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That reminds me of the story of the first time William James (Harvard, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," 1902) was inundated with a chemical we call laughing gas.  He felt he was illuminated and wrote:

Higgamus Hoggamus
Woman is Monogamous
Hoggamus Higgamus
Man is Polygamous

Scholars have surmised he was embarrassed in the morning, which does not negate the power of cosmic coincidence control to confuse.

Sven, WTF is a 3-phase water diagram?

Skennah Kowa

by Crazy Horse on Thu Jan 3rd, 2008 at 05:02:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well I've been using a water metaphor to explain some aspects of self-organizing systems to 'lay' audiences. The 3 'phases' of water - ice, liquid, steam help to illustrate control - control/chaos - chaos, where innovation takes place on the cusp between control and chaos. One could also think of organizations as 3 phase transitions: top-down - horizontal/vertical - bottom up.

The other use of water is to explain how the standard method of visualizing organizational structures - the organization chart - ignores what vitally happens between the boxes. A more 'aha' way of thinking about organizations is as the surface of a lake during rain. Each 'impact' of a drop on the surface causes ripples to spread out (and eventually fade). And where ripples intersect, new frequencies are generated. This is a better shorthand description of how creative people interact within a 'field'.


You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Jan 4th, 2008 at 03:24:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks, i understand why use use the analogies.

And those aha! moments sure can look silly in the morning, no?

Skennah Kowa

by Crazy Horse on Fri Jan 4th, 2008 at 07:47:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well I admit to being disappointed ;-)

But on the other hand, I haven't given up yet.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Jan 4th, 2008 at 07:52:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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