Blimey. It’s been a while

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This place has been a bit of a blogging wasteland for the last few months. I’ve been a little busy with real life, and once my last OU module finished I just couldn’t be bothered spending much time updating my blog.

So, what have I been doing with all this free time? Well, I have a wife and a daughter and I’ve been enjoying their company a little bit more than they’re used to. That’s good, right? Work has kept me occupied during the day and band is often busy around Christmas. We’ve also been on a most excellent holiday to Oregon (visiting friends) and Toronto (staying with my sister and her family) and that took up a month of my blogging hiatus.

In years gone by I would have regularly updated my blog with exciting photos and descriptions of my exploits. These days I’d rather just enjoy my holiday and spend time with my family.

I started a new OU module back in October – M257 Putting Java To Work – which involves me writing some code in Netbeans and getting very confused about syntax. I have not paid it enough attention so far and I really need to get my arse into gear before submitting my next assignment in March.

I am also starting another OU module next month – T306 Managing Complexity: a Systems Approach. This is the final presentation of this course and it’s the last of two systems practice modules that are the core of my chosen OU degree. There is an enormous amount of work involved in this and it’s going to have to take priority over my Java course. My next nine months are going to be very busy.

I shall be using my blog for my “learning album” for T306. This may make even more tedious than previously, but it does afford me the opportunity to categorise and tag my entries for easy retrieval, plus some of my T306 cohorts may come along and join in the discussion. I do hope to update with some none-OU stuff every now and again but I’m having to restrict my Internet time to study purposes these days, primarily, and I don’t have anything like as much time for faffing about. This grieves me greatly, but is probably good for me.

In other news, I still haven’t read the book about procrastination I got from my sister for my birthday in June. Sorry Sis.

I got a Grade 2 pass (2:1 equivalent) for T214. I can’t tell you how chuffing chuffed I was to get that! I even managed to somehow achieve 88% in the end of module assignment, something I am immensely proud of. My overall mark was affected by some poor performance in Block 2; if I hadn’t messed those two assignments up I may have been able to get a distinction, but my brain failed to absorb enough of the course materials and I did not do well for a month or so. No excuses, it was my own fault for not applying myself well enough. T214 was a hugely enjoyable course on the whole, but very hard for the most part and the hardest academic exercise I have ever taken. T306 takes similar subject material up to the next level, but I’m determined not to suffer the same lull in concentration.

We are all fine here. Life is good. I have an amazing family, and despite the enormous amount of study I have lined up I am looking forward to 2012. Hope everyone else out there in Internetland is well.

Happy birthday Ruby

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Tired & Happy

I’m not sure how this has happened so quickly, but it turns out that our little girl is already two years old. Did someone speed up time over the last couple of years?

It’s impossible for me to explain in words how much we love her, or to show the many ways that she has enriched our lives since she arrived back in 2009, so for now I will just say this:

Happy birthday Ruby. You are amazing.

T214: TMA06 and the EMA

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I had a very welcome email from the Open University last night informing me that my mark for TMA06 had arrived. I’d been worried about this, because I needed a mark over 80% in order to achieve the magical 70% average over the six assignments, enough to give me a chance of a grade 2 pass for this course (the equivalent of a 2.1).

As it turns out I’d managed to get 86%. I am very, very pleased with this! This means that the course materials are finally starting to sink in, and that my chances of an eventual 2.1 degree are not dashed at this early stage. I still have a lot of course concepts to work on – I still struggle with emergent properties of systems, and I find it difficult to break out of my cognitive biases – but I’m starting to use the diagramming techniques better and managed to gain my best mark of the course just when I needed it.

I’ve put a lot of effort into this, although I could be much more organised in my approach. My poor wife has had to put up with me ignoring her for a couple of hours in the evenings while I tap away at my computer, or read through the course materials. I couldn’t do this without her support. I’ve also benefited greatly from some excellent comments by my tutor, who’s provided me with some much-needed guidance when I’ve been heading in the wrong direction, or missing the point of the course concepts. Cheers!

I’m now feeling more confident for the End of Module Assessment (EMA), due in by the 12th October. I still have 5,000 words to write but I think I can get something sensible down on paper in time. I need to exceed 70% on that in order to get the grade 2 pass, so I’ll be aiming high with my analysis.

I’m still looking at potential problems to analyse for this and I’m now considering the recently reported killing of a British man and the kidnapping of his wife in Kenya. This event is a tragedy for their family – and I feel a bit ghoulish for even considering this as a study opportunity – but there are all sorts of environmental, conflict and control issues involved with that story (and the whole Somali pirate thing) that would allow me to generate some interesting ideas and conclusions.

We shall see. In the meantime, I have a systems thinking framework to create. Should be fun!

T214: EMA – choosing a problem

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My T214 study is approaching the end. I’ll be submitting the formative TMA07 on Friday, finishing off Block 4 in a few weeks, then engaging with the End of Module Assessment (EMA) in time to submit by the 12th October.

I need to write 5,000 words in the EMA. This seems like a LOT of words to me, but the EMA is split into manageable chunks and I’m fairly sure that I can create enough sensible content to get a decent mark. One part of the EMA requires me to find a problem to analyse, something that’s been in the news this year that I can apply my new, shiny systems practice techniques to.

I have a number of possible candidates for consideration; firstly, and most obviously, there is the biggest news of the year – the recent riots. There are a number of benefits to choosing this as my mess; there’s no end of potential material to use as evidence – from all sorts of perspectives – and it’s already been analysed to death in the media. It should be fairly easy to find relevant data on societal problems that may have contributed to the problem and potential intervention points. It’s also the most obvious subject matter to take forward into the EMA and I suspect many people will choose it.

