John Seely Brown - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by John Seely Brown

PsycEXTRA Dataset

This report describes the development of several new computer based strategies for teaching troub... more This report describes the development of several new computer based strategies for teaching troubleshooting principles to electronics technicians. The computer programs to implement these strategies were developed in part from software produced in previous contracts. The report documents an experiment in which those materials were presented to student technicians to determine their attitudes toward the techniques, and to determine whether the training resulted in improvement of their technical skills. Results in both cases were positive with students responding very favorably to the materials and with their performance improving quantitatively and qualitatively after the instruction. The computer based techniques used are explained and examples of student interaction with the materials are included in' the report. Copies of the tutorial materials used in conjunction with the on-line computer presentations are presented in an appendix. (Author) * *

Bringing design to software, 1996

Work jointly Work jointly Cooperate traitorously with the enemy Cooperate traitorously with the e... more Work jointly Work jointly Cooperate traitorously with the enemy Cooperate traitorously with the enemy Context Context and and background background Site and species protection Site and species protection Management objectives? Management objectives? Maintainance Maintainance of site condition of site condition Not a good start for collaboration Not a good start for collaboration Conservative, negative, complex, restrictive, exclusive Conservative, negative, complex, restrictive, exclusive Nor is it clear that it works Nor is it clear that it works Micro Micro-management cannot match the complexity and management cannot match the complexity and dynamism of nature dynamism of nature The jewel in the crown The jewel in the crown

はじめに—「プル」の時代がやってきた第１章消えゆくプッシュの力第２章アクセスする力第３章必要なものを引き寄せる第４章プルの力で能力を最大限に発揮する第５章個人が起こすプルの革... more はじめに—「プル」の時代がやってきた第１章消えゆくプッシュの力第２章アクセスする力第３章必要なものを引き寄せる第４章プルの力で能力を最大限に発揮する第５章個人が起こすプルの革命第６章組織のトップから、プルのイノベーションを起こす第７章プルの力で世界を変えるおわりに情熱を持ち、才能を開花させる

Human Detection and Diagnosis of System Failures, 1981

One of the intriguing properties of many expert trouble-shooters is their ability to diagnose sys... more One of the intriguing properties of many expert trouble-shooters is their ability to diagnose systems that they have never seen before. These experts construct their own qualitative causal models of how a system functions given a description of its structure and what it is supposed to do. What is the basis of this skill? Towards answering this question, we have been investigating properties of the “mental models” that such experts might be constructing for representing the underlying mechanisms of a system, i.e. their understanding. Some of these properties are apparent. Firstly, they involve a qualitative understanding of how the system functions in contradistinction to the analytic or quantitative models often taught to engineers. Secondly, these models appear to have many of the properties of a simulation which is, metaphorically speaking, “run” in the mind’s eye or what might be called an envisionment. From running such an envisionment the expert can discover and/or encode much of a system’s underlying causality.

IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 1973

Page 1. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. SMC-3, NO. 3, MAY 1973 independe... more Page 1. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. SMC-3, NO. 3, MAY 1973 independent visual-manual tasks. In this way the attention function can be made explicit through eye-position records. ...

VIKALPA

Page 1. ELSEVIER HI Til »»l lit IH tlllMUVW STORYTELLING Wfiy Storytelling Is Transforming21st Ce... more Page 1. ELSEVIER HI Til »»l lit IH tlllMUVW STORYTELLING Wfiy Storytelling Is Transforming21st Century Organizations and Management Page 2. ELSEVIER armmiuiH STORYTELLING Why Storytelling Is Transforming 21st Century Organizations and Management Page 3. ...

This paper describes the model-based diagnostician used in SOPHIE III. This diagnostician is capa... more This paper describes the model-based diagnostician used in SOPHIE III. This diagnostician is capable of localizing faults in analog circuits such as DC power supplies. Although it presumes that the circuit contains a single fault, it introduces a variety of important model-based techniques: (1) it uses models of component behaviors to perform firstprinciples reasoning to detect conflicts and corroborations with observations, (2) it considers a component to be faulted if its removal would eliminate all conflicts yet preserve all corroborations, (3) it uses propagation of constraints with numerical ranges, (4) it uses fault mode information to eliminate components from consideration, and (5) it provides a smooth integration with rule-based diagnostic rules when first-principles reasoning is inadequate to perform the diagnosis.

