Systems vs. People
The 20-Year Itch
Apologies for the gaps twixt newsletters. Want to know why?
Trust me the words haven’t stopped - it’s the transport layer that keeps changing, because this newsletter is but one of a number of communication vehicles I use and as I have been organising my thoughts and perusing my collection of unpublished Substack drafts, it struck me that you might not be aware of the range of PHI⑊PIN properties that run in parallel.
I’ve added a link to a more complete drill-down in the ‘foot note’ of this newsletter, but to get to the point quickly: Last month I completed an analysis of the subject matter of my blog (which contains twenty years of posts) and not to get meta on you, I then wrote two posts about that 10,000-plus post investigation.
Read More here - but in fewer words …
… a long, rolling attempt to make sense of systems that don’t behave the way they pretend to.
… tracking the gap between how the world is structured on paper and how it actually functions in practice - whether that’s tech, politics, identity, business, or the internet itself.
… and the consistent itch: why do institutions keep choosing the path that works against people, complexity, and common sense?
… why do we keep letting them?
Have to say, very happy about that summary - because I sometimes worry whether the blog - which is more a ‘public personal journal (hence the title I guess),
… becomes a little less relevant. Then again - they say that a good blog is to write about what you are interested in and what you feel - and let your audience find you. Have you?
Also interesting to see such consistency over those 20 years. I guess it is who I am. (Also makes me happy.)
I then wrote a second post that explored the overall themes of the blog, which were;
1. Systems vs People
Human-Centric vs Mechanistic Worlds
2. Digital Culture and Identity
Category: The Internet as a Social Mirror
3. Organisational Drift and Work Dysfunction
Category: Structural Failure in Modern Work
4. Politics, Power and Narrative
Category: How Stories Shape Systems
5. Personal Reflection as Calibration
Category: Lived Experience as Data
A Guide To The Other Sources can be found here.
All this to say I feel that this newsletter is cut from the same cloth as my blog - (need for analysis noted) … and if these themes are interesting to you - and aren’t subscribed - we have a fix ..
If you reached this far and want to talk more - I certainly do.
Let’s set up some time to explore how Structured Thought can be used to help your business transition into the ‘Age of Experience’.
BTW - this is not your typical ‘Human By Design’ fayre - which is more typically this (The Sound of Silence) or this (Marketing in 2025) .. normal service will be resumed in the next issue.
