Institute for Analytic Journalism

Lake Arrowhead Conference on Human Complex Systems

Tom Johnson — 2006-12-16T17:56:19-07:00

A number of friends and associates, for whom we have the greatest respect, say this is one of the best, most enriching conferences in the U.S. It is not cheap, but there are vacation condos to be found in the area that would help to make this affordable.

The IAJ plans to be there. Hope to see you there.

4th Lake Arrowhead Conference on Human Complex Systems
conference syllabus

We are back with our 4th UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference on Human Complex Systems. from Wednesday April 25, 2007 through Sunday April 29, 2007.

We look forward to another cross-disciplinary gathering of social scientists who employ cutting-edge agent-based computational modeling and related computational ideas and methods in their research and teaching. As in past years, dozens of presenters from numerous disciplines are presenting. We are also hosting evening panels, a live simulation, and opportunities for networking and relaxation amid gorgeous surroundings.

Advancing Agent Modeling in the Social Sciences
The conference is a forum for sharing the most recent advances -- in theory, methodology and application - in the area of agent modeling throughout the social sciences (e.g., Anthropology, Communication Studies, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Sociology, Urban Planning). We also welcome social scientists in professional schools (e.g., Business, Education, International Relations, Public Health, Public Policy, Social Welfare) and in the public and private sectors. Researchers and theorists in Psychology, Media Studies and social aspects of Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and related disciplines also welcome!

For a paper presentation, authors present for 20 minutes and receive an additional 10 minutes for Q&A. We also welcome 90-120 minute symposium proposals consisting of 3-4 individual papers on a related topic of inquiry. Finally, we are open to someone wishing to organize an evening panel discussion on a �hot topic� in agent modeling.

Decentralized, complex adaptive systems meet realpolitik and journalism. Finally.

Tom Johnson — 2005-12-03T15:23:50-07:00

A couple of articles have passed across our desk in recent days that illustrate the impact -- and importance of understanding -- decentralized (or "distributed") systems and complex adaptive systems.

For starters, take a look at "Reinventing 911
How a swarm of networked citizens is building a better emergency broadcast system."
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/warning.html

Author Gary Wolf writes: "I've been talking with security experts about one of the thorniest problems they face: How can we protect our complex society from massive but unpredictable catastrophes? The homeland security establishment has spent an immeasurable fortune vainly seeking an answer, distributing useless, highly specialized equipment, and toggling its multicolored Homeland Security Advisory System back and forth between yellow, for elevated, and orange, for high. Now I've come [to Portland, Oregon] to take a look at a different set of tools, constructed outside the control of the federal government and based on the notion that the easier it is for me to find out about a loose dog tying up traffic, the safer I am from a terrorist attack.

"To understand the true nature of warnings, it helps to see them not as single events, like an air-raid siren, but rather as swarms of messages racing through overlapping social networks, like the buzz of gossip. Residents of New Orleans didn't just need to know a hurricane was coming. They also needed to be informed that floodwaters were threatening to breach the levees, that not all neighborhoods would be inundated, that certain roads would become impassible while alternative evacuation routes would remain open, that buses were available for transport, and that the Superdome was full.

"No central authority possessed this information. Knowledge was fragmentary, parceled out among tens of thousands of people on the ground. There was no way to gather all these observations and deliver them to where they were needed. During Hurricane Katrina, public officials from top to bottom found themselves locked within conventional channels, unable to receive, analyze, or redistribute news from outside. In the most egregious example, Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff said in a radio interview that he had not heard that people at the New Orleans convention center were without food or water. At that point they'd been stranded two days.

"By contrast, in the system Botterell created for California, warnings are sucked up from an array of sources and sent automatically to users throughout the state. Messages are squeezed into a standard format called the Common Alerting Protocol, designed by Botterell in discussion with scores of other disaster experts. CAP gives precise definitions to concepts like proximity, urgency, and certainty. Using CAP, anyone who might respond to an emergency can choose to get warnings for their own neighborhood, for instance, or only the most urgent messages. Alerts can be received by machines, filtered, and passed along. The model is simple and elegant, and because warnings can be tagged with geographical coordinates, users can customize their cell phones, pagers, BlackBerries, or other devices to get only those relevant to their precise locale."

Second item of interest
I'm sure many of you noted Dexter Filkins Pg1 lead story in the NYT on Friday, 2 Dec. 2005. The online version headline is "Profusion of Rebel Groups Helps Them Survive in Iraq." That, unfortunately, lacks the truth and insight of the print version headline:
"Loose Structure of Rebels Helps them Survive in Iraq -- While Al Qaeda Gains Attention, Many Small Groups Attack on Their Own."

