Fish & Rice - A Fishy Twist in the Tale

To a Bengali like me nothing in the world is more delicious than a plate of fish and rice. We just love it. The variety is simply endless and the different ways this delicacy may be cooked and presented are simply mindbloggling. Well, you can never feel the excitement unless you start enjoying this delicacy.

But do fishes have any deeper connections with rice than the obvious connection on the dining table?

I did not realize this connection till I was traveling down a state highway last week to visit one of my clients in the state of Chattisgarh, which lies in the eastern part of India. The land was undulating but had patches of lush green paddy fields here and there. Elsewhere, though the recent monsoon has left its bright green cover it wasn't fertile to grow paddy.

Why was that? Isn't it a waste of land? Why such vast tracts of land don't bear paddy that might have helped some of the farmers grow in that region?

I was curious to find out an answer to this vexing problem of livlihood. So I started looking for some patterns in what I saw. Soon a pattern emerged from what I observed. Quite close to the few paddy fields there were ponds both big and small.

"So, is there a relationship between the ponds and the paddy fields?" I asked my knowledgeable co-passenger, Shri Vishnoo Dubey, General Manager, Technical Services, Grasim Cement, who was traveling along in the same car.

He replied excitedly, 'Yes, there is a deep connection between the ponds and the paddy fields. I heard about this from my friend - a well known scientist who studies ecology.'

The mystery deepened. I was dying to know the truth. 

He then revealed a fascinating secret of Nature. During heavy monsoon, which signals the beginning of the paddy season (since paddy needs standing stagnant water to grow), the ponds overflow and the fishes, who are by that time ready and eager to mate literally jump out of the pond and enter the nearby paddy fields as soon as the ponds and the nearby paddy fields are connected. They then mate with fishes from other ponds and spawn eggs in the shallow, calm and relatively undisturbed water. Soon thousands of baby fishes are born. They feed on the mosquito larvae and other small pests that also hatch in the stagnant water. The bigger fishes feed on the baby fishes. Mother fishes try to protect their babies from harm. A great drama is enacted. It is intensely engaging. Some survive, some are eaten and many die in the process. This goes on for a few months and then after three to four months a few sharp showers follow. This signals the fishes to go back the ponds. The late Sept/early October showers create the passage between the paddy fields and the ponds and the fishes gladly swim back to the comforts of the deeper waters till the next monsoon when this big drama would be repeated. The paddy does not need the stagnant water any more. The water is released and the paddy grows to display its beauty swaying in natural melody in the gentle autumn breeze. Soon the paddy is cropped and it is a time for celebration marked by the two great celebrations of India -- the Durga Puja and Deepavali.

I sat stunned in awe and shock as he completed the story! I marveled and contemplated about the beauty of natural systems  -- the beauty of movement, birth, renewal and development not cancerous exponential growth we are so used to in our industrial unsustainable societies. 

But what was the connection/relationships between this big drama of the fishes and the fertility of the paddy fields? There are many which are as follows:

1. The fish waste and the masses of dead fish actually fertilize the land through 'nitrogen fixing' while the baby fishes grow in relative safety and cool shade of the growing paddy. This rejuvenates the land, makes it sustainable year after year and help the unhindered growth of the paddy.
2. The presence of fish in the paddy water changes the PH of the water and makes it most suitable for growing paddy (rice). It decides the taste and the neutrient value of rice.
3. The fish eat on the parasites and fungus that would have otherwise spoiled the crop. They also save human beings by controlling the population of the deadly mosquitoes by eating on the larvae. And much more.
4. It also controls the size of the fishes when they go back to the ponds. How is that? Scientists tell us that when males of any species increase their reproductive effort with unfamiliar mates -- a phenomenon known as the 'Coolidge effect' takes place. So, when male fishes regularly try to mate with new females throughout their lives, they spend less time looking for food and more time pursuing females. This increases the chance of the baby fishes to grow without being attacked by too many predators. The scientists further tell us that males living with unfamiliar females also grow more slowly and to a smaller adult size and tended to die sooner. In contrast, males living with a single partner ate regularly, grew steadily and lived longer. Well the promiscuity of fishes helps in a critical way. The ponds can't accommodate too many large fishes and the resources can't sustain them for long. The balance between resources and the fish population is automatically maintained by males fishes running after many female fishes to mate -- perfect sustainable solution. I could now relate as to how 'Helen of Troy', 'Cleopetra', 'Draupadi' and other beauty queens of human history helped to contain and prune human population at regular intervals. That is quite a sustainable solution! Though told in jest, exponential population growth can't make any society sustainable. 

