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   Ruth Malan — Systems (ruthmalan@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 30-Mar-2025 21:14:57 JST Ruth Malan — Systems

   • Pavel A. Samsonov

   “A seat at the table is no good unless design is part of the strategy. To find the right place to apply leverage, designers need to embrace systems thinking.”

   “Designers do not, I think, have a coherent sense of what systems thinking is (I have heard it used to refer to design systems more than once and I am sorry to say, that is not it). A good start on systems thinking is Indi Young’s piece on thinking critically”

   — @PavelASamsonov

   https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/design-is-a-leadership-skill-why-design-goes-wrong-and-how-to-set-it-right-part-3

   • Embed this notice
     Ruth Malan — Systems (ruthmalan@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 30-Mar-2025 21:14:56 JST Ruth Malan — Systems

     in reply to

     🎉

     “One of the best and most designerly ways of untangling that web is through diagramming. Ruth Malan has composed an excellent diagramming toolkit for systems seeing and Karen Holtzblatt’s contextual design remains a priceless resource.”

     A link/mention of the System Seeing Journal Starter Kit
     https://www.ruthmalan.com/systems/2025SystemSeeingJournal.pdf

     And in such good company!!

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     Ruth Malan — Systems (ruthmalan@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 30-Mar-2025 21:14:56 JST Ruth Malan — Systems

     in reply to

     Aside on the System Seeing Journal Starter Kit: it is smuggling all manner of systems donkeys, in terms of the explicit areas of practice as well as the quotes as offers of “matter to think with.”

     Still, it emphasizes models and diagramming, so this struck me earlier today:

     “For systems practitioners then, modelling is core to the discipline — if you’re not modelling you’re not doing systems”

     — Patrick Hoverstadt

     The donkeys reference: https://idriesshahfoundation.org/pdfviewer/the-smuggler-from-the-exploits-of-the-incomparable-mulla-nasrudin/

     Aral Balkan repeated this.
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     Ruth Malan — Systems (ruthmalan@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 30-Mar-2025 21:15:27 JST Ruth Malan — Systems

     in reply to

     ‘The British sociologist Marilyn Strathern [..] taught me that “it matters what ideas we use to think other ideas (with)” [..] It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots; what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.’

     — Donna Haraway, Staying With The Trouble