An oldie but worth a new look. First published in 1991

"...the most essential prerequisite to understanding is to be able to admit when you don’t understand something. Being able to admit that you don’t know is liberating. … is the ideal frame of mind to receive new information."

Get out of your studios and into the board rooms designers!

A call for designers to re-evaluate their role in society - commit to becoming (part of) the solution not part of the problem.

If you are beginning to think that our present behaviour is typical of failed societies at the zenith of their greed and arrogance - this is the dinosaur factor.

Time to question progress itself? The ultimate design challenge?

Thanks Gareth Morgan for choosing to help us understand the big issues of our time – this time a reflection on our Health system.

There is no more emotional issue than access to healthcare.

We lurch from restructure to restructure apparently unable to grasp the critical first step in Systems Design – that of identifying and communicating the core challenge.

Delivering to current and future needs without substantially increasing the purse is surely the challenge. Nothing short of cultural change will get us there.

Although I went in looking for it didn’t discover the ‘real’ Theresa Gattung.

While not what you’d call a stuffed shirt she depicts herself as an expensive suit with sleeves rolled up! Perhaps that’s what the telecommunications industry is still looking for?

We look forward to seeing her match her skills to New Zealand’s flagging strong wool industry. This will provide an opportunity for her to declare her real passion and to inspire progress in a sector so desperately unhinged.

Also around for a while. Second edition.

Essential reading for those who see design thinking as one of many disciplines needed to create and support human enterprise in the 21st century.

For more by Peter Senge see our December 2009 Blog for Presence.

An author not afraid to uncover for the reader the uncomfortable prevalence of failure in natural and human systems.

Thank you Dr Peter Cammock for your gentle but powerful insights into the nature of commitment to the realisation of a personal vision.

To purchase this book please contact Dr Peter Cammock at peter.cammock@canterbury.ac.nz.

One of the most powerful books on a complex subject we have found.

Explaining Sustainable Innovation might have been a better title for this book. An interesting read but left us asking … but how, in a New Zealand context, can this be done?