Lessons Learned:

1. Sustainable systems are cooperative and not competitive. We see here how the fishes, paddy and the Mother Earth cooperate with each other to create a sustainable solution for years. Why don't we get into networked cooperative systems rather than trying to do it all alone by leveraging financial powers only and competing fiercely? My understanding is that the old industrial age systems would soon be dismantled to give birth to an age of Creative networked cooperative economies. And what a difference in power it would make. The power of one to many or many to many network is 2 to the power n whereas the power of no network is just 1.
2. To go against natural cycles and living only means unnatural and unsustainable living -- living without a purpose and damaging life. For example, teenagers are usually active in the night and their brains wake up usually by noon. But we keep forcing them to attend schools early in the morning when their brains are practically asleep in an effort to discipline them. We don't care about how much they actually learn. We just want them to be on time every time -- a legacy of the industrial age -- get rid of the body clock and conform to the mechanical clock of false discipline of time in everything we do even if it is without results.
3. The cycle of birth, death, renewal must be accepted as the most natural process for the sustainable society. After the 2008 economic crash or depression, the Obama administration thought that the giant relics of the industrial age can't be allowed to die. So they thought it to be a good idea to inject millions of tax dollars into these ailing firms as aid so that the few jobs these corporations sustained could be saved. But what happened? The firms were saved but job situation did not improve. It is actually grew worse. Public dollars were wasted in vain. Their death might have generated unexpected emergence of other economic possibilities that might have actually improved the situation. But societies with industrial mindsets can't accept surprises and death and therefore continue to do the wrong things in the right way. Without death there can't be any renewal. Soon Japan would be struggling with the heavy burden of an old and ailing population that would drain the resources to develop the potential of the younger generation.
4. Balance between the prey and the predator is a key to a sustainable economy -- it limits size and turnover. The tragedy is that we constantly try to live in very simple predictable environments rather than learning to adapt to complex environments full of uncertainty and possibilities. To do that we go after predators (sometimes assumed) and try to wipe them off. Wrong. It is never the 'survival of the fittest' as we have had been forced to believe. It is always the 'elimination of the weakest'. In nature, the predator like a lion is not bothered whether it preys upon the best buffalo or the next best buffalo. Any buffalo would be good enough for dinner. Usually lions would attack the weakest and perhaps the oldest buffalo in the herd -- elimination of the weakest. Because that is not only easy but also systemic for the overall development and sustainability of the delicate ecology. But as human beings we are always aiming at the best and probably the costliest. We try to measure and evaluate people, companies and things and try to go for the best. What an irony! Such decisions would destroy us for good and it would happen soon if we don't choose to change course.
5. Growth vs Development. Nature is not much concerned about growth. Because growth is always exponential, which means the resources to sustain would soon run out in no time. It therefore, looks at ways and means to contain the size and turnover. Not too many fishes in the same pond. Not too many big fishes in the same pond. So, it finds ingenious ways to achieve the delicate balance. When would as humans learn this trick from nature and act consciously?
6. Sustainable solutions emerge naturally in a local setting that is most suitable to that locale. 'One size fits all' and 'global solutions' would never work. Imagine using fertilizers in place of fishes. Would it have done the same tricks nature achieves? It won't. The local interdependence is to be carefully understood to boost development. Supposedly 'global solutions' or 'best practices' that have worked well elsewhere ironically does not work 'everywhere'. 
7. Productivity is always limited by resource capability and can't be boosted by artificial means. Productivity for the sake of productivity is downright meaningless. It can only grow as per the available resource capability of a place. It depends on the collective consciousness and wisdom of the people involved. And it is an organic process that grows at its own pace over time. Artificially trying to achieve productivity benchmarks, achieved elsewhere, by any means within a record time is simply not sustainable. We falsely believe that productivity is based on machines and technology. It is true to some extent but that is not the full story. It is also based to a greater extent on the capability of human beings to interface with the technology. And building collective consciousness, capability and wisdom does not happen overnight. Hence without continuous training and eduction in systemic understanding no industry can ever think of improving its coffers.
8. Restoration and adaptation rate are vital ingredients to success. Imagine a person who does not sleep and works all day long. He/she would soon become a lunatic and unfit for society. Restoration is closely linked to adaptation rate. If the rate of change goes past the rate of adaptation a system is capable of, it would soon be broken (lunatic) and would cease to be sustainable any further -- just like a person who goes without sleep for days.

