Organizations as artificial agents

Unlike the natural agents, which are born, artificial agents are human-made; artificial agents spring from human agency. I will introduce them as three groups that are not perfectly delineated: organizations, technologies, and socio-technical systems. Let's start with organizations, which we use to structure our interactions with others, be that for social, political, or economic purposes.

Studies in innovation – An initial curriculum

In order to frame the concept of innovation literacy, today I’ll try to sketch a curriculum for “Studies in Innovation”, focussing on “How to think about innovation?” My story line will build on three guiding questions: What is the world around us made up of? How does that world behave? And how do we act in this world? While I'll keep my focus on the needs of innovators and policy makers, I believe the essence of this little programme should be of interest to a wider audience.

How change begets more change

Back in 2002, Carlota Perez published an original, daring and bold concept that describes our long-term social development. For her, technology, economy, and society each play a vital role, each of them by itself drives change, as much as it is driven by the changes of the others. Here’s a very initial introduction to her thinking.

Formatting our world

The language we speak, the organisation we live or work in, and the technology we use all have one thing in common: they format our world. They shape how we think about it, how we see it, how we behave in it, and how we interact with it. All that formatting has tremendous advantages in our day-to-day lives. Yet it also provides an explanation for the challenges innovators face when they develop something novel that does not fit any of the pre-established formats.

Changing values – Towards a new economy?

Our ideas of value, what it is and how it is generated in the economy, have changed over time. Today's dominant school of thought, neoclassical economics, lost sight of these decisive questions, as Mariana Mazzucato argues in her 2018 'The Value of Everything'. But there are some very recent promising signs that we are starting to have a renewed debate about value and how we want the economy to work for all of us.