Hired Thought

Category: Complexity

  • Cynefin with Examples

    Cynefin with Examples

    Cynefin is a public domain (citation needed), complexity-centered framework for sense-making. There are 5 ontological domains (you can call them quadrants if you want to piss off certain corners of the internet) — Clear (formerly Simple/Obvious), Complicated, Complex, Chaotic, and Disorder. Each domain suggests its own specific way of being. I’m going to describe this…

  • Tasshin Interviews Ben on Strategy

    Tasshin Interviews Ben on Strategy

    This is a rapidfire overview of strategic methods that Tasshin Fogleman and I recorded back in July of 2020. He’s edited it together for the Reach Truth Podcast, which you can check out at his YouTube channel here. I recommend watching the video directly on YouTube, since there are important links in the description that…

  • A Broken Compass: Sentiment Analysis in the Tweetstream

    A Broken Compass: Sentiment Analysis in the Tweetstream

    About a year ago, I became acutely aware that my consumption of Twitter was becoming increasingly entangled with elevated levels of anxiety. Twitter has long been a wonderful way to connect with cool people I can’t always see in person, so I didn’t appreciate how my experience with it was souring. I began searching for…

  • Hidden Complexities

    Originally published September 24, 2016 I consider sense-making to be a component of Landscape and Doctrine (from Sun Tzu’s Five Factors), and so I am incorporating a short overview of Cynefin into an upcoming talk on strategy. While outlining, I toyed with a few examples for the various ontological domains and learned an unexpected lesson,…

  • Cutting Costs. Or, How to Pretend Complex is Simple.

    Originally published March 20, 2016 Suppose a company discovers that its projected revenue is below original expectations for reasons outside of its direct control. The bottom-line numbers are going to look bad, so something must be done immediately. Cost-cutting measures will be explored, and when every budget has been squeezed and nothing else remains, the…