A brief glance at the evolution of strategic focus reveals dramatic shifts in relevant context wi... more A brief glance at the evolution of strategic focus reveals dramatic shifts in relevant context with potent implications for organization and control, rooted in the reversal of a century-old “long wave { XE "long wave "} ” centered on internalizing various economic activities to control them that gave rise to the integrated firm, the corporation and the conglomerate (Chandler, 1977; Chandler & Salsbury, 1974). Where companies from the mid-1860s to roughly the 1980s created strategic advantage by internalizing activities for greater stability, efficiency and control, increasingly since then advantage has centered more and faster learning and innovation (IBM { XE "IBM "}_Global_Services, 2006; Prahalad & Krishnan, 2008; Schramm, 2006). But no company can control all the resources needed for innovation (Prahalad & Krishnan, 2008), so creating strategic advantage has increasingly required collaborative, outsourced, strategic alliances

The buzz is spreading. There's a new set of technologies on the horizon. Web services offer the p... more The buzz is spreading. There's a new set of technologies on the horizon. Web services offer the potential of low cost, flexible connections across applications operating on diverse technology platforms. The pay-off: substantial, near-term reduction in operating costs and improvements in asset leverage for businesses. Not so fast. True, businesses do have the potential for substantial savings in an increasingly demanding economic environment. But put the emphasis on "potential". Realizing these savings is not simply a question of injecting a new set of technologies. To fully realize the economic potential of Web services technology, senior managers will need to adopt very different approaches to managing business processes. This article describes why different management approaches are required. IT managers have an opportunity to play a significant role in helping businesses to migrate towards these new process management approaches. We outline the role that IT managers can play and provide them with some specific tools to increase impact. But first, let's provide some context. IT'S NOT JUST A RECESSION We are all focused on the deepening recession and debating how long it will last. Implicitly, we believe that when the recovery arrives, the pressure will be off and we will once again be able to count on profitability and growth. Recessions are cyclical events-they have a beginning and an end. Underneath this cyclical event, long-term trends are gathering momentum and converging in ways that suggest economic pressures may not go away as the recession comes to an end. In particular, two fundamental forces are coming together to intensify competition. First, technology innovation continues to reduce interaction coststhe costs incurred in coordinating economic activity. At the foundations,

Harvard Business Review, 2008

Redefinir los terminos competitivos de un segmento de mercado, de un sector o de un ecosistema gl... more Redefinir los terminos competitivos de un segmento de mercado, de un sector o de un ecosistema global es una enorme tarea. Implica atraer a miles de participantes, galvanizar sus esfuerzos y retener su compromiso en el largo plazo. Hagel, Brown y Davison, de Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation, ofrecen un plan de accion para la titanica tarea de crear una estrategia configuradora a medida que la infraestructura impulsada por la tecnologia cambia constantemente. Los autores se refieren a tres elementos clave que, en todos los sectores, son vitales para una estrategia configuradora. Una vision configuradora, o llamado a la accion para los participantes potenciales, clarifica la oportunidad de mercado, traza un mapa de las fuerzas fundamentales, identifica las recompensas y resalta la naturaleza compartida del riesgo. Bill Gates, por cierto, creo una buena vision para las computadoras de escritorio, y mas recientemente Marc Benioff de Salesforce.com hizo lo mismo con el software para empresas. Una plataforma configuradora, como AdSense de Google, define claramente los estandares y practicas que ayudaran a organizar y respaldar las actividades de muchos participantes, permitiendoles hacer mas con menos. Las acciones y activos configuradores especificos convencen a los participantes de que el configurador tiene la capacidad de lanzar sus iniciativas, como hizo Facebook al publicitar su relacion con Microsoft. Los tres elementos juntos permiten que el configurador movilice rapidamente una masa critica de participantes y, con ello, desate poderosos efectos de red que pueden traer grandes recompensas en tiempos de cambio rapido. Casi cualquier empresa se puede beneficiar si intenta una estrategia configuradora, dicen los autores, pero reconocen que no todas pueden, en ultimo termino, ser configuradoras. Sin embargo, demuestran que al participar en la estrategia configuradora de otra firma, una empresa aun asi puede descubrir muchas oportunidades de crear valor.

Journal of Service Science (JSS), 2011

Open innovation has become the latest management buzzword. We would have to look long and hard to... more Open innovation has become the latest management buzzword. We would have to look long and hard to find an executive who does not agree with the basic premise of open innovation that success in coming up with creative new value to offer to the marketplace depends upon connecting effectively with other companies. Executives realize they simply cant do it alone. Virtually all of them now buy into the wisdom of Bill Joys observation that there are always more smart people outside your company than within.

A qualitative physics predicts and explains the behavior of mechanisms in qualitative terms. The ... more A qualitative physics predicts and explains the behavior of mechanisms in qualitative terms. The goals for the qualitative physics are (1) to be far simpler than the classical physics and yet retain all the important distinctions (e.g., state, oscillation, gain, momentum) without invoking the mathematics of continuously varying quantities and differential equations, (2) to produce causal accounts of physical mechanisms that are easy to understand, and (3) to provide the foundations for commonsense models for the next generation of expert systems. This paper presents a fairly encompassing account of qualitative physics. First, we discuss the general subject of naive physics and some of its methodological considerations. Second, we present a framework for modeling the generic behavior of individual components of a device based on the notions of qualitative differential equations (conjluences) and qualitative state. This requires developing a qualitative version of the calculus. The modeling primitives induce two kinds of behavior, intrastate and interstate, which are governed by different laws. Third, we present algorithms for determining the behavior of a composite device from the generic behavior of its components. Fourth, we examine a theory of explanation for these predictions based on logical proof. Fifth, we introduce causality as an ontological commitment for explaining how devices behave.

