The organization science program at the New England Complex Systems
Institute has grown to the point where it is fruitful and constructive to
create a separate organization for this effort. The new organization "The
Networking, Emergence and Complexity Studies Initiative" will be pursuing
a wide ranging set of activities linking organizations drawn from
industry, academia, management consulting and the non-profit sector. The
mission of this new organization is to promote pragmatic dialogue around
the areas of networking, emergence and complexity studies with the aim of
assisting practicing managers in the complex task of managing.
The New England Complex Systems Institute is an independent educational
and research institution dedicated to advancing the study of complex
systems. Complex systems have multiple interacting components whose
collective behavior cannot be simply inferred from the behavior of
components. The recognition that understanding the parts cannot explain
collective behavior has led to various new concepts and methodologies that
are affecting all fields of science and engineering, and are being applied
to technology, business and even social policy. The Institute has held
two major conferences (The International Conference on Complex Systems)
which brought together delegates from a wide variety of scientific
disciplines for cross-disciplinary dialogue about complex systems.
One outgrowth of that dialogue was a recognition that advancing the
understanding of managers with regard to complexity and emergence in the
heavily networked world of today requires a more focused effort on
managers and managing than the Institute can provide within its
cross-disciplinary mission. The Networking, Emergence and Complexity
Studies Initiative has been created to meet this need.
The Institute and the Initiative will collaborate in a number of
endeavors; however the focus of the Institute is cross-disciplinary
dialogue and the focus of the Initiative is management and the practicing
manager. Our joint objectives of promoting the understanding and
application of the study of complex systems should flourish in this new
arrangement.
The Institute's next major activity is an intensive course in complex
systems October 4-8 in Boston. See
http://necsi.org/events/cxintensive/cxintensive.html for more details.
The Initiative's first event is the next Managing the Complex symposium
"Mastering Complexity In Health Care -- Doing It Not Just Talking About
It" October 27-31 in Boston. See http://emergence.org/managing.html for
more details.
The New England Complex Systems Institute web site is at http://necsi.org
The Initiative's web site can be found at http://necsi.edu and at
http://emergence.org.
Questions about the Institute should be directed to Yaneer Bar-Yam at
yaneer@necsi.org
Questions about the Initiative should be directed to Michael
Lissack at editor@emergence.org
-- Michael Lissack <lissack@lissack.com> Editor-in-Chief, Emergence: A Journal of Complexity Issues In Organizations and Management Director, the Networking, Emergence and Complexity Studies Initiative 32 Garrison Street, Apartment #50-104, Boston MA 02116 http://lissack.com, http://necsi.edu, http://emergence.org phone 617-536-4109 fax -- 617-249-0663Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>