Prologue: How “Unbounded Affairs: Public Systemic Design Blog Series” Came To Be
Soundtrack Prologue: “In My View — Young Fathers” (2018)
This is the story of how the “Unbounded Affairs” 10-part blog series about “designing (inter)systemically” with complexity and uncertainty (with)in a government context came to be.
Read the series: Prologue, Introduction (blog 1), A Complex Matter (blog 2), Systemic Viewpoints (blog 3), Shapeshifting Design (blog 4), De-methodising Design? (intermezzo blog), The Relating Public Servant (blog 5), Relating Design Story (blog 6), The Collaborating Public Servant (blog 7) Collaborative Design Story (blog 8) and The Learning Public Servant: REWILD-ing the mind (blog 9) and Learning Design Story (blog 10)
2020
Like many others in 2020, I (Marlieke, an Anthropologist turned public service designer) found myself in an unusual situation. I was leading a large team of Government service designers at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and each day felt like a repeat of the last.
As we all sat confined, yet somehow seemingly more connected than ever, I couldn’t help but be amazed by the speed at which we were able to build digital services across traditional government silos. In this time of crisis, we managed to design and deliver a number of truly impressive and highly functional “things”, such as a centralised, cross-ministerial website for all COVID-19 related government information. We even found time to conduct some light design research with citizens to inform important decision-making. It was a fascinating time, and one that I’ll never forget.
At the same time I observed a set of interesting dynamics. On the one hand I noticed a recurring pattern: people with “higher-up” decision-making power (leadership level) and people who express their needs from a community perspective “on the ground” had a hard time listening, understanding and relating to each other in design research activities. People on both sides would say: “The system is broken”.” But what “system” were people talking about? On the other hand there was an increase in more complex service design requests forming in our “backlog”, such as: “Can you help ‘redesign’ the healthcare system?”, or: “Can you do some ‘leadership work’ to help us rethink the “foster care system”?.”
I started to worry a bit. Was there something affecting the quality of our collaborations? How did we find ourselves mired in this complex, pandemic mess? What if we were designing the “wrong” services, just at a faster speed? I started to wonder what was towing in the undercurrent. In the mad scramble of 2020, there was little time for contemplation. We were just responding to the multiple crises as they unfolded in front of us. Wading through the complexity of a workday was hard enough.
In the 2 years that followed 2020, the pandemic deepened and inflation soared. I also had a second child, I lost my rental home, and I became deeply interested in the local protests against cutting old forests where I live, on Vancouver Island. Naturally, with new life unfolding, I couldn’t help but to reflect on life’s bigger questions during those sleepless nights. What will the world look like for our future generations? Why are we cutting the oldest, most beautiful trees? How is Indigenous oppression related to colonialism and capitalism? Why did we lose our home to people who already owned two homes? Why is it so hard to work on complex design challenges within a government context? What was I missing, and who was I not seeing?
On one of those sleepless nights a thoughtfully crafted report by the UK Design Council and the Point People caught my eye: “System-Shifting Design”. It was written to encourage “designers” to think and act more “systemically.” The collective of authors and interviewees asked really good questions. What I wished to add was the “design in government” perspective. What would then need to be considered in such a publication?
I decided to give it a go, and to do it in my own, unpaid, night-owly time, in return for freedom to explore with whoever else was interested. I began reaching out to old acquaintances, seeking to reconnect and learn from their experiences. I asked them questions like: “Why is it so hard to be a public servant in the 21st century?”, “What is a “system”?”, and “What is “systemic design” (with)in government to you?”.” I inquired about their practices and where they thought we should go from here. I quietly started calling our thought collective the “Ministry of Unbounded & Entangled Affairs”.”
Through these conversations, my network, knowledge, and understanding expanded — sometimes to the point where my brain exploded. It is not easy to see things that have yet to emerge, or to find the right words to describe emerging concepts. And yet, this is how “Unbounded Affairs“ came about, over the course of 2022.
Inspirations
The forthcoming 10-part blog series is mostly void of references to “influential” authors, books and papers. It is also mostly void of personal attributions, definite definitions or conclusive answers. In part this was done to intentionally step away from dominant Western, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, academic perspectives, and to move away from a dominating way of “coherently” presenting individual perspectives that are taken out of their conversational and contextual “web of relations” in which they were once produced and understood. It is also an invitation to challenge ourselves philosophically on the notion that knowledge ever originated in “one mind.” Where do I end, and where do you begin?
This is not to say that there is not a long list of well respected people who have inspired me in thinking and practising on the intersection of “design”, “complexity”, “ecology” and “government” in the past decade: Nora Batesonnora bateson, Melanie Goodchild, Joanna Macey, Neri Oxman, Tyson Yunkaporta, Daniel Christian Wahl, Alex Ryan, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Indy Johar /Dark Matter, Rutger Bregman, Christian Bason, Bryan Boyer and David A. Lane have all been influential in my “systemic” thinking and “design” actions. I am grateful for having learned with people both in person (in systemic design initiatives such as Emergence by Design (2012), Social Innovation Labs (2014), Warm Data Labs (2017) and Behind the Numbers (2018, see blog 6) and through freely available open source content. Thank you. Needless to say this list will forever remain inconclusive.
