Hosted by our President, Dr. John Beckford FCybS, the CybSights President's Series is a new programme that will bring interesting people together to explore the relevance and contribution of cybernetics to addressing important challenges.

Each event will consist of contributions by two different speakers. Each will be followed by individual Q&A. These are then brought together by the President in a lively and engaging plenary discussion. Each will seek areas of convergence and divergence between the ideas explored.

Events will be held via Zoom on the 2nd Wednesday of each month from 1700 to 1900.

Meetings are open to members of the Cybernetics Society and also the general public. Non-members are invited to join or give a donation. Booking is required.

The Cybernetics Society has been hosting conversations and lectures since the late 1960s.

#PS5 : February 10 2021: Fractal and branching designs & their relevance to business, society, and ecology

This event continues the exploration of the relevance of cybernetics to the contemporary world with contributions both theoretically practical and practically theoretical. The purpose of this series is not just to provide answers but to test whether the right questions are being asked.

FIRST SPEAKER: Patrick Hoverstadt

Cybernetics in Systems: A practitioner’s perspective

Patrick Hoverstadt will talk about how much easier it has become to use systemic cybernetic approaches with clients over the last 25 years. He’ll talk about some of the tricks and pitfalls of communicating and working with clients who don’t have a background in systems, where to use systems and cybernetics and why it matters now more than ever to make these approaches more accessible. The talk will cover some of the classical stances practitioners take, and the effects our positioning choices have.

Patrick Hoverstadt

Patrick Hoverstadt has been a consultant using systems and cybernetics for 26 years working with around 100 client organisations on over 250 systems projects. Clients range from micro businesses to multi-nationals and projects at whole sector and national levels. He is the chair of SCiO the professional body for systems practitioners and has developed a number of systemic approaches including a systemic/cybernetic approach to strategy development and execution.

Followed by brief Q & A

SECOND SPEAKER: David Dewhurst, FCybS, Vice-President of the Cybernetics Society

Strategies for being a tree and related branching systems (0th order cybernetics?) as more conservative!

David tackles some important questions on the notion of hierarchy, teasing us with these challenges:

• If each reader first ponders why trees are tree shaped for perhaps a day before reading further, we will generate more insights.
• How far will the simplest fractal + randomness get you?
• Why are branching structures ubiquitous - family trees, information processing and so on?
• As trees do not occupy the whole universe what are their downsides?

A concrete outcome of this discussion might be a greater respect and contempt for hierarchies.

David Dewhurst, FCybS

David has worked as a jobbing gardener and advocates his neoliberal gardening system in order to save the planet, and time. His (nuanced) support for Hayek when writing about Occupy's economic policies in the FT was described by George Osborne as 'surreal'. His 29 other occupations include teaching from University to Nursery, Headship, Ofsted Inspector, Management Consultant, Cleaner @ Tesco, Management Traineeship, Trainee Clinical Psychologist ten years on the Governing Body of Brunel University and doorstep salesman. In the film '24 Davids' released on line last year he comes in at number 13 (56 to 64 minutes) where he is characterised even less accurately than in this summary. He hopes to remain Vice President of the Cybernetics Society until 2022.

Plenary Discussion

The aim of this session, moderated by John Beckford, is to draw out the complementary and competing ideas emerging from the two sessions.

Dr. John Beckford, FCybS, President of the Cybernetics Society

John Beckford is a board member of WOSC, a partner in Beckford Consulting, Non-Executive Chair of the Board of Rise Mutual CIC, a Non-Executive Director of both Fusion21 and CoreHaus (social enterprises) and Visiting Professor in both the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at University College London and the Centre for Information Management, School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University. John holds a PhD in cybernetics from the University of Hull, is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and of the Royal Society for the Arts and a Member of the Institute of Management Services.

Cybernetics Society – a learned society

The Cybernetics Society promotes and offers education and research opportunities in the rich field of cybernetics. In the CybSights series, including the President's Series, we offer isghts conversations, lectures, case studies, analysis, education, and thoughtful entertainment.,

The Cybernetics Society – http://CybSoc.org – is a specially authorised learned society regulated by the FSA and established by a 1974 Act of Parliament. To join visit our membership system or pick the Join ticket.

Cybernetics plays into and strongly influences many scientific and practice fields including design, epistemology, ecology, biology, psychology and living behaviour, technology and engineering, social policy, and business practice. Many feature in the wonderfully aware and successful designers and thinkers of this series.

Cybernetics offers a distinct "go" — techniques — to address local and global challenges of the 21st century.