Problem
Solving
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This
picture of CAMELOT at dock is how she looked
as I started this piece sitting in her aft cabin.
As
I have said elsewhere, CAMELOT [link] is a continuous exercise in problem solving. Every
component of a boat is a response to a series of
challenges,
answered by an idea, tested in reality.
It
works - or not. And your life can depend on it. The
sea is a great teacher.
Here
CAMELOT is being fitted with her Top Yards
(missing for over 20 years) - the most recent project
in 14 years of problem solving.
This
picture makes a appropriate masthead for the essay
which follows.
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Lessons
from Work and Life
Throughout
this web site, I have told various stories. Some extracted
from observation, some derived from direct experience.
These stories proved powerful lessons about how things
work and how they fail when certain aspects of reality
are ignored
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Basically,
I am a designer and an engineer. Not a typical
engineer, as commonly thought, because I mostly
engineer systems and organizational processes and
structures.
These
things are thought somehow to be less subject to
reality that hard things like buildings.
Having engineered buildings and other “objective”
things, also, and I can attest that they are
no different.
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Sometimes,
people find me too intense - too negative.
Too prone to find fault. Well, maybe so. However,
I found out a long time ago that bad
things can happen [link] when
you dont pay attention
to critical processes and structures. The process
of engineering is systematically attenuating the
risk
of failure in a system or structure. No engineer
can tell you that s/he KNOWS something will
work. But it can be said that EVERY known
risk has been systematically reduced in every known
possible
way to a point that makes economic sense. Good engineers,
generally, sleep well at night. Any kind of engineering
is a
process.
Done
correctly,
this process has multiple layers of fail-safe sub-processes
built in. Looking at every way a system can fail
is
the essence of good engineering. Imagining innovative
solutions, to be tested, is the art. Making sure
these insights are put to work with diligence is
the practice. There was a time in our society, when
the ENGINEER was thought of in lofty terms.
The engineer was expected to be on the front of social
change and progress - this was expected to be good.
A century of unintended consequences [rbtfBook] have
dulled this expectation and, today, the engineer
is often
looked at as a threat or, more often, a dull hack
who runs some necessary calculations without imagination
of conscience. And, over time this has become true
as reality tends to follow expectations - meanwhile,
the unintended expectations keep piling up.
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I
dont mean to be a pain in the ass - I just
want to get the screws
in the table leg [link] the
best way possible. I never deliberately pick
a fight nor do I relish going against the grain
of society, I do so only when the stakes are
high and I judge it is time to get a system bogged
down in its own self-referential inertia moving
again. I do this as gently as possible and and
I seek to replace my divots to every extent that
I can. I can a great deal about this. Life would
be much easier for me if I did not. I do not
know why I care and, no matter the personal consequences,
I cannot stop caring.
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At
any rate, there is gold to be extracted from the
experience of many years
pushing things to their limits while searching
for the eloquent solutions and seeking ways to
attenuate
the risks; of being a social entrepreneur; of living
humanist ideals; of seeking to make things better;
of sleeping well at night. I share it here. It
may be useful to for your own understanding and
application to your own quest [link].
It certainly, along with Matt Taylor FAQ [link] and
Rules-of-Engagement [link],
assists in a due diligence process in regards your
working or having a relationship of any
kind with me. I keep learning and working to
get better, however, there
is little
probability I will change that much, at the core,
from what I am today. I see no reason to. You are
hereby put on notice.
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Lessons
learned from:
Rebuilding
and Sailing a Wood Sailing Vessel [link]
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Licensing
and transferring our system to a large
consulting company [link] |
Building
in New York in the 1960s [link] |
Being
an entrepreneur [link] |
Growing
up in WWII [link] |
living
in a society for which one has little
feeling [link] |
Designing
and building NavCenters - then using
them and tranfering them [link] |
Being a disruptive technology [link] |
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The
process of Biomimicry [rdtfBook] is
to study Nature and see how she solves problems and
then to apply these lessens
to human technologies. The organic design process [link] is,
similarly, to study Nature and to apply the principals
learned
as active design elements when making human
artifacts. Humans are part of Nature not separated
as we often
feel as a result of arrogance and living in the world
that we have thus far created. One can have one year’s
experiences 40 times or 40 years experience 40 times
[link].
The difference between one and the other is the degree
of attentiveness
brought to day-today experience. To extract lesions
in the form of processes, principles and rules from
one’s
own life experience and to diligently apply them
to
the future conduct of that life is the art of living
a useful and happy life; it is the act of gaining
knowledge [link].
I have done this. And, while I consider some of my
experiences
positive
and others
negative, I do not look back on them in this light.
Nor, do I look back in moral judgment in regards
how other’s choose to act - they have their
own reasons and accountability.
I report it. I remember it and take it into account
when dealing with them - or choosing not to - next
time. I believe that moral judgments should be reserved
to the self and, therefore, I take full responsibility
for my experience, who I am and what I do. No other
viewpoint
is practical.
I seek to discover where I did it well and where
I did it poorly. I seek to do it better in the future.