Alternatively, I could pick something on the UK economy. The chancellor is keen to chop the 50% tax rate in order generate some impetus into the economy, while Warren Buffet has stated that the rich should pay more taxes. Economics is a true mess and the current economic problems in the UK would allow me to discuss all sorts of systems concepts. I also did A-level economics back at High School, so at least I have some background knowledge to draw on, even though I didn’t get a great grade. I’m tempted to go with this one, even though we didn’t cover economics directly in the course materials. I would find it interesting to do and it would give me a chance to look at both the Tory and socialist economic agendas.

I could pick something smaller scale and perhaps look at the “cloudgate” issues that caused a bit of a storm this year (pun intended). This was a mess that links into Climate Change and science reporting, and I could use the story to look at how science, and climate science in particular, is reported in the news. I have firm views on climate change (I’m staunchly in the science camp) and it would be interesting to look at alternative perspectives from a systems thinking point of view. There was a lot of discussion about the whole thing around various science blogs so I shouldn’t have a problem finding reference-able material.

I shall have a ponder. My current favourite is the economics one, but we shall see. It might be better to take on a smaller mess, or perhaps look at other stories in the news to find something different. I am more than willing to consider ideas if anyone has something in mind…

Crime in 20th Century Britain

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Block 4 of my T214 course is concerned with examining crime and criminal behaviour from a systemic perspective. This is of particular interest at the moment due to the recent riots, and I’m aware that one of the concepts being raised is the viability and usefulness of prison.

I haven’t started on this yet but I did have a quick search on Google for crime statistics and found this rather interesting article on History Today about Crime in 20th Century Britain. It’s quite a long read but does give some interesting insight into how we’ve succumbed to rising crime figures over the last hundred years.

It’ll be interesting to see where this leads me.

T214: Activity 5.8 – analysing your messy situation

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This activity asks me to think about the messy situation I’ve chosen for my assignments (Marconi’s descent into bankruptcy) by thinking about my feelings around that time. The question is:

Are there any aspects of the situation that you feel critical or guilty about, or where you attribute blame to others?

Superficially, I could rant along at length about certain people on the Marconi board who ruined the company (and I would be justified in doing so) but as I’m trying to learn some academic points from this exercise I need to approach it with a clear, unranty mind.

The thinking is this: criticism of others is often grounded in tension within ourselves, something subconscious that we’re not willing to accept. There’s an emotional aspect to being critical of others (rather than just corrective) that demonstrates something within us that we may not be aware of. If we can determine why we’re being critical in any particular situation then we can take a more balanced approach to solving whatever tension is causing us to be critical in the first place.

I’m finding it difficult to find my own failings or faults in this mess. I’m critical of the old Marconi board because they were incompetent idiots that ruined a profitable company. How am I going to discover my own tensions in this situation? Continue reading →

T214: the problem with paradigms

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I’m running a little behind with my T214 study but I’m determined to make a few posts about some of the subjects brought up in my readings. I may find these useful when I come to reflect on my learning.

One of the recent readings is concerned with “self-sealing behaviour”. This describes behaviour that reinforces your current beliefs; for example, a bully might persecute someone with low self-esteem, thus reinforcing the poor sod’s dim view of themselves. The reading talks a bit about blame, guilt and criticism, which I found to be quite interesting. Apparently, firms that employ a “blame culture” (whether they mean to or not) tend to have people that won’t accept any responsibility for their actions, and so avoiding any potential blame for failure. This makes it very difficult for companies to learn from their mistakes, as they sometimes won’t admit to having made any. Continue reading →

T214: Activity 5.6 Evolution of the ecology

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My systems practice OU module is starting to get really interesting. The use of metaphors to explain situations has expanded to include an organic metaphor – organisations as organisms. This seems to work for me – probably better than the “machine” metaphor – as I think that most systems that involve people can be better explained this way. People don’t (or won’t) easily fit into a machine metaphor – decisions can be a bit erratic – and they are often swayed by changes in their environment, so perhaps if we imagine organisations to be more like an organism we can better understand how they work.

(By the way, I’m writing this as I’m thinking so apologies if it does make much sense…)

In my last assignment I attributed the downfall of Marconi to some very risky business decisions linked in with the unforeseen collapse of the telecommunications market. I could see how the “environment” affected Marconi – market conditions worsened making business difficult for our customers – but I didn’t consider how it could also work the other way; that our businesses could affect the environment. Continue reading →

T214: Activity 5.2

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I submitted TMA05 on Sunday (only 9 days late) and I’m now behind on the coursework that leads up to TMA06. This is not a particularly great situation, considering the amount of readings and activities to get through, but at least the course materials are interesting.

I neglected to write much about my learning activities (this might be a constant theme) but the act of writing them down should help me to better understand what I need to do to get better marks. My scores for both the assignments in Block 2 were not that great, as I was too focussed on solutions and not concentrating on the process of working out the problems. I need to spend more time thinking about how things are connected and not so much about how to fix things.

I also need to write longer paragraphs in my assignments, apparently.

So, in order to better facilitate my understanding of the course materials – and systems thinking in general – I’m going to try to be better at using my blog as a learning journal. Some of the activities (like this one that I’m about to describe) ask me write down my thoughts. My thoughts are often fragmented and difficult to collate, so I apologise in advance if some of what I write doesn’t make much sense, or jumps around all over the place. This is a constant cycle of improvement and I hope to be getting much better at this.

Activity 5.2 requires me to think about my own motivations. This block is trying to use metaphors to describe how organisations work and people’s motivations are a large part of that. We all have different perspectives and worldviews and our desires and expectations determine how we approach situations. Our motivations affects everything that happens in organisations; the RUGS “machine” metaphor only works so far when people are involved, and so the course materials are extending our use of metaphors in systems by introducing the concept of “organisations as organisms”.

I sense some increased complications in my learning process…

Continue reading →