Conway's Law
I came across this law in a blogg on 19 eponymous laws of software development. I couldn't help laughing out loud, I guess it's means I'm a software nerd. The law is very true. I immediately came to think of my workplace and our system.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Living in a time of unprecedented and complex change
Back blogging after a long while. Work, friends and familly has taken my time and effort. A good sign I guess.
This is a quote from an invitation by a friend of mine to a conference on 'Tomorrow's Communities' I had some time ago:
Secondly, I agree with the manifesto that the world can definitely become a better place. It needs all the help it can get.
Nevertheless, I think that for at least 150 years, people in the western world (and more recently in the rest of the world) have thought that "more than any time in history we are facing unprecedented and complex change". The idea that our times and circumstances are special, is just another case of egocentrism and lack of abstraction, often due to a lack of historical and cultural knowledge. The industrialisation seems to be a sufficient condition for this feeling, but we can easily find episodes in antique history when everything was turned upside down. Ask a roman of the collapsing roman empire of the 5th century what was his feeling on changing society was.
I believe man has an ambiguos relation to change: she loves it and she hates it. Deeply, she feels the necesity of it, and yet she fears it. I believe that societies that manages to strike the balance between conservatism and radical change have a good basis for success.
This is a quote from an invitation by a friend of mine to a conference on 'Tomorrow's Communities' I had some time ago:
More than any time in history we are facing unprecedented and complex change and it is affecting every member of our society, in or outside of their awareness, and on many different levels. [...] We can find that our beliefs and values are being challenged on a daily basis sometimes giving us an uncomfortable feeling of social breakdown through change, chaos and crisis.Firstly, I am a bit worried that my friend--whose spiritual interest I first liked and somewhat admired--might have strayed a bit to far into the domains of mumbo jumbo.
Yet some of us can also see a very different future are you one of them?
Secondly, I agree with the manifesto that the world can definitely become a better place. It needs all the help it can get.
Nevertheless, I think that for at least 150 years, people in the western world (and more recently in the rest of the world) have thought that "more than any time in history we are facing unprecedented and complex change". The idea that our times and circumstances are special, is just another case of egocentrism and lack of abstraction, often due to a lack of historical and cultural knowledge. The industrialisation seems to be a sufficient condition for this feeling, but we can easily find episodes in antique history when everything was turned upside down. Ask a roman of the collapsing roman empire of the 5th century what was his feeling on changing society was.
I believe man has an ambiguos relation to change: she loves it and she hates it. Deeply, she feels the necesity of it, and yet she fears it. I believe that societies that manages to strike the balance between conservatism and radical change have a good basis for success.
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