Don't Fear The Future

Quote displayed in the Legacy exhibition at the Nobel Museum, Stockholm

I'm certainly no physicist. I do however enjoy the subject. I find it inspiring to read about the history of the discipline.

The physicist turned philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn has long been my guide in making sense of the twists and turns of the natural sciences. He described the way in which one paradigm (for example Einsteinian physics) replaces another (Newtonian physics) in the march of progress. However, he argued that the new paradigm is always able to incorporate the functionality of the old.

This is why in an age when the errors of Newtonian physics are well known, and when relativity and quantum mechanics describe the (current) truth of our world, many engineers can still use Newton's concepts to build engines, bridges and buildings. Newtonianism is flawed as a truth, but for simpler practical applications still works.

Ancora Imparo - The Stockholm Interpretation

Stockholm á Minuit. Peter Johnson

Ancora Imparo. 

Apparently Michaelangelo was fond of this phrase. It means 'still I am learning' and indeed, anyone in the business of creativity, design or innovation needs to keep an open mind.

Wandering around Stockholm this evening, I reflected on all the conversation and feedback from this last week. While I walked, I made a big effort to view these discussions from the Swedish perspective; from the point of view of one who loves order and hates chaos.

I'm pleased to say that the result was a mild epiphany.

Crispbread, Meatballs and erm, Chaos.

Sundsvall A.M. by Peter Johnson

I'm sat in a busy hotel in Sundsvall. I've just finished a series of four talks in different parts on this country which were organised by the lovely people from itSMF Sweden (special big shoutout to Daniel Billing).

I was of course here to flog my Control-Chaos-Values approach to the workplace. What I love about doing this in public is the range of responses that one receives. There are still too many of the folded-arms, rigid expression variety, which generally tell me that I'm either being boring (sorry if that was the case), or that these individuals are simply not prepared to countenance such radical change to the way things are currently done.

Getting Used to This

Typically Langdocien (Peter Johnson)

It's very hot.

I'm sat on a large, typically Languedocian balcony high above a typically Langdocian street, drinking a glass of the local rosé, while Mrs J. is watching a French quiz show on TV inside the flat, as she does each night to improve her already excellent language skills.

I'm just chilling out. It's the last week of this southern chaleur as, on Saturday, we'll be heading northwards. It's been a great vacation. The temperature has been lovely - in the mid-thirties throughout our time on the Italian and French riverias, and during the first week in Montpellier. This week it's mainly been high twenties but that'll do! It seems like ages since we were in Yorkshire.

Travels, Things Quantum and Work Psychology

Villa in Riva del Garda, Italy. (Peter Johnson)

I'm starting to feel a little like a character in a 1960s euro-movie. I'm sat in bed in a hotel on the Italian riviera, auburn-haired woman asleep by my side (ok, it's the wife but let's not spoil the simile). We have driven here from Sheffield, via Operation Stack on the M20, delayed Eurotunnel trains and illegal immigrants in Calais. We stopped for a night in Troyes in  the Champagne department of France, and the next day drove to wonderful Geneva, Switzerland where we spent a lovely evening.

After queuing for ages to get through the Mont Blanc tunnel the following day, we made it into Italy and were presented with the challenge of the busy (and a little scary!) Friday afternoon A4 Autostrada traffic around Milan, Bergamo and Bresica. By early evening we had made it to our little hotel on the edge of Lake Garda.

It's Complicated

Does politics fit into the techno(logy), psycho(logy) and socio(logy) brief of this blog? Yes of course it does - especially in the latter category.

So I guess you are now appraised of the fact that I'm going to bang on about politics for the next few hundred words. If that's an unpleasant thought, you'd better click away now.

Isn't it funny that, especially during and since the recent UK general election, everyone thinks that their punditry matters. That'll be the democratising power of the internet I suppose - even if this supposed pluralism is largely an illusion. Power exists even here.

So to politics and the future.

Still Here

Christ Church Meadows, Oxford. Peter Johnson

Oh, hello!

I've been away from this space for a little while, and I thought I'd pop in to see how things are in the worlds of ITSM and work psychology.

I typed in #ITSM in Twitter and noted that the sector is chugging along as usual; front line service desk types still looking for deterministic and formulaic solutions to complex fuzzy people problems.

Hmm.