Are leaders, marketers, trainers and educators and all those who influence our societies in one way or the other listening to Mother Nature?

The art work of the fish was done by my 6 year old nephew, Rishi. I thank him for his networked contribution.

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

The 'AND' is in the 'NOW'.

This is a story of two competing cement plants operating with similar state of art technology to produce high grade cement catering to similar but highly competitive markets. 

However, the quality of cement that is produced is highly dependent on the quality of limestone mined from a limestone quarry.

In this respect the limestone deposit of Cement Plant A was considered to be inferior as compared to the limestone mine of Cement Plant B. Therefore, Plant B was supposed to produce better quality cement. These two mines and their plants were separated by about 200 kms and people thought that this is what determined the difference in the quality of the limestone in the respective quarries. 

The comparison of quality was based on the usual analysis of Ferrous content, Silicate, Aluminate and Carbonate as is usually done in laboratories of cement plants around the world. And in all respect the quality of limestone of Plant B, determined in this fashion was vastly superior to that of Plant A.

But there was a surprise!

 

The quality and strength of cement produced by Plant A was much superior to that of Plant B. This went against conventional wisdom and immensely puzzled the cement technologists of Plant B forcing them to wonder as to how this might be possible.

But this 'surprise' emergence made the management of Plant A much happier since they could now sell their product at a premium to happy customers who brought in more customers through word of mouth. Soon their customer base and their reach exceeded that of Plant B. Within a few years they could create their unique brand identity in the market. Their cement, which looked more blackish in color, was called as 'black rock' by admiring customers and civil engineers.

The seemingly inferior quality of Plant A's limestone mines did not seem to matter at all. And happy times for them continued and they expanded their operations.    

 

Many years later, while researching more in depth, the researchers found that the limestone deposit of the so called inferior mines (Plant A) had a trace amount of boron while the limestone deposits of Plant B had no boron content. Instead, it contained trace amount of barium. So they understood that while boron gave the cement (of Plant A) superior strength; barium made the bonds weaker (of Plant B) though all other constituent of limestone mines of Plant A were really inferior to that of Plant B. That relationship alone explained the difference in quality of cement produced by the two plants.

 

Lessons:

1. The relationship between the parts causes the system properties to emerge. 

2. The emergence is always in the form of a pattern. And it defines the purpose of the system. It might be desirable or undesirable and it need not follow our definition of an intended purpose. 

3. Relationships are more important than the parts. And relationships form the essence that produces the emergence. 

4. One strong relationship can overshadow other weaker relationships and the emergence can come up as a winner.

5. Another way to describe such relationship that forms the essence is by the word 'AND'.

6. 'AND' a small change in the relationship causes dramatic changes in the output or emergence.

7. Therefore the root cause (or the essence) of an emergence always lies in the NOW (as relationships evolve). A cause can't lie in the past or be lost or hidden from our senses and understanding. So, we need not look beyond or look into the past to explain what happens now in form of an emergence. It is easy to find a root cause provided one searches intently for the AND in the NOW. We need not go any further.