Sociocultural Studies of Mind, 1995

E-Learning and Digital Media, 2011

The educational needs of the 21st century pose a number of serious problems for current education... more The educational needs of the 21st century pose a number of serious problems for current educational practices. First and foremost, we see the 21st century as a time that is characterized by constant change. Educational practices that focus on the transfer of static knowledge simply cannot keep up with the rapid rate of change. Practices that focus on adaptation or reaction to change fare better, but are still finding themselves outpaced by an environment that requires content to be updated almost as fast as it can be taught. What is required to succeed in education is a theory that is responsive to the context of constant flux, while at the same time is grounded in a theory of learning. Accordingly, understanding the processes of learning which underwrite the practices emerging from participation in digital networks may enable us to design learning environments that harness the power of digital participation for education in the 21st century.

Loosening up: How process networks unlock the power of specialization n the quest for higher perf... more Loosening up: How process networks unlock the power of specialization n the quest for higher performance, what company can ignore the benefits of partnering with business specialists and of outsourcing noncore activities to focused providers? The virtues of business collaboration are clear: innovation and efficiency. Most companies seem to think that the right way to structure outsourcing is equally clear: tightly managing, across corporate boundaries, the process of producing and delivering products or services. Yet most companies also admit that such arrangements involve trade-offs. Tightly coupled processes are often inflexible. Problems with key suppliers-for instance, a plant fire that forces unanticipated delays in the shipping of products-can be crippling. We believe that executives settling for these trade-offs have made a mistake. Companies at the cutting edge of process management handle critical crosscompany processes as though they were networks rather than production lines. For core operating processes such as the management of supply chains and customer relationships and the development and commercialization of products, these cutting-edge companies have swapped their tightly coupled processes for loosely coupled ones, thereby gaining much-needed flexibility and improving their performance in the bargain.

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Bringing design to software, 1996

Human Detection and Diagnosis of System Failures, 1981

IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 1973

VIKALPA

Harvard Business Review, 2008

Journal of Service Science (JSS), 2011

Sociocultural Studies of Mind, 1995

E-Learning and Digital Media, 2011

RIT Commencement Speech, 2019

recent commencement speech (May, 2019) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)... some new vie... more recent commencement speech (May, 2019) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)... some new views on higher education for our white water world of exponential change and complexity science.

We’ve all heard about and experienced this ‘pace of change’ narrative. I want to step back a bit... more We’ve all heard about and experienced this ‘pace of change’ narrative. I want to step back a bit to consider some aspects of this world to try to open up a space of possibilities that’s a bit little different.

The game has changed. The real question is, have we? From my point of view, sense-making has chan... more The game has changed. The real question is, have we? From my point of view, sense-making has changed since the amazing moment last year when a deep learning computer program defeated a human professional at the abstract strategy game Go. In March 2016, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeated Mr. Lee Sedol, winner of 18 world titles and widely considered the greatest Go player of recent history. It was a moment that I think quite honestly shocked the world, and one that causes us to step back and rethink what we do, who we are, and what meaning actually means. In this post AlphaGo world, what are the new mindsets we should be adopting? What are the new lenses that may be required to make sense out of the complex and exponentially changing world we're walking into? I want to look at this post AlphaGo world through three different lenses. The first is through an operational lens, then an epistemological lens, and finally an ontological lens. What does it mean to be in this kind of world? The answer to these big questions really comes from the composite of knowing how to look at this through all three

The game has changed. The real question is, have we? From my point of view, sense-making has cha... more The game has changed. The real question is, have we? From my point of view, sense-making has changed since the amazing moment last year when a deep learning computer program defeated a human professional at the abstract strategy game Go. In March 2016, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeated Mr. Lee Sedol, winner of 18 world titles and widely considered the greatest Go player of recent history. It was a moment that I think quite honestly shocked the world, and one that causes us to step back and rethink what we do, who we are, and what meaning actually means. In this post AlphaGo world, what are the new mindsets we should be adopting? What are the new lenses that may be required to make sense out of the complex and exponentially changing world we're walking into? I want to look at this post AlphaGo world through three different lenses. The first is through an operational lens, then an epistemological lens, and finally an ontological lens. What does it mean to be in this kind of world? The answer to these big questions really comes from the composite of knowing how to look at this through all three.