Peter explained the Nordic tradition of presenting dissertation research in a venue open to the public. While this gathering was not so formal, my participation with Systems Thinking Ontario and OCAD University made this assembly a natural session.
The tradition at Systems Thinking Ontario meetings sees everyone in the room introducing himself or herself, and describing the context for coming to the meeting.
In the interest of completeness, an audio artifact is available (without video tracking).
Most people interested in finding out about the book will be better off first listening to a presentation of highlights.
The presentation slides are available on the Coevolving Commons.
This book was written primarily as a reference work. The body of the text aims to be scientific; the appendices with case studies is twice as long as the main body; and the footnotes are voluminous. In a verbal presentation, it seems as though most listeners were able to comprehend the general direction, sparking some ideas for further discussion.
The conventional structure for a Systems Thinking Ontario meeting is as a dialectic. Thus, one or two commenters give their personal impressions, as a way of encouraging further conversation.
Stephen Perelgut confirmed the history of open sourcing while private sourcing at IBM in the case study period of 2001-2011, and added that this practice has largely continued to the present day. Tim Lloyd spoke with some notes prepared in advance, discussing the research in context of Systems Thinking Ontario meetings, with a light roasting for the friendly audience. As a panel, we took questions from the audience at large.
With the formal part of the meeting completed, we adjourned for refreshments. Since the preferred form of the book is electronic, I signed postcards for friends who wanted a souvenir.
The formal launch of this book is a major personal milestone in my life. The act of writing led me to shift the philosophy underlying the systems sciences that I have studied since 1998. I expect that there's still research work to come, but the depth and volume in the future is unlikely to approach this heft.