Archive Library: PlexusCalls 2008

Wilma Subra is a scientist committed to protecting the environment, health and safety of citizens. In 1981 she started the Subra Company , a chemistry lab and environmental consulting firm in New Iberia, LA.

Ken Thompson, author of the new book Bioteams, and Lisa Kimball, producer of GroupJazz, discuss successful collaboration.

Steven Shafarman has been working for many years as an independent scholar, applying complexity and system science to understand, first, how young children learn to walk, talk, and make sense of the world, and, second, how that process might provide insight into business organizations, other large-scale systems, and society as a whole.

What makes a healing relationship? Researcher John G. Scott, MD, has new insights.

Kelly Cresap, Ph.D., author, public speaker, humorist, and former NPR commentator, has spent years studying the 1977 John Fowles novel “Daniel Martin,” and the rich and layered complexity of its writing and story development. He has organized discussion groups on “Daniel Martin,” and eagerly awaits the chance to convene another for interested members of the Plexus community. Dr. Cresap earned his doctorate in English literature at the University of Virginia; his 2004 book “Pop Trickster Fool” examines archetypes in the life of pop artist Andy Warhol.

Theoretical physicist, author, and provocateur, Mark Buchanan sees a quantum revolution in the social sciences.

Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) is the study of positive outcomes, processes, and attributes of organizations and their members. The focus on positive phenomena includes community psychology, humanistic organizational behavior, organizational development, pro-social motivation and citizenship behavior and corporate responsibility. Scholarship provides a theoretical framework for why positive processes succeed.

The huge and diverse workforce of nurses in America can have enormous impact on healthcare. Editors of a new book on complexity science and nursing share their insights.

Peter Block is an author, consultant and citizen of Cincinnati Ohio. His work is about empowerment. Stewardship, accountability and reconciliation. His books include Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used; Stewardship, Choosing Service Over Self Interest, and The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Sills at Work. He also wrote The Answer to How is Yes, and his newest book, Community: The Structure of Belonging, was due in bookstores in May. He is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops designed to build the skills described in his books. He serves on the board of directors of Cincinnati Classical Public Radio, and is the first Distinguished Consultant-in-Residence at Xavier University.

This spring is the first anniversary of what has come to be known as the credit crunch. Many executives of venerable financial institutions were taken by surprise, as were political leaders and pundits.

Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) is concerned with the study of positive outcomes, processes, and attributes of organizations and their members. The focus on positive phenomena includes community psychology, humanistic organizational behavior, organizational development, pro-social motivation and citizenship behavior and corporate responsibility. Scholarship provides a theoretical framework for why the positive processes succeed.

Pets get sick too, and infection control in animals and in the care and treatment of animals is a very human issue. Dr. Shelley Rankin is chief of clinical microbiology services at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, where is also assistant professor, clinician educator of microbiology. Michelle Traverse joined the staff of the University of Pennsylvania Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital in 2006 as the first-ever infection control coordinator, charged with developing and implementing the hospital’s evolving infectious disease control program. Michael Monaghan is a veterinarian and former dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at University College Dublin.

Drs. Hazy, Goldstein and Lichtenstein will discuss the new book they edited, Complex Systems Leadership Theory: New Perspectives from Complexity Science on Social and Organizational Effectiveness. Jim Hazy, PhD, has more than 25 years of senior executive experience. He and Jeffrey Goldstein, PhD, teach at Adelphi University School of Business. Benyamin Lichtenstein, PhD, is also a widely published author and business scholar. They will be joined by Liz Rykert, the president of Meta Strategies, a Canadian consulting firm devoted to helping charitable, non-profit, and public organizations use the Internet and develop innovative web-based capabilities.

Can the principles of entrepreneurship, when understood and enacted within a complexity paradigm, bring about lasting and positive social change? Three scholars who have expertise and experience in complexity science, social entrepreneurship, social innovation and leadership research will explore this intriguing possibility in Friday’s PlexusCalls discussion.

When artists collaborate, their effort becomes part of a larger creative force, and what emerges may be unexpected, unpredictable and different from what any individual artist might have created. The pieces in 12=ONE, an exhibit at the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich, CT, are “a collaboration of concepts” by 12 artists who applied their imaginations in their own work and in their responses to the vision of their colleagues. Pam Lindberg and Karen Neems are two of the artists who collaborated in the creation of the 12=ONE exhibit, which is on display through March 13.

Scott C. Hammond, PhD, is an Assistant Academic Vice President and Associate Professor of Business Management in the School of Business at Utah Valley State University. He is internationally known for his work in complex problem solving processes, dialogue and cross-cultural communication.

John Stelling and Jon Lloyd, two physicians with indepth knowledge of antiobiotic resistant bacteria will explore in conversation the reasons behind the growing epidemic of infections caused by these bacteria and what healthcare organizations can do to stem transmissions. Special attention will be given to MRSA.

Kevin Dooley, PhD, an internationally respected scholar and teacher in the areas of quality management, innovation, and complex systems, is professor of supply chain management at Arizona State University, and COO of Crawdad Technologies. Kevin has published over 100 articles and books. At ASU he co-invented, with Steven R. Corman, Centering Resonance Analysis, the innovative network-based text analysis technology behind http://www.Wonkosphere.com that is marketed by Crawdad. Dr. Dooley also is a science advisor for Plexus Institute.

Thomas Smith, PhD., is a professor of sociology at the University of Rochester. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and books, including his theoretical monograph Strong Interaction (Chicago 1992) which critics praised as a “book that jolts us into new ways of seeing and thinking about human life.”

Jessica Snyder Sachs is a contributing editor to Popular Science and Parenting magazines and writes regularly for Discover, National Wildlife, and other national publications. Her second book for the general reader, the recently published Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World, explores the bacterial ecosystems of healthy human bodies.