Summary:

1. The AND is in the NOW. 'AND' is the essence and the cause of the emergence.

2. System Thinkers must be aware of it to understand the cause of system behavior. 3. Design Thinkers must take care of it to create dramatic competitive advantage.

4. The concept also serves the issue of Sustainability in a great way. 

5. Strategy, Decision Making & Improvement plans are to evolve on emergence.

 

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

Fixing the unfixable

via economist.com

As relieved American troops happily troop out of Iraq after about long years of occupation of the country the other group of American soldiers stay fixed in Afghanistan preparing for their honorable exit.

Why? They have a job to finish. They want to fix something that appears quite 'unfixable'. They feel that the local Afghan national army is not yet trained to fight battles and protect themselves and their Government from the hungry clutches of the Taliban.

Well, what might that involve and how many more years would that take?

It would involve, as they say, some well meant rigorous training in the use of arms and honing of skills involved in modern warfare that would take another desperately four long years, if done sincerely. They believe that once this is done they can then leave the country in safe hands.

So a lot of resources are now being diverted to the army. The number of foreign trainers has been doubled to improve the instructor to pupil ratio from a poor 1 to 80 or 1 to 466 to something more respectable. There is also a hike in salary of local soldiers from a measly $ 120 to a handsome amount of $ 165. The local soldiers would now appear in neat bandoleers rather than Rambo style local dresses. That would make them look smarter but would also help Taliban troops to rat them out more easily in the rough and hostile desert terrains. Recruitment is up. The goal is to ramp up the present strength from 134, 000 strong to 171, 600 by October 2011. Quality over Quantity is the motto. However, improving quality and standarization would increase the cost of maintaining and running this well trained outfit from the present level to $ 6 billion a year. This year alone the ambitious training plans bled $ 11 billion from this poor country. How on earth Afghanistan would pay for all this -- through internal taxes or foreign loans? Afghanistan can ill afford this expense through taxes so they would have to reach out and take loans from outsiders and always worry about repaying it back over years. However, this supposedly still makes economic sense to Americans since this would in the long run turn out to be cheaper than paying for foreign troops, where each American soldier cost $ 1 million to sustain in Afghanistan. It would also help fuel the military market of the US.

This represents a classic case of hard system thinking. There is an objective and the objective has to be fulfilled at any cost and done well too. Never mind why we want to do it in the first place. We don't question the underlying assumptions and therefore the plans.

The question is why is all these needed? Is it to civilize the natives? Or is it to bring back democracy in the country that lost it many years back? Or is it have a hold over a strategic military position between Iran, Russia and Pakistan? Or is to divide and rule the Muslim world? Or is it simply to lay a proper claim over the largest deposit of thorium that lies untapped under the soil of Afghanistan? Or is it to create a virtual monopoly in the military market, a source of high on going revenue for country desperate to cling to its standard of living which some say has gone down by 20% in the last 2 years?

No one seems to know for sure. The problem is that such objectives are never spelled out clearly. The public face is always more gentle and nobler than what it really is.

All this happens because public memory is usually short. None seem to realize that Afghanistan is possibly the only country in the world that could not be humbled and made to taste defeat by any of the world's military power in its entire history. The British failed and retreated. The Russians failed and fled. And now it is the turn of the Americans. They have realized this after trying hard enough but are now putting up a brave public face in the face of clear defeat.

This proves that no system, including social systems, can be changed from the outside however good the intention might be. All changes of any significance are to be done from the inside by insiders with the available skill, knowledge and resources. Interference of any sort with well meant foreign helpers rushing in never help. Strange that this principle holds true even for one's personal development.