It seems that finally someone in the journalism community has figured out that what's happening in Iraq -- and around the world -- is a decentralize, CAS. Too bad journalists -- journalism educators, students and professionals -- haven't been exposed to the concepts and vocabulary to really present the problem in all its, ahem, complexity.

Positive Deviance

JTJ — 2005-05-13T22:42:58-06:00

"Positive Deviance"
Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? In fact, the concept has been batted around for 14-plus years and has evolved enough to have its own physical and virtual place in the universe at the Plexus Institute and Tufts University Positive Deviance Initiative.

"Positive Deviance ... demonstrates that isolated examples of success can be tapped to benefit an entire community or organization. Accomplishing this requires a radical departure from 'benchmarking' and 'best practices' strategies of change....The PD approach builds on successful but 'deviant' (different) practices that are identified from within a community or organization. It is based on the observation that in every group there are certain individuals whose uncommon, but demonstrably successful practices or behaviors enable them to find better solutions than their neighbors or colleagues who have access to exactly the same resources. Its use was pioneered in developing countries and has led to sustainable improvements in seemingly intractable organizational and social issues."

The approach was originally developed for -- and continues to be applied to -- health care. But we at the IAJ like it because it is a "transferable concept and social technology," something that could take root in "deviant" journalism.

We also like the approach because it is an example of how the high-level concepts of complexity studies and Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) can move from the theoretical to the experimental and on to application state. Again, something that journalism, and expecially journalism educators, should be thinking about.

Recent Projects Using Systems Thinking Innovatively

JTJ — 2005-03-28T22:16:17-07:00

The Boston Indicators Project, a joint effort of The Boston Foundation and the City of Boston, Massachusetts, used systems thinking in their 2002 report, Creativity & Innovation: A Bridge to the Future. The Foundation worked with systems thinking consultants (Daniel Aronson, Four Profit Inc; Phil Clawson, Community Matters Group; and Brendan Miller and Osamu Uehara of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to help find a core theme in the changes in the 200 indicators related to the greater Boston area's economic strength, civic life, community fabric, health status, diversity, and other areas. As a result, the report highlights the connections between economic innovation, transportation, the cost of living, diversity, demographics, and many other areas.

Principia Cybernetica Web: Cybernetics and Systems Theory

JTJ — 2005-03-28T22:12:30-07:00

The following links provide general background information on the field of Cybernetics and Systems Theory, an interdisciplinary academic domain.

Gene Bellinger: "Introduction to Systems Thinking"

JTJ — 2005-03-28T22:09:57-07:00

"People, when initially introduced to structures, also referred to as Archetypes, often find them a bit overwhelming. They really aren't at all difficult once you get used to them. The following is an introduction to structures and how to read the stories associated with the diagrams."
http://www.systems-thinking.org/intst/int.htm
Be sure to work upstream in the URL to see the rest of Bellinger's work.

System Dynamics Society

JTJ — 2005-03-28T22:02:18-07:00

System Dynamics Society
System dynamics is a methodology for studying and managing complex feedback systems, such as one finds in business and other social systems. In fact it has been used to address practically every sort of feedback system. While the word system has been applied to all sorts of situations, feedback is the differentiating descriptor here. Feedback refers to the situation of X affecting Y and Y in turn affecting X perhaps through a chain of causes and effects. One cannot study the link between X and Y and, independently, the link between Y and X and predict how the system will behave. Only the study of the whole system as a feedback system will lead to correct results.

What is System Dynamics

Tom Johnson — 2005-03-16T21:47:55-07:00

<>The System Dynamics Group was founded in the early 1960s by Professor Jay W. Forrester at MIT. At that time, he began applying what he had learned about systems during his work in electrical engineering to every day kinds of systems. What makes using system dynamics different from other approaches to studying complex systems is the use of feedback loops. Stocks and flows help describe how a system is connected by feedback loops which create the nonlinearity found so frequently in modern day problems. Computers software is used to simulate a system dynamics model of the situation being studied. Running "what if" simulations to test certain policies on such a model can greatly aid in understanding how the system changes over time.
See http://web.mit.edu/sdg/www/

Links on Cybernetics and Systems

Tom Johnson — 2005-03-16T21:44:11-07:00

For a good jumpstation related to GST, see:
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBSYSLI.html

What is Systems Theory?

Tom Johnson — 2005-03-16T21:42:09-07:00

Systems Theory: the transdisciplinary study of the abstract organization of phenomena, independent of their substance, type, or spatial or temporal scale of existence. It investigates both the principles common to all complex entities, and the (usually mathematical) models which can be used to describe them.
See: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SYSTHEOR.html