Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Plus The Adjace

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The Adjacent Doable. The phrase, very first coined through the theoretical biologist,Microsoft Office 2010 Product Key, Stuart Kauffman, acquired me the first time I heard it several months again. I’ve been reading around it ever since. I even put it in our mega-bid to the Wellcome Trust. I have to admit, without really understanding it. Then I read this article by Stephen Johnson, The Origin of Good Ideas, and it clicked.
I won’t try to summarise it because he did it better than I could.
Before life emerged on Earth, the planet was dominated by a handful of basic molecules: ammonia,Office Pro 2010 Key, methane, water,Microsoft Office 2010 Home And Business, carbon dioxide, a smattering of amino acids and other simple organic compounds. Each of these molecules was capable of a finite series of transformations and exchanges with other molecules in the primordial soup: methane and oxygen recombining to form formaldehyde and water for example….
…But you would not be able to trigger chemical reactions that would build a mosquito, or a sunflower, or a human brain. Formaldehyde is a first-order combination: You can create it directly from the molecules in the primordial soup. Creating a sunflower, however, relies on a whole series of subsequent innovations: chloroplasts to capture the sun’s energy, vascular tissues to circulate resources through the plant, DNA molecules to pass on instructions to the next generation.
The scientist Stuart Kauffman has a suggestive name for the set of all those first-order combinations: “the adjacent feasible.” The phrase captures both the limits and the creative potential of change and innovation. In the case of prebiotic chemistry, the adjacent possible defines all those molecular reactions that were directly achievable in the primordial soup. Sunflowers and mosquitoes and brains exist outside that circle of possibility. The adjacent feasible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.
It’s worth highlighting this line again. It’s incredible.
The phrase captures both the limits and the creative potential of change and innovation.
And this one too. I would die a happy man if I’d written this.
The adjacent achievable is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edges of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.
It’s such a simple thought. Yet so vast. Innovation developed one step at a time. From one adjacent possibility to the next to the world we have today where there are floating jedi-training droids.
It’s the word ‘adjacent’ that gets me.
It says ‘next to’. In the sense of, the answer isn’t as distant as you might think. It encourages you to look around the next corner. To try and grab something which isn’t very far away. Something within our grasp. It makes innovation feel quite manageable.
But it also says, ‘at arms length’. A little bit apart. Not really intertwined.
I like that. A lot. I think what we need to do with Buddy is to find the Adjacent Feasible.
There’s a big, fairly abstract point that I’ve been wrestling with for a while. I talked about it a little at the end of my last post, namely to what degree, given we’re trying to develop radically different types of public outcomes, should we be working with existing structures (and therefore fitting into known systems and pathways), and to what degree should we be trying to create a new system, outside the old one?
There’s a more specific point too. We’re finding some traction with Buddy. I’m fairly confident that we can come up with a nice radio or other device which users will be proud to have in their homes, build a bit of an emotional bond with, and not feel totally ill or isolated when using it. Equally, we’re onto version 3 of the software, and again, I’m fairly sure with a good headwind we can build something that will be useful to professionals in terms of helping them have a more longitudinal view of their patients and provide them with tools that can be used in talking therapies and supported care. To a point, I think we might even be able to develop a service blueprint which demonstrates how Buddy could fit into existing structures and pathways and be used intrinsically to the service being delivered today. For example, we’ve been doing some development on a simple way in which data from the software can be turned into nice print collateral to be used in CBT sessions (it’s sweet and will deserve a post on its own when it’s done).
BUT, I’m thinking this isn’t enough. On the horizon I see big problems. We might create a beautiful software interface, but what’s the chance of there being the resource or the will to create another mega system integration and database project? Some of the professionals might be open to adopting new technology tools. But maybe just as many will be cynical, jaded or simply uninterested in what could be seen as another IT project. Some staff might be encouraged to change the kind of relationship they have with the users, welcoming user involvement and shared discussions on the web platform. Others might be scared of the questions around risk and responsibility that this opens us. In particular, some users might feel empowered by these new tools. Others, seeing that they are receiving the device from an NHS professional, will see it as ‘medicine’ and treat it as a magic bullet which offers instant communication to clinicians, only to be disappointed when they don’t get an immediate response from overworked staff.
And all of this on top of an NHS culture that isn’t particularly conducive to innovation.
This has been the puzzle we’ve been puzzling over recently. With a bit of tech-savvy, a measure of design thinking and user involvement,Office 2010 Standard Key, and a dollop of creativity, we think a good hardware / software / service design solution is very feasible. But then you see the NHS behemoth, and wonder whether it is feasible, or even right, for them to come together. There are many reasons why technology projects in public services seem to fail so often. Not being user-centred is a big one. But more and more, I can see that the need for organisational design gets missed or deliberately avoided. It seems easier to buy some shiny new technology, and slap it over the top of existing structures, then to re-think, root and branch, the organisation, the roles of the people, the governance, the physical environment, indeed, the whole not-so-shiny edifice that is delivering the service in the initial place.
But the time for that has come. In all of today’s shifting landscape, perhaps because of it, now is the time to find the Adjacent Achievable in community mental health services. The shadow future.
This means neither piecemeal change,Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Plus, simply integrating it into existing structures. Nor some kind of anarchist-like wholesale revolution. We just need to find the adjacent possibility.
What has clicked into place – without fully absorbing the reality of what I’m proposing – is the need to create a new type of organisation. Given that Social Enterprises are fashionable nowadays, probably one of those. But more importantly than the legal structure, one that will be designed explicitly to deliver a different type of experience. One that will re-think the details, big and small of management structures, types of professions, the built environment, IT systems, all of that. One where a different kind of relationship between users, staff and community can develop. One where innovation is made up of the pieces we have at hand, but develops at arms length to the bureaucracy, giving it space to breathe and grow.
One where technology and the Buddy system is embedded into the heart of the organisation from the outset, but where the greater prize will be in whether the spirit and approach of Buddy permeates the culture of the organisation. That seems far more interesting than creating a bit of tech.
This is no longer about Buddy Radio. But the Buddy Enterprise. Whoah. I just scared myself writing that out.

Tags: adjacent doable, Buddy, innovation, nhs, organisation design