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Discussion at the 1st International Workshop on Complexity and Real World Applications, Botleigh Grange Hotel, Southampton, 21-23 July 2010

Present: Mark McKergow, Ed Olsen, Eileen Conn, Stefanos Michiotis, Martin Reynolds and ot

At the recent 'SF summit' gathering in Malmo (see my report at

http://tinyurl.com/3xttyus), Gale Miller suggested that we start playing the game of 'fantasy academic centre'.

It works like this: Suppose that someone has given us $10 million to set up an multi-disciplinary academic centre, probably based at a university, to produce excellent and provocative material in support of the 'SF paradigm' - the framework within which our p

We were honoured to have Professor Daniele Moyal-Sharrock join us in Bucharest as a plenary speaker. Daniele is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, and one of the world's leading Wittgenstein scholars. She is also President of the British Wittgenstein Society (http://www.britishwittgensteinsociety.herts.ac.uk/).

Daniele presented her paper Coming to Language:

The 2010 SOLWorld conference was held last week in Bucharest, Romania. I have just returned from an exciting, thought-provoking and exhausting few days, and wanted to jot down a few thoughts about it all.
The event was held in two adjoining hotels (the Ramada Parc and Ramada Plaza) – this worked very well, with a big plenary room in one and nice workshops rooms in the other. We met on Wednesday evening for a buffet meal – always so many people to say hello and reconnect with.

I have just completed a very interesting online course (four 3-hour sessions over two weeks) in Holacracy – an exciting new way of organising. I use the verb ‘organising’ carefully here, as one of the most interesting aspects of Holacracy is the way it embraces continuous change and movement, with careful language and structured processes that embrace and utilise the change that’s inevitably happening.

Holacracy (the word comes from holarchy, not holistic or holon) is described as a