So, what is the need of such wide scale military training to local Afghan men who have remained invincible for the last 300 years? They know how to defend themselves and they know how to fight and fight well. These local boys know how to train and fire sophisticated weapons whether it is American or Russian. Both parties have been supplying them such arms for about half a century most of which were given free. What remains is the classical ethnic fight between the Mujahideen and the Taliban that has been raging on for years each tenaciously clinging onto their side of their territory, their beliefs and their stories.

Why not let Afghans sort out their own fate? People anywhere are not foolish to accept anything that is thrown at them. They never have nor will they.

We simply have to be patient for the natural emergence to take place where the people would decide what is good or bad for them. One can, if one likes, certainly help if asked for but never become a helper fighting their 'battles' to decide their collective fate shoulder to shoulder.

One simply can't fix the 'unfixable' from the outside.

But is anyone listening?

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

When can Design Thinking Fail & how to Succeed?

via changeobserver.designobserver.com

The photograph shows the some of the top executives who gathered at the Aspen Design Summit in early August 2010 to solve complex social problems.

This was covered by Helen Walters, the editor of Innovation and Design at Bloomberg Businessweek, through her article "Inside the Design Thinking Process": Change Observer: Design Observer:(3rd August 2010)

ref:http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=14458

Some relevant excerpts from her critical but interesting article.

"The Aspen Design Summit brought together 60 top executives to apply design thinking to large social problems."

"The 64 invited attendees, including Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, Chris Hacker, chief design officer at Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and Ted Chen, director of learning and innovation at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Divided into five groups, each team was tasked with coming up with a solution to a specific problem. To try to prevent participants from being creative but impractical, the organizers told us our solutions needed to include a clear plan of action, with a goal of implementation within 24 months."

"Not surprisingly, team members brought their individual areas of interest and expertise to the table. Dr. Jay Parkinson is the co-founder of Hello Health, an online network that connects doctors and patients. He was keen to use Web 2.0 principles and techniques to create a virtual community for Austin, featuring videos of local heroes taken by school children and including a diary of local wellness-themed events. By the final presentation, he had even mocked up a prototype of what the Web site might look like. It was a bewitching concept, and Parkinson put together a beautiful piece of design. It was also the idea that stopped me from sleeping."

"My suspicion, as I thought about it in the middle of the night, was that we were falling into a trap. Our intentions could hardly be faulted. But without deep understanding of the community we were trying to serve, our efforts seemed doomed. After all, a brilliantly creative idea in the eyes of Aspen Design Summit attendees, most of whom live and work in large cities on the coasts of the U.S., might seem like entirely inappropriate bunk to those actually living in Austin. We didn't know, for example, whether the area had broadband Internet connection. Moreover, many of Austin's residents are non-native English speakers. Yet here we were, conspiring to offer them a Web experience freighted with bells and whistles?"

This case resonated with my experience. I saw exactly the same design done by my friend Sanjay Banerjee in 1998 -- an web based design that connected patients and a group of doctors whom the patients might call up anytime in case of a problem or an emergency. He even empathetically named the experience as 'Ah! Doctor'. Needless to say that it too failed miserably and my friend lost a lot of good money on this design and venture.

It appears that it is a different cup of tea when we apply Design Thinking to solve social problems.

My friend Paula Thornton says:

"Indeed IDEO themselves will admit that they too had to evolve to embrace the larger realm of design thinking to apply it to things like services, originally being focused only on product."

When the context changes from product to social problems I think the approach has to change. I feel that some of the earlier attempts of IDEO to apply DT to social issues and challenges serve as examples of failures.

An example that readily comes to mind is when IDEO claimed that they have solved the problem of women carrying water in rural India by designing special containers (changing shape, form, materials and strength) that makes the deary and useless job easier. Was that a solution? Definitely no.

The problem is how to stop the massive wastage of manpower (womanpower in fact) and time involved in carrying water from a distant place. Some of the other problems that need to be solved are -- a) how to protect the water source and b) keep it clean and potable.