As a Humanist, I do not think that philosophy should
focus on humans. I think that philosophy,
as Whitehead said [link],
should state principles so clearly that individuals
can see that these principles match their
experiences, brings meaning to them and, therefore,
can be trusted as a guide to their actions. In moral
terms, a philosophy should describe a code of
conduct
that
humans can effectively act within. This
code should facilitate the advancement of life in
all its forms. It should promote
the art of
living. It should expand the human experience. A
philosophy, in a mind, should be an agent of
creation. |
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Rebuilding
and Sailing a Wood Sailing Vessel |
There
are probably few things within a single human’s scale
that provides such a rich and composite experience
as building (or rebuilding) and sailing a wooden
boat. In my case, this was more a partial experience
than
if it had done it all my own, nevertheless, CAMELOT has
been a great teacher. |
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1959
- 1982 & 1995 - 1998 |
I
have had two experiences with NASA one as an observer
and one with NASA as a client. The two together
have been highly instructive in regards understanding
the art and consequences of human organization
and its evolution
over time. |
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This
was a summer job for me during my high school years,
and a dude ranch, yet, still a touch of the authentic
thing; an introduction into a very old people culture
(the horse people), a mentality,
a way of life that lived by a very different set
of rules than the rest of society. The relationship
between landscape, animal and human, in this culture,
is unlike the mental set of industrial society.
It is an enlightening framework to “wear” and to
experience the world from. It moves at its own
pace and has a visceral way of understanding things.
I still find this useful when designing and building
buildings. |
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This
work involved working with the largest, and most
complex, human system MG Taylor has ever Engaged.
Because of this experience we know that our system
and
method can transform very large scale organizations
is a brief period of time and result in great benefits
for a diverse number of individuals and groups. |
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Licensing
and Transferring our System to a Large Consulting
Company
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This
period, 1995 through 1998 was a demanding time
and it came out, financially, a disaster for MG
Taylor - one that we are just beginning to recover
for
(as this is written) in mid 2004. This has required
us to operate at the scale we once had, without
the means, innovate without many resources and
restructure our organization
as a network which was our goal from the beginning.
This post 1998 period has not been a pleasant time
but an instructive time. A great part of any future
success
that we
may come to enjoy will have originated from this
experience. |
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Building
in New York in the 1960s
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I
look back on these as my “happy” years.
New York city, Nathaniel Brandon lectures, book stores,
my notebooks, a few friends, the theatre and building
for Tishman - still the best company I have ever worked
for. A
life devoted to learning, competency and doing. I went
to New York City to learn how to build, to study Objectivism,
think about architecture and did little else - life
was good. And, on two projects, perfect for there purpose,
I did learn how to build. |
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To
put a great part of your life’s thinking in the
a rigorous social form like a dissertation or a
patent is a challenging experience. This is an
exercise in the 4 Step Recreation process
that requires thinking in more than one construct
at once. It is also an exercise in creating a
social contract of some possible significance at
the high intellectual cost with no guarantee of
a return. |
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I
do not think I am a “natural” entrepreneur
- I was forced into it by ambitions far removed
from
the typical contemporary profile. If I am an entrepreneur,
I am a very old fashioned one or, at least, what
is becoming to be called a social entrepreneur.
Money, for one thing is not my motive nor is social
success as it is usually measured and granted.
I am not competitive nor do I have a great desire
to “win.” |
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WWII
was the only time, in my experience, that the USA,
as a society, was happy. This is shocking to think
of however it makes a great deal of sense in retrospect.
A society coming out of a shattering depression,
a clear enemy, everyone with a role to play and
a totally new technological civilization being
created as a consequence. Our society was transformed
in about a decade. It seemed to me that no one
noticed as we so easily slipped into the 1950s
like it had always been there. I spent the time
living on Air Force bases and deeply steeped in
the culture and business of the high tech warrior.
This was a community experience one with a strict
code of values. |
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living
In a Society For Which One Has Little Feeling
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In
social terms, I am a misfit, always have been and
most likely always will be. Because of this, I
have never had the comforts I presume one gets
from
being deeply integrated within a culture. I have
been outside looking in all of my life. This has
made me alert to many factors of human culture
and society that, otherwise, I most likely would
have missed - I escaped the fish in water symptom to
some degree. Of course, I am part of our
culture - it is just that
I have
lived
and worked on
the
fringes. I have consistently sought to bring back
the gifts that I have found out in the “badlands”
to the main stream of our society. What is interesting
is that I have not run into so much trouble for
being on the fringes as for bring these “gifts”
home. This has caused me pain and no little anger
although I try and avoid that. I have dedicated
my life to the expansion of human options
not the dictation of what humans should believe
or do.
I have great respect for much of what the human
race has created yet I look at our present social
vector with profound misgivings and distaste. This
is not something that grew with me. I started with
this perception. One wonders what strange social
alchemy and individual set generates such things.
I have
always
felt that
I came from another planet and was banned to this
one for some unfathomable reason. For years I was
convinced that I would wake up some day and discover
it was all a dream. |
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Designing
and Building NavCenters - Then Using Them and Tranfering
Them
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I
think I can understand how parents who send their
children out into an unknown future must feel.
Each NavCenter feels that way to me. You prepare
them as well as you can, yet you have to let them
go before they are ready even when you can see
the traps they are heading for. |
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A
very good piece of work that created great value
for many organizations and virtually nothing for
MG
Taylor - not even the recognition of have performed
well. This lack of return was disappointing and
informative. The work was a blast. |
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This
experience may turn out to be one of the most significant
of my life and the genesis of my first real, solid,
wide scale contribution. |
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Being
a Disruptive Technology
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It
has taken me a long time to appreciate how dangerous
most people judge me to be to their interests and
the personal and corporate consequences of this. |
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The
focus of this piece is problem solving. So, what
are the key lesions learned as the sum of all these
experiences? |
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Matt
Taylor
CAMELOT
February 17, 2002
SolutionBox
voice of this document:
INSIGHT POLICY PROGRAM
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posted
February 17, 2002
updated: May 3, 2004
20010217.259169.mt 20020306.222299.mt
• 200405.266511.mt •
Copyright©
Matt Taylor 2002, 2004
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