@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

RuthMalan

@RuthMalan@mastodon.social

Software And Systems Architecture, more or less
She/her

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

impactology, to random
@impactology@mastodon.social avatar

Art of Semantics https://youtu.be/6T44xBgKV_s by Sally Emm @Sallysm from AnRel

https://twitter.com/Sallysm

https://bsky.app/profile/sallysm.bsky.social

"AnRel short for Anarcho-Relating is a channel where I get to talk about applying my interpretation of anarchist theory to relating! With each other, with ourselves, with our environment..but mostly with each other"

"Video Essayist - Anarchist theory applied to interpersonal relationships (they/she)"

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

@impactology

“Semantics is seeking to uncover the meaning of words based not only on their definition, but also the context they are being used in"

Thank you!! Already so good!

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

@impactology yes! I can see why you found yourself transcribing all of it! (And so glad you did!)

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

A big thank you to @adrianco for presenting/leading the discussion of Nancy Leveson's paper on systems today, and to everyone who joined us and also added so much!

The next discussion is June 3rd, 1-2pm Eastern Time (US/Canada) and we will focus on a working paper by Mel Conway (yes, the Mel Conway of Conway's Law).

More info/enroll (free): https://ti.to/bredemeyer/conway

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

It's Small Business Week???

Oh well then!

Next Technical Leadership Masterclass: July 16 and 23, 2024, 12pm-3pm Eastern Time (US/Canada)

🎉 limited number of discounted early enrollment tickets

Enroll: https://ti.to/bredemeyer/technicalleadershipjul2024

More: https://www.ruthmalan.com/Bredemeyer/Technical_Leadership_Masterclass_Overview.htm

Preview material: Decisions for Technical Leaders (pdf): https://ruthmalan.com/Leadership/20240220TechnicalDecisions.pdf

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

“As we gather to consider the nation’s finest and most courageous journalism, the Pulitzer Prize Board would like to recognize the tireless efforts of student journalists across our nation’s college campuses, who are covering protests and unrest in the face of great personal and academic risk. We would also like to acknowledge the extraordinary real-time reporting of student journalists at Columbia University”
— Pulitzer Prize Board Statement

https://www.pulitzer.org/news/statement-pulitzer-prize-board-3

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

“A good deal of the job is ultimately about finding the right balances between standardization and autonomy. To make meaningful impact, Platform teams depend on having standards in their organization. Trying to too support every possible language ecosystem, framework, DB, messaging system, and whatnot spreads Platforms teams too thin to be effective.”
— @srvaroa

https://varoa.net/paas/infrastructure/platform/kubernetes/cloud/2020/01/02/talk-how-to-build-a-paas-for-1500-engineers.html

(Via @mipsytipsy on twitter: https://x.com/mipsytipsy/status/1784811556985090154)

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

"Stories are empathy technologies."
-- John I Jennings

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

“We end by discussing how leaders can't wait for outcomes to introspect and get feedback (hence Hazel doing that deep dive personal retrospective).” — @johncutlefish

(Hazel — @hazelweakly )

https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/software-development-as-collective

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

'Given the degree of brokenness of the broken world (and the expense of fixing it), we need all maintainers to apply their diverse disciplinary methods and practical skills to the collective project of repair. [..] Fixers, he says, “know and see different things — indeed, different worlds — than the better-known figures of ‘designer’ or ‘user.’” Breakdown has “world-disclosing properties.”'

-- @shannonmattern
https://placesjournal.org/article/maintenance-and-care/

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

“We need experts, we need accurate information, but the object is not to do away with difference but to do away with muddle. When for lack of facts you and I are responding to a different situation—you to the situation as you imagine it, I to the situation as I imagine, it—we cannot of course come to agreement. What accurate information does is to clear the ground for genuine difference and therefore make possible, I do not say make sure, agreement”

-- Mary Parker Follett, Creative Experience

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

Mary Parker Follett in the opening pages of Creative Experience (1924):

“To overemphasize the importance of the expert would be impossible, but after we have fully recognized his value to society, there still remains to be considered the legitimate relation between expert and people.”

“The greatest flaw in the form the theory of consent sometimes takes today is the assumption that the automatic result of scientific investigation is the overcoming of difference”

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

Which was fun to reread (closing tabs) right after watching Mike Monteiro’s talk about presenting (selling!) design (to design clients)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qIcM21l61TE

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

Back to Follett and Power:

“To my surprise I found that my academic friends listened chiefly out of politeness, whereas the business men were keenly interested. This was explained, however, one day, when one of the latter said to me: "Go ahead, you can have all the opportunity you want for study in my plant; you write a book telling me how to manipulate groups and I'm in your debt." My contemplated book against "manipulation" was to be a contribution to it!”