As soon as a social problem is 'defined' DT or any thinking for that matter would fail and lose its power. For example, 'War on Drugs' -- 9 American presidents in a row have had pursued various solutions till 2009 when it they realized that drugs can't be stopped in the way they thought it could be and all the so called 'solutions' have come to naught. It is now sort of funny that in 2010, California legalized the drug trade and taxes it too to bolster additional income for the state.

Similarly, climate change issues were taken up and discussed for a fairly long time in the UN Security Council till they realized that it is not a security issue at all.

DT or any thinking would fail in taking up social challenges once the social challenge or problem is 'defined' to limit or narrow down the scope. This is a fundamental flaw, which interestingly, is not a flaw when this principle is applied to product design.

It appears that Design Thinking (DT) would often fail in addressing social challenges when the solution is not a tangible product or when tangible products occupy a very small part of the solution space. So a 'product challenge' and a 'social challenge' would need different treatments in terms of application and principles.

Other examples would highlight the issue;

a) When Coke came to India their tag line thinking was that they would make Indians forget about drinking water. Today they are in rough weather. No amount of advertisements and lowering prices or making smaller bottles or family pack seem to be working.

b) Similarly Kellogs thought that they would change the breakfast habits of the country. They are now thinking of making some Indian dishes to keep floating.

c) Rayban had to close shop in India. The solution did not appeal to Indians.

d) Nike and Rebok are also thinking of folding up.

e) My friend Dan Strongin adds: In Greece, in the 1970's, the world bank, at the behest of its "donors" GE and the Petro's, financed a project which cut down all the olive groves leading to Athens leading into the city and replaced them with the king of input consumers, corn. When the corn was ready to be processed they spent 14 million dollars on an Ad campaign trying to get the Greeks to switch from Olive Oil to corn oil and margarine. It flopped.

f) He also adds: In the Dominican republic, General Mills tried to get people off their traditional diets for breakfast, with some effect, but at a tremendous cost.

So, is there a common thread that links these examples? Surely, it is a matter of collaborative choices not affordability. Social problems are much more broad based and mucky. It would need a lot of deep understanding before one strikes out for a solution.

Paula's take on this is: "those looking for a prescribed way to implement design thinking are destined to be disappointed. It's a messy, opaque process that depends as much on group dynamics as intellect or insight."

What we also see is the collective thinking that goes on in a society or community based on tradition, culture and the benefits people have seen and felt over generations. It gets deeply embedded in the collective psyche. Hence the 'local' wins over the global designs to solve social and economic problems. Well, almost always.

What then would be the way forward to solve complex social problems?

To my mind, we would have to combine the principles of Design Thinking, System Thinking and the ideas of Social Sustainability to come up with viable and acceptable solutions for social problems -- solutions that would be engineered by the people of a community for them through a service or business locally created of the people of the community, which may, if the need arises, extended to help other communities.

So, for success in solving social problems and bringing about social changes it is 'BY the PEOPLE, FOR the PEOPLE, OF the PEOPLE', under democratic set up.

Think Global: Act Local would be the mantra. This is because the ramifications of a social problem is always global but the solution to such a problem always have to be local.

Therefore, the industrial age mind set of 'scalability', 'standardization' and 'globalization' is to be summarily dismissed and discarded for good, when it comes to solving social problems. This is precisely because this mindset actually caused most of the social problems that we face today.

Can we solve the problems with the mindset that created it in the first place?

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

What Design Thinkers can learn from Einstein?

It is said that Design Thinking is about learning to think about a problem like Designers, where we 'think by doing'. That appears to be the creative way.

But what about learning to think like scientists to solve 'wicked' and 'messy' problems? To me it is just the same way any designer would go about solving problems. There is absolutely no difference. The difference exists only in our minds, which is then a myth.

Here are some of the ways Einstein went about seeing and solving tough, complicated and wicked problem -- far tougher than the problems we see in everyday organizational life.

I have arranged Einstein's quotations just the way the best of Design Thinkers think. And I see no difference, absolutely no difference in the way any good scientist or any good designer thinks. Try to find the difference between the two apparently opposed approaches to solving problems.

