About

Available now through Triarchy Press and at booksellers such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Ebook coming soon.

The Book

When and how are a collection of humans better than a mechanized system?

And how do you create the conditions for that sort of excellence?

You have heard of complex adaptive systems, but you want to know how to design human structures that use them. Then this is for you.

Cultivating Social Flows describes edgy practices in social ecosystem design. What do you think about when creating an organization, a multi-sector partnership, or a multi-stakeholder engagement? It moves through several stages of development, from the initial “new frame” or narrative that describes a new opportunity through to some of the implementation concerns around governance.

If you are working in the new “Social Era” this book can help flesh out what to consider and how to avoid some dangers. Get ahead of the curve with the wisdom from practitioners.
This website includes the existing and ongoing research material, with essays and interviews with practitioners. Boxed terms and underlined text in the book is included or expanded on here.

 

Herman Wagter

Herman Wagter is a program manager specialized in developing and managing large multi-stakeholder initiatives. Through his work at Connekt, he has done strategy development for Lean and Green, Green Deal Zero Emission City Logistics, and acted as Program Manager for Topsector Logistiek Programma Secretariaat, as well as Programme Manager IDVV Track 2 (Impulse Dynamic Traffic Management Inland Waterways).

He managed the Amsterdam FttH-programma Citynet from its inception in 2002 until the moment Reggefiber and KPN acquired a majority stake in the operating company (GNA), and has been active both as industry analyst (Diffraction Analysis) and consultant for FttH projects since then. His experience as managing director of operating companies of listed multinationals (Randstad, Stork) supports him in balancing business demands with the public cause.

 

Jean Russell

Jean is passionate about cultivating thriving social ecosystem. She received an honorable mention on the Enrich List as one of the top 200 people enriching our path to a sustainable future. She is also listed as one of 100 women globally co-creating a P2P Society. Demonstrating collaboration, she curated, “Thrivability: A Collaborative Sketch” in 2010 with 65 inspiring people, which has been seen by well over 30,000 viewers. She wrote “Thrivability: Breakthroughs for a World That Works” (Triarchy Press, 2013).

She has published articles on organizational design strategies, and her work on thrivability, innovation, philanthropy, and cultural shifts has been highlighted in Spanda, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, and Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Jean Russell is on a quest to catalyze group productivity. She has been facilitating strategy retreats, conferences, and workshops since 2007. She brings to her facilitation a keen understanding of social network analysis, motivation and behavior patterns, group dynamics, and culture change. Jean often custom designs participatory structures for group engagement that evoke play to achieve purpose.