Aspirations
The collective who I wrote with — the “Ministry of Unbounded & Entangled Affairs” — aspires to dream big. What does the future of the public service look like, and what is the role of the “designing” public servant within, when transitioning from the “Anthropocene” to the “Symbiocene”?* How do we go from designing public services for individual humans to designing sets of “relational” services that acknowledge and support “interconnected” (human and non-human) lives in an “entangled” world?
Together we landed here, in this transformative, shapeshifting, “in-between” design space for inclusive, regenerative futures, while our dialogue of differing views and opinions is ongoing. This is what we set out to do in our writing (see more in blog 1):
1. introduce public service “designers” (of government policies, programs, projects, products, collaborations) to systemic design thinking and practice
2. encourage critical thinking about innovation, politics and systemic design as an innovation approach in government
3. bring together different lenses on systems, design and systemic design such as decolonising and anti-oppressive perspectives, systems thinking from an Indigenous lens and extending human-centred design into life-minded design
4. showcase practical applications of systemic design in the public sector
5. by doing the above this blog series is a design intervention in and of itself at the level of conceptualising and politicising “systemic design” for a future where government services are reflective of a relational and entangled world, bringing to the forefront human perspectives of the “designer” on all things living and non-living, as an inherently political activity that sits in between the words “system” and “design”
* The Symbiocene is a neologism introduced by eco-philosopher Glenn Albrecht, to give meaning to a new, post-Anthropocenic future, where humans do not try to dominate the natural world but instead work within and together with the natural world to generate symbiotic “abundance”.
Thank you’s
I want to extend a huge thank you to the “Ministry of Unbounded & Entangled Affairs”, also known as the eclectic “systemic design blog series collective”, for their valuable time, for sharing stories and ideas and for letting words, thoughts and visualisations spiral “out of control”, into circles, squares, “squircles” and what not. They are listed here in no specific order: Kevin Ehman, Keren Perla, Ben Weinlick, Ashley Dryburgh, Robert Boraks, Darcy Ridell, Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer, Paige Reeves, Rebecca Rubuliak, Laura Hebert and others. A special thanks goes to Johnnie Freeland Johnnie Freeland for thinking and conversing over the idea of thinking in squares & circles. Without you, “squircularity” would not have emerged as soon as it did.
Thank you also to Kulbir Bachher (British Columbia Public Service, Canada), André Schaminée (Twynstra Gudde consultancy, Netherlands), Wayne Thomas (Alberta Public Service, Canada), Thijs van Exel (friend, ex-colleague Kennisland), Andrea Mignolo (Method and Matter), Victor Udoewa (NASA), Jason Pearman (Canada Public Service) and Denise Davies (family) for your poignant questions and thought provoking reviews.
This work was written on a personal title outside BC Public Service work hours. However I would like to thank the BC Public Service for supporting and encouraging me to openly publish this work, especially my director Sarah Smythe and my Executive Director Morningstar Pinto. By doing so the BCPS sets a leading example for creating open space for collective learning and reflection in the public sector. I believe there is no other way but to expand this space to see where it could lead us next.
Then to Simon — thank you for letting me run wild, for pulling me out of the complexity rabbit holes when feeling lost and for being a wicked better half in that other complex task of “parenting” our two wildlings.
To conclude, or to begin, I can’t say I am the same person as the person who started this blog series. I can’t unsee what I saw as I shifted my own systemic viewpoints, and started relating in different ways. I guess that’s the whole point of the next 50.000 words. It’s the thesis that we, the collective who brought this series about, would like to advance about public systemic design.
See each other, relate to each other, and care for all things living and non-living in the past, present and future, as far, deep, wide as you possibly can and things will be “all right”, is my hope.
I can’t wait to see what is unfolding.
Marlieke Kieboom
December 2022
I acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking People, known today as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations and the WSÁNEĆ First Nation on whose traditional Coast Salish territory I live and work. | Victoria, B.C., Canada | Turtle Island.
Sneak Peek: Table of Contents
Blog 1 (“Introduction”), Blog 2 (“A Complex Matter”) and Blog 3 (“Systemic Viewpoints”) are now available online.
Post Scriptum
The “Ministry of Unbounded and Entangled Affairs” got here in our unpaid and “free” time. That doesn’t mean our time wasn’t valuable, or that it didn’t come at a cost (of lack of sleep, or time spent away from family and friends), or that there wasn’t a need to compensate ourselves. It mostly means that we care deeply about our cause to spur the “adjacent possible”, above and beyond a need to capitalise on our knowledge, networks or thoughts. We believe this kind of work should not be locked away behind paywalls. Instead it should remain open-source so that we can build communities and collaborations for regenerative futures in what has been dubbed a “decisive” decade.
Personally this is a labour of love spurred by an inexplicable inner drive. I aspire to expand and deepen this work, together with a like-hearted and like-minded public systemic design community and together with the “Ministers of Unbounded & Entangled Affairs”. However, this has not even been a “side of my desk” job. Instead it’s been a “side of my day” endeavour. If you have found this blog series valuable and would like to
- show your gratitude for getting free access to 300+ hours of research
- support me in continuing to share collaborative writing endeavours (and wonky drawings) to expand our thinking and practice on systemic design in the public sector
- help nurture a public systemic design learning community
- support the development of didactic learning resources for public servants on systems thinking and practise such as a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)
.. then please head over to Paypal to make a one-time contribution or become a supporter on Patreon. Thank you!
Get in touch! My email is: first name dot last name @gov dot bc dot ca