1. Be Curious

"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious"

Note; Da Vinci's first commandment to thinking differently was just the same -- 'Curiosity'.

2. Approach from different Perspectives and Levels

"One can't solve a problem from the same level it was created"

"Insanity; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

"It is not that I'm so smart; it's just that I stay with problems longer."

3. Rooted in the NOW

"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough"

"Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves"

4. Create the Future through Imagination: Not through analysis of the Past

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of Life's coming attractions. Imagination is more important than knowledge."

5. Learning by Doing, Prototyping, Mistakes

"Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience (direct)."

"A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new."

6. Aim at Excellence: Not Success

"Strive not to be a success but rather be excellent"

"Learn rules of the game. And then play better than anyone else."

Isn't it time that we do away with the myth that scientist and designers think differently? What happens when we do so? The term 'Design' becomes irrelevant. Only 'Thinking' remains as the important thing. Or is it? Or is 'Imagination' and 'Intuition', validated through prototyping and experimentation (either physically or in the mind) more important than thinking?

I think it is 'Imagination' and 'Intuition' that we are aiming at. The process of Scientists, Designers and Engineers have the same 'starting', 'middle' and 'end' points when confronted with a problem. They start with 'Deep Contemplation' and then go through the mind by experimenting, prototyping and improvising and then end by going beyond the mind by 'imagination' and 'intuition' to come up with really new solutions.

If this is so, why then must we make a distinction between Humanities and Science? Make a distinction between Designers and Engineers? It is meaningless.

Aren't their approaches to solving problems fundamentally the same?

So why can't we simply say that Design Thinking is an approach to solve 'wicked' and 'messy' problems through 'imagination' and 'intuition'.

I see no reason as to what stops us from saying so.

 

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

Fires in Russia & Floods in Pakistan: Case for System Thinking?

via economist.com

While Russia burns and gets baked to a drought; Pakistan & northern India experience heavy rains and floods affecting human lives, homes and food.

Are they related? Surprisingly, they are not only connected as a whole but also interdependent thus providing us with a fine example of System Behavior and a case for System Thinking.

The upper atmosphere (the part through which the jet streams run) is gently rocked by what are known as Rossby waves—movements of air towards and away from the poles. These waves usually travel east or west, depending on various conditions. But they can also stand still, trapping the weather beneath them. Presently it is in a gridlock.

As the air stands still and the pressure is high no clouds form. So the ground below starts releasing the heat and the water it holds along with the heat. These heat waves along with the water vapor quickly gets carried to other parts experiencing low pressures (in this case moved towards Northern part of the Indian sub-continent). Since it meets a low pressure zone it starts forming excessive clouds and rain -- flooding the area (the potential energy is now released into kinetic energy).

In the meantime, the ground that released the water owing to the reinforcing heat wave cycles became dry. The first effect is the drought, the worst that Russia have had in the last 100 years. Prolonged exposure to this condition starts off bush fires. And why does the smoke stay low and affect people? It stays low because the high air pressure still being exerted on it does not allow it to float upwards.

So, while fires, drought, rains and floods, all of which affect people badly, form the system 'emergence' ('emergence' is a set of problems) what is the cause or the 'essence' of such emergence?

'Entropy' is the 'essence' that causes the emergence.

From second law of thermodynamics we know that entropy can't decrease. It can only increase or more or less remain steady. If it goes up, chaos increases and our problems (emergence) are accelerated. We can contain the problems in a sustainable way if it remains constant.

Unfortunately, at present entropy is going up. The rate of utilization of resources (energy) is much faster. With the entropy going up an equilibrium point is soon reached when all the free energy of a matter possessed is given up. Naturally what happens next is emergence leading to death.

