{"id":1112,"date":"2011-11-12T14:33:58","date_gmt":"2011-11-12T14:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=1112"},"modified":"2011-11-12T14:33:58","modified_gmt":"2011-11-12T14:33:58","slug":"single-sell-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=1112","title":{"rendered":"Single Sell System"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In the pursuit of improvement it must be remembered that the system\u00a0must remain viable: better but dead is not\u00a0the intended outcome.\u00a0\u00a0Viability of socioeconomic systems implies that money is flowing to where it is needed, when it is needed and in the amounts that are needed.<\/p>\n

Money is\u00a0like energy –\u00a0it only does worthwhile work when it is moving:\u00a0so the design of more effective money-streams is a critical part of socioeconomic system improvement.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0this is not easy or obvious because the devil is in the detail<\/em> and complexity grows\u00a0quicklyand obscures the picture. This lack of clear picture creates the temptation to clean, analyse,\u00a0simplify and conceptualise\u00a0and very often leads to\u00a0analysis-paralysis and then\u00a0over-simplification.<\/p>\n

There is a useful\u00a0metaphor for this challenge.<\/p>\n

Biological systems use energy rather than money and the process of improvement\u00a0has a different name – it is called evolution. Each\u00a0of us is an evolution\u00a0experiment. The\u00a0viability\u00a0requirement is the same though –\u00a0the success of the experiment is measured by our viability. Do our genes and memes survive after we have gone?<\/p>\n

It\u00a0is only\u00a0in recent times that the mechanism of this\u00a0biological\u00a0system has become better understood. It was not until the 19th Century that we realised\u00a0that complex organisms were made of reproducing cells; and later that there were\u00a0rules that governed\u00a0how inherited characteristics passed from generation to generation; and that the vehicle of transmission\u00a0was a chemical code molecule called DNA that is\u00a0present in every copy of every cell capable of reproduction.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0learned that\u00a0our chemical blueprint is stored in the nucleus of every cell\u00a0(the dark spots in the picture of cells) and this led to the concept that\u00a0the nucleus\u00a0worked like a “brain”\u00a0that issues\u00a0chemical orders to the cell\u00a0in the form of a\u00a0very similar molecule called RNA.\u00a0 This cellular command-and-control model is unfortunately more a projection of the rhetoric of society\u00a0than the reality of the situation. The nucleus is not a “brain”\u00a0– it is a gonad. The “brain” of a cell is\u00a0the\u00a0surface membrane\u00a0– the sensitive interface between outside and inside;\u00a0where\u00a0the “sensor” molecules in the outer cell membrane connect to “effector” molecules on the inside.\u00a0 Cells think with their skin – and their behaviour is guided by their\u00a0\u00a0internal content and external context. Nature and nurture working as a system.<\/p>\n

Cells\u00a0have evolved to collaborate. Rogue cells\u00a0that become “mentally” unstable and that break away, start to divide, and\u00a0spread in an uncollaborative and selfish fashion\u00a0threaten the viability of the whole:\u00a0they are called\u00a0malignant. The threat of malignant behaviour to long term viability is so great that we have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to detect and correct malignant behaviour. The fact that\u00a0cancer is still a problem is because our malignancy defense mechanisms are not 100% effective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This realisation of the importance of the cell has led to a focus of medical research on understand how individual cells “sense”, “think”, “act”\u00a0and “communicate”\u00a0and has led to great\u00a0leaps in our understanding of how\u00a0multi-celled systems called animals and plants work; how they can go awry; and what can be done to prevent and correct these cellular niggles.\u00a0 We are even\u00a0learning how to “fix”\u00a0bits of the the chemical blueprint to\u00a0correct our chemical software glitches. We are no where near being able to design a cell from scratch though. We simply do not understand enough about how it works.<\/p>\n

In comparison, the “single-sell” in\u00a0an economic\u00a0system\u00a0could be considered to be\u00a0a step in a process – the point where the stream and the silo\u00a0meet – where expenses are converted to revenue for example.\u00a0\u00a0I will wantonly bend the rules of grammar and use the word “sell” to distinguish it visually from “cell”.\u00a0So before trying to understand the complex emergent behaviour of a multi-selled economic system we first need to understand better\u00a0one sell works. How does work flow and time flow and money flow combined at the single sell?<\/p>\n

When we do so we learn that the “economic mechanism”\u00a0of a single sell can be described completely because\u00a0it is a manfestation of the\u00a0Laws of Physics – just as the mechanism of the weather can be describe using a small number of equations that combine to describe the flow, pressure, density, temperature etc of the atmospheric gases.\u00a0 Our simplest single-selled economic system is described by a\u00a0set of equations –\u00a0there are about twenty of them in fact.<\/p>\n

So, trying to work out in our heads how\u00a0even a single sell in an economic system will behave amounts to\u00a0mentally managing twenty simultanous equations – which is a bit of a problem\u00a0because we’re not very good at that mental maths trick. The\u00a0best we can do is to learn\u00a0the patterns in the interdependent behaviour of the outputs of the equations; to recognise what they imply; and\u00a0then how to use that understanding\u00a0to craft\u00a0wiser\u00a0decisions.<\/p>\n

No wonder the\u00a0design of a viable\u00a0socioeconomic multi-selled system seems to be eluding even the brightest economic minds at the moment!\u00a0 It is a complicated\u00a0system which exhibits complex behaviour.\u00a0 Is there a better approach?\u00a0 Our vastly more complex biological counterparts called “organisms” seem to have discovered one. So what\u00a0can we learn from them?<\/p>\n

One lesson\u00a0might be that is is a good design to\u00a0detect and correct\u00a0malignant behaviour early;\u00a0the unilateral, selfish, uncollaborative\u00a0behaviour\u00a0that multiplies,\u00a0spreads, and becomes painful, incurable then lethal.<\/p>\n

First we need to\u00a0raise awareness and recognition of it …\u00a0only then can we challenge and\u00a0contain its toxic legacy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the pursuit of improvement it must be remembered that the system\u00a0must remain viable: better but dead is not\u00a0the intended outcome.\u00a0\u00a0Viability of socioeconomic systems implies that money is flowing to where it is needed, when it is needed and in the amounts that are needed. Money is\u00a0like energy –\u00a0it only does worthwhile work when it … <\/p>\n

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