Ecosystemics

Emphasises the processing of entire patterns and configurations, and not merely individual components.

Language as a system: Saussure developed a relational conception of language, in which each component is endowed with a value, not in itself, but in opposition to the other components of the system.

The deep connections between life on Earth and the rest of the planet, and their profound implications for life as a cosmic phenomenon.

A biological assemblage interacting with its associated physical environment and located in a specific place.

All living things depend on their environment to supply them with what they need, including food, water and shelter. Their environment consists of physical factors, such as soil, air and temperature, and also of other organisms.

Functionalism emphasises how social institutions work together to meet the needs of a society: society is a structure of interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of individuals.

Cybernetics is the study of information mechanisms in complex systems, explored with a view to standardisation.

A mathematical theory of communication: how information can be measured, encoded and transmitted through a noisy channel.

Cultures read as systems of relations: kinship, myths and exchanges take their meaning from the structure that links them.

The five axioms of communication: one cannot not communicate; every communication has a content and a relationship; communication is punctuated; it involves digital and analogic modalities; it can be symmetrical or complementary.

The effect predicts negative intertemporal correlations in the growth rates of firms: a fast-growing firm will encounter managerial problems and thus slow down its growth in the following period.

A SWOT analysis identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to help you make decisions and gain a competitive advantage.

A method to model complex systems through stocks, flows and feedback loops, first applied to industrial firms, then to cities and the world. It is the direct source of The Limits to Growth.

Her book Silent Spring (1962) warned of the dangers to all natural systems from the misuse of chemical pesticides such as DDT, questioned the direction of modern science, and launched the contemporary environmental movement.

Social research into the status, behaviour, efficiency and acceptance of women as university teachers, and into the woman worker in the USA.

Population growth is independent of food supply, and population increase is a cause of changes in agriculture.

Fuller offers a radically operational vision of design: anticipate rather than repair, and pursue “ephemeralization”, doing ever more with ever less material and energy.

Systems have negative and positive feedback loops. The theory comprises four essential elements: an open system, a holistic view, goal direction and self-organisation. It works less well with culture, policy or social problems.

“Let us green the earth, restore the earth, heal the earth.”

Living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings to form a synergetic, self-regulating system that created, and now maintains, the climate and biochemical conditions that make life on Earth possible.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage, to move in the opposite direction.”

Design as “the conscious and intuitive effort to impose [adapt to] meaningful order”.

An interdisciplinary approach to the way consciousness changes and forms patterns, at both social and individual levels.

A report for the Club of Rome on exponential economic and population growth with a finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation with the World3 model of interactions between the Earth and human systems.

Complex social or cultural problems with an unknown number of potential solutions.

“A new instrument to look at the infinitely complex”: a systemic reading of biology, ecology, economy and society, made to be shared beyond specialists.

“Business shapes the world. It is capable of changing society in almost any way you can imagine.”

An organised and coherent set of patterns, each describing a problem and the core of a solution that can be used in many ways within a field of expertise.

“Inclusive design is design that everyone can use with equity. If any of us can’t use a design, then it is exclusive, pure and simple.”

“Personal service remains singular only because it is a social activity linked to the private, family and domestic spheres; and there is no doubt about its collective purpose.”

Planning and arranging people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service to improve its quality and the interaction between provider and users.

A general-purpose value chain that companies can use to examine all of their activities and see how they are connected.

Exclusive democracies are defective democracies in which “one or more segments of the adult population are excluded from the civil right of universal suffrage”.

The leading nonprofit organisation defending civil liberties in the digital world.

The invention of the World Wide Web and the rise of the internet as a shared space of information.

Communities can govern shared resources (forests, fisheries, water) through their own rules, without the State or the market. Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2009 “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons”.

Seven principles to outline complexity and transform knowledge: systemic or organisational, hologrammatic, retroactive loop, recursive loop, self-eco-organisation (autonomy and dependence), dialogic, and the reintroduction of the subject in all knowledge.

“Places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.”

Organized by four main principles: content must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust (POUR).

The collective network of connected devices, and the technology that lets them communicate with the cloud and with each other.

A set of nature-based solutions that use natural landscapes to catch, store and clean water.

“In nature, there is no separation between design, engineering, and fabrication; the bone does it all.”

Nine Earth-system processes, such as climate, biodiversity and freshwater, with limits that define a “safe operating space for humanity”.

The next generation of the web, in which most users would be connected through a decentralised network and have access to their own data.

IoT standards define the requirements for connected devices and systems: security, interoperability and data formats.

A collection of reusable components with clearly defined standards of use, combining pattern libraries, colours and fonts with shared design principles to keep visual design consistent at scale.

The harvesting of millions of Facebook profiles to target political messaging, and its fallout.

Mirai: the first malware to turn connected objects into an army of machines for a massive attack.

A change of economic model as a response to humanity’s major challenge: eradicating poverty within the means of the planet’s limited natural resources.

Breaking down information and insights into “nuggets”, each holding a pertinent piece of research.

The GDPR lists the rights of the data subject, meaning the rights of the individuals whose personal data is being processed.

A health technology start-up whose blood-testing promises turned out to be fraudulent, after twelve years in which no one worried about the lack of evidence.

How inclusion shapes design: design can exclude, and the mission of inclusive design is to counteract those exclusions, or “mismatches”, between service and user.

Using urban planning solutions from the past to solve the issues of today’s cities, rather than looking for AI, machine learning or real-time data.

The first-ever legal framework on AI, which addresses the risks of AI and positions Europe to play a leading role globally.

The rise of large language models: machines that produce plausible text at scale, blurring the line between information and fabrication.