by an entrepreneur with passion and most of the time run with a strict hierarchy in mind. There is one boss and several sub managers that each have their own responsibilities. As workdrone you have your own subset of tasks to work in an ‘oiled’ machine.

Top management decides which direction the company will go and what you have to do. They choose the direction that is most profitable for them and you as workdrone has to do the tasks or you can’t make a living. The whole society is run by these kind of systems of bosses and managers.

This has the side effect that work is a necessary evil. You have to spend certain hours on a task and it is governed by many strict rules. The work drone has to be controlled. Many people work towards their free hours where they can spend their well earned money and have some fun. The opposite of work is leisure.

Work 2.0 – The cages disappear

But what if work depended on passion? What if you could decide what to do and follow what you were attracted for when you first decided to do your job. Why not give the workdrone complete freedom to pursue their ambitions?

By setting up what the worker wants to work on you create a workforce that gets to work with more passion. But why let the worker work in an office on standard hours? Why couldn’t (s)he choose his/her own hours? Why don’t people trust their workforce? We want passionate thinkers, not drones….

The opposite of work should be idleness… Working should be something fun which you could combine with your personal life. What if it was fun? What would happen to our productivity? What would happen to our society

Want to know what could happen when we set loose those boundries on work? A Brazilian company Semco has done it and makes a revenue of 160 million a year.

Read more about how this company has done it in the Seven-day Weekend by Ricardo Semler.

Related:

• Leadership 2.0
• Big changes ahead for us
• Media 2.0 -The fall of Britney
• Politics 2.0
• Enemy 2.0

It has been a busy week. A last minute project came by with a deadline that was very tight, but we managed to deliver a 3d visual update in time. The project was build by others so it is always getting used to how they managed all the assets. We proved to ourselves that we can manage thight deadlines and have learned to work efficiently with real time 3D environments. Well it is just fun to see what past experience can do with efficiently doing such complicated short projects.

Well, tomorrow I will be leaving for London visiting the Apply Serious Games conference and the city itself. My main goal is to get some insights in the serious games industry where we of Lucid Media are part of. We are full of ideas as a new startup and now I hope to meet some nice people of the industry and to broaden our vision. I love to see al those case studies and the lessons learned out of them. Sharing experiences is the best way to learn to work efficiently. I love to learn what others think on some of the subjects we encountered in building a real time 3d learning environment.

Expect some updates in the future on the subject

The official name is Lucid Media

Don’t mind the ugly logo thats on it now. We did not choose the best concept until we have a definite logo.

The goal is to create new creative user interfaces in the form of simulations and serious games. We have some past experience with some working prototypes and now we want to built onto that base we laid out the past year. You will here more from us soon.

Well now I am CEO, 3d drone, administration and cleaner all at once. Now the real work begins!