There is another thing that happens with the rate of dissipation (arising out of increase in entropy) changing. Let us consider the world as a thermodynamic system with the outline of the earth along with its atmosphere as a natural boundary of the system. Energy enters the system (from the Sun) but finds it increasing difficult to get out of the system boundary, owing to ‘greenhouse effects’. When this happens we are allowing heat in the system to gradually increase (reinforcing cycle) and with such an increase the water in the ocean and matter like ice of say icebergs start to change form (water to steam and ice to water). Same would happen to the air and it starts changing its density at different layers and starts changing its state from that of say a ‘non-chaotic state’ to chaotic state (turbulent flows). If that be so, entropy starts increasing in the system. As entropy starts increasing the wind and the water of the oceans start changing directions of their flow patterns seeking new paths of least resistances and the velocity of the flow also goes up to keep up with the increase in the entropy within the system (they just try harder enough to dissipate the energy through increased friction of ferocious storms or creating regions of high and low pressures – the only way available to Nature so as to maintain a constant rate of change of entropy). But slowly it loses the battle. What happens next is easy to understand from the viewpoint of nature. Climate changes, vegetation changes, species start their desperate attempt to adapt for survival. But when the ‘adaptation rate’ is slower than the change itself, species (both plant and animal) die.

This is exactly what is happening.

Shall we wake up and 'not blame it on Rio'?

Do we still have time to do something?

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

Green Taxes always hurt the poor & underprivilaged of the society

via green.in.msn.com

Few days back the Government of Maharashtra slapped green tax on old vehicles -(Green News - Article - MSN India).

What do they want to do? They want to abolish all the old vehicles plying in the state so that pollution levels decrease dramatically. That is of course a good idea or is it?

Who gets hurt in the process? The poorer section of the society are hurt most. These yellow and black taxis that we see in the picture are mostly owned and driven by poor people who just manages to eke out a living that allows them to live in slums and vulnerable shacks without access to any modern amenities of life like sanitation, water and electricity. Asking them to go for a new taxi is simply a torture and a burden.

The big assumption is that old vehicles pollute. This is entirely wrong. Pollution of any well maintained engine is certainly within the existing pollution norms. And if the norms get tighter then why not ask them to change the engine. No other part of a car actually pollutes. Throwing away a car only for an engine is simply a waste of good money.

Asking people to change old cars actually serves the hidden interest of the car manufacturers and nobody else. The number of cars that get added to the city of Mumbai is the highest in India. But that has now reached a limit of growth. Hence the well calculated move to further the interest of a few businessmen and business houses with an eye to increase car sales. In a way, the Government serves the interest of the corporations rather than the ordinary citizens of the country.

Let us take another example: The Green Tax on Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) in the UK -- An excerpt from Mr. Tim Henry of the UK who retired as Chairman of Wolfson Maintenance, formerly a industrial consulting wing the University of Manchester.

"We like many other people in the UK are being penalized for owning a SUV with about 80% tax on fuel and vehicle tax 10 times that of a minicar. This winter we had a long cold winter with temperatures falling as low as -18 deg C. We live in a hilly area- our house is at 800 ft and the hills rise to 2000 ft. Without our 4X4 we would not have been able to get out as the local authorities failed to keep the roads clear of ice. In Wales in the summer we live about ½ mile from the nearest surfaced road and contend with a rough track that floods in bad weather. We would love to be able to have an energy efficient vehicle but the current route of tax to dissuade is not helpful. It particularly penalizes the poor. Some route of incentives is needed once the energy efficient alternatives are provided.".

It is clear that Green Tax in any form is not helpful to make things greener. Taxing is not the preferred route to greening -- building awareness, encouragement and financial incentive are.

Governments all over the world are getting it wrong.

This reminds me of Peter the Great of Russia. He imposed a stiff tax on anyone wanting to sport a beard. Why? Simply because he did not like it and he wanted citizens of his country to look smarter and more modern like him. But the sad fact was that most of the poor citizens who actually wore a bread did not do so to start off a new fashion. They simply did not have the money to shave regularly. They just wanted to save whatever they could.

No amount of 'System Thinking' might help such Governments to see the light of the day. They already have a solid opinion about the whole thing.

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous