The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory Review

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The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory ReviewPeople new to systems thinking and cybernetics are looking for handy resources to get started. This book requires something more. However, once a person gains a basic understanding, this book has proven to me to be one of the best. It points the reader in a number of directions for further study, and gives a useful summary of what the reader will find there.
Its treatment of the famous Luhmann-Habermas debates was especially helpful, and I plan to use a number of other sections in my own studies and college teaching for some time to come. I find that the writer understood the importance of orienting the reader who hadn't been comfortable with the science and mathematics that often go with systems thinking.
The author does an especially good job trying to integrate certain concerns with democracy, participative management, and widespread involvement that a systems approach sometimes neglects in pursuit of social engineering by a technical elite.
This book was heavier than a simple introduction, so it is not exactly the front door to systems thinking, but I have found it to be a hallway to many rooms that I am still exploring -- thanks to Kenneth Bausch.The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory OverviewIn The Emerging Consensus of Social Systems Theory Bauschsummarizes the works of over 30 major systemic theorists. He then goeson to show the converging areas of consensus among these out-standingthinkers. Bausch categorizes the social aspects of current systemic thinking asfalling into five broadly thematic areas: designing social systems,the structure of the social world, communication, cognition andepistemology. These five areas are foundational for a theoretic and practicalsystemic synthesis. They were topics of contention in a historicdebate between Habermas and Luhmann in the early 1970's. They continueto be contentious topics within the study of social philosophy. Since the 1970's, systemic thinking has taken great strides in theareas of mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, and sociology.This book presents a spectrum of those theoretical advances. Itsynthesizes what various strains of contemporary systems science haveto say about social processes and assesses the quality of theresulting integrated explanations. Bausch gives a detailed study of the works of many present-day systemstheorists, both in general terms, and with regard to social processes.He then creates and validates integrated representations of theirthoughts with respect to his own thematic classifications. He providesa background of systemic thinking from an historical context, as wellas detailed studies of developments in sociological, cognitive andevolutionary theory.This book presents a coherent, dynamic model ofa self-organizing world. It proposes a creative and ethical method ofdecision-making and design. It makes explicit the relations betweenstructure and process in the realms of knowledge and being. The newmethodology that evolves in this book allows us to deal with enormouscomplexity, and to relate ideas so as to draw out previouslyunsuspected conclusions and syntheses. Therein lies the elegance andutility of this model.

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Artificial Life Models in Software Review

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Artificial Life Models in Software ReviewRemember Conway's Game of Life? Surely you must, if you are interested in this book. The Game has been around since the 70s. The editors have cultivated recent research papers that demonstrate how far the field has advanced. Reinforced by some pretty colour plates that depict artificial entities [dare we call them living?] in some surroundings. These include the modelling of bee flights through a garden, and simulated trajectories of a group of bacteria.
Nor is the Game of Life ignored. One plate shows it in three dimensions. The Game is played in 2 dimensions, with time as the third dimension. An obvious choice that gives interesting trajectories of the cells.
The narrative adds to the illustrations. By describing a variety of computer simulations [worlds?]. Where the experimenter can tweak many parameters, and watch her world unfold. Some worlds are impressively rich in complexity of observed behaviours.
The only drawback in the book is its skimpy index. A mere two pages. It should have been more detailed.Artificial Life Models in Software OverviewThe advent of powerful processing technologies and the advances in software development tools have drastically changed the approach and implementation of computational research in fundamental properties of living systems through simulating and synthesizing biological entities and processes in artificial media. Nowadays realistic physical and physiological simulation of natural and would-be creatures, worlds and societies becomes a low-cost task for ordinary home computers. The progress in technology has dramatically reshaped the structure of the software, the execution of a code, and visualization fundamentals. This has led to the emergence of novel breeds of artificial life software models, including three-dimensional programmable simulation environment, distributed discrete events platforms and multi-agent systems. This second edition reflects the technological and research advancements, and presents the best examples of artificial life software models developed in the World and available for users.

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Convergence Marketing: Combining Brand and Direct Marketing for Unprecedented Profits Review

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Convergence Marketing: Combining Brand and Direct Marketing for Unprecedented Profits ReviewAs the marketing director for a sales-dominated, B2B transportation software services, I report to the Sr VP of Operations. He cares about one thing: does our marketing work? What's the ROI for every dollar we spend -- because I'm a cost center. Our weekly meetings are punctuated by a single expression: show me the numbers.
In our case, the numbers have to do with leads. We know that X leads equal Y engagements by the sales force, and Y engagements yield Z sales based on our historic close ratios. (We get these numbers through web analytics, our CRM, and examining all of our lead sources.)
But how do the integrated marketing campaigns we run perform? Which components of the marketing mix perform better? I.e., what's their ROI?
Here's a book that not only shows you the numbers, it shows you how to get to them: the "velocity" scale that tells you whether an ad is going to promote the brand and/or generate leads or help you clear out your inventory with a bake sale; the brand-interaction worksheet that will show you how to calculate the ROI of individual components of your marketing mix; and the customer dialogue strategy that will help you figure out how to communicate with your prospects based on where they are in their BUYING cycles rather than your SALES cycle. You'll also learn how to turn the "A" leads over to sales, while you cultivate the "B" leads, and chuck the "C" leads -- in fact, your profitability lies in all those "B" leads who will adhere to James Obermayer's Law of 45. (i.e., within a year, 45% of all prospects who raise their hands will buy something that addresses their need -- whether or not they buy it from you.)
There are also some very common sensical notions, such as empathizing with your customer (novel concept), that brand isn't nearly as important as your customers' relationship with the brand, and what works for Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Nike, or Starbucks just might not work for you unless you have beaucouples of money, a visionary CEO, or you might just happen to work for a pretty good company with pretty good products and pretty good people -- but no celebrity CEOs or brands.
I picked up Convergence Marketing because it promised to combine "the school of advertising and the school of business." It does just that.
In fact, after I picked up one copy, I got a dozen more and gave them to the marketing team, the product marketing managers, and the sales directors -- and my boss. We paused the old way of planning -- based on "gut" and historic precedents guided by a percentage of last year's marketing budget factored in with this year's revenue projections. Now we're "marketing by the numbers," so we can accurately measure the return on our marketing investments and feed the winners more and either get rid of or fix the losers -- according to the principles found in Convergence Marketing.
Caution: I mentioned principles in the sentence above. Rather than "can't miss" techniques that some business books tout, you'll get verifiable principles. All you have to do is apply them to your business, whether it's B2B or B2C. The beauty of it is, you only have to try something, test it, measure it, and then do the math.
Just one quibble: the title is a bit misleading. When I saw the words "Convergence Marketing," I thought it had to do with something other than the merger of advertising (creative) and business (numbers.) My guess is that when the 2nd edition comes out, the title will be closer to the essence of the book: Marketing by the Numbers, something my senior VP loves. Me too.Convergence Marketing: Combining Brand and Direct Marketing for Unprecedented Profits OverviewOffering a common language, better processes, and a set of practical tools, Convergence Marketing is a real-world guide that successfully combines the best of brand and direct into something more powerful and effective than either can be on its own. Convergence marketing offers the kind of real-time accountability that positions marketing as a vital and effective component of leadership's overall business strategy. Convergence brings brand and direct together with respect to both disciplines, within the same silos. And it offers the necessary tools and processes that deliver better results. Our global market demands nothing less than this fully integrated approach. Convergence Marketing is the key to shifting marketing communications efforts from a cost-based to a profit-driven model and will have your CFO begging you to spend more money.

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