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

“Much of the "applied psychology" of which we hear so much nowadays has exactly this for its aim: to teach power over others. The salesmanship classes teach this; the men taught how to conduct business interviews are being taught this; " the psychology of advertising" is not the psychology of giving information but of gaining power. Many of the trade unionists in the labor education movement wish training for power, that is, increased power in the fight with capital.”

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

“But the object of all education has been largely power-power over others. The paradox of American democracy has been that its slogan of equal opportunity has meant, often, equal opportunity to get power over your fellows.”

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

I just want to clarify, because long ago I wrote something in a "catchy"/ playful way, that more recently got taken up and quoted more broadly... In particular, no, I don't feel this: 'Ruth Malan feels that "the architecture of the organization wins"'

I said (in a blog post in 2008) that I paraphrase Conway's Law like this "if the architecture of the system and the architecture of the organization are at odds, the architecture of the organization wins."

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

I did this at a time when very few of us were talking about Conway's Law, and I was putting it um vividly, as a catchy reminder of the power of the forces at play in Conway's Law. That is, if we are trying to do something with the system architecture that is very much at odds with what the organization architecture (and its communication structures) can support, the organization architecture will impact what we actually get in the system architecture.

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

I feel that we do huge amount of work to "bend" the arc of the system, and many forces are at play.

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

So I appreciate the mentions, and being woven into the fabric of (a tiny corner of) the field’s conversation, and … i dont want to erode at the power and implications in Conway’s 4-page foundation work, nor our current understandings, by being responsible for reducing it to “the architecture of the org wins.”

:)

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

It’s 4 pages, and from 1968. But it contains so much that is relevant and useful to be aware of today. Like: how we structure (and what communication paths that closes off), impacts the design possibility space (closes off parts of that space). But there’s also openness in the paper*, to the whole space being in evolutionary flux…

  • and in the more recent mirroring hypothesis work

https://www.melconway.com/Home/Committees_Paper.html

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

Went back to this talk by @elizayer on Influencing for reasons (it’s very good; it integrates Mary Parker Follett; recommending it in another context) and only 246 views???

Um. I am going to be blunt: Watch it!!

Ok. I was playfully assertive, for drawing attention reasons. It’s very valuable, and I hope you watch it. 💜

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=48ZstwZypqc

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

One of my biggest concerns about the AI/ML hype-waggoning is climate change.

The cost of escalating when we should be doing all we can to tamp down.

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

Me, sending out emails with links to workshop slack and zoom ;)

Source post: https://botsin.space/@thisemailfindsyou/112295448756810404

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

@gdinwiddie

Do you have a newsletter, they ask.
You should have a newsletter, they say.

Look in the spam folder? 🧟‍♀️

RuthMalan, to random
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

Next in our Papers in Systems discussion series: How to Perform Hazard Analysis on a "System-of-Systems" by Nancy Leveson

When: Monday, May 6th, 2023, 1 PM - 2 PM Eastern Time (US/Canada). The Zoom room will remain open until 2:30 PM for “hallway track”/informal discussion.

Discussion will be led by @adrianco

Paper (pdf): https://sunnyday.mit.edu/SOS-hazard-analysis.pdf

Free but signup: https://ti.to/bredemeyer/psleveson/

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

The next Papers in Systems discussion is a week from today (1-2pm Eastern); join us?

Discussing: How to Perform Hazard Analysis on a "System-of-Systems" by Nancy Leveson

Led by: @adrianco

More at: papersin.systems (thanks @hibri and @juno )

Signup (for access, links, etc; free): https://ti.to/bredemeyer/psleveson/

RuthMalan,
@RuthMalan@mastodon.social avatar

“consider the property "throughput" and the National Airspace System. If each airline optimized the routes of each of its planes without considering the routes of other airlines, the airspace system would end up in chaos, with planes from different airlines interfering with each other and all trying to land or take off at the same time. The attempt to optimize individual component behavior would simply lead to nobody achieving their goals”

— Nancy Leveson

(Reading for Monday’s discussion)

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • provamag3
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • everett
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • ngwrru68w68
  • Youngstown
  • Durango
  • slotface
  • rosin
  • GTA5RPClips
  • modclub
  • PowerRangers
  • Leos
  • thenastyranch
  • mdbf
  • osvaldo12
  • ethstaker
  • vwfavf
  • cisconetworking
  • tester
  • tacticalgear
  • khanakhh
  • cubers
  • anitta
  • normalnudes
  • megavids
  • All magazines
    •