Two careers: HealthCare IT through age 60, then a 5-year segue of a PhD in Organizational Systems, and now, Social System Mapping to build transformative capacity in intentional or impact networks. As an Enterprise Architect for Kaiser Permanente I was able to advance digital technologies that supported care providers. But it became clear that engaging technology or not, we were leaving so much skill, experience, innovation, and passion of the frontline staff (who understood the fine-grained challenges better than anybody), untapped because our social technologies were immature or horribly stunted by the power dynamics of organizational institutions. Don’t get me wrong. Kaiser Permanente is one of the best. But …Like every other organization, hierarchy and rigidity, mechanistic rather than organismic or complexity thinking, and a lack of network relationality are incentivized. Social systems, as we are all very aware, are volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous ... AND most fundamentally at core, relational. There is rarely a collective understanding of these complex adaptive social systems by the people they comprise, and often a lack of thoughtful methodologies or social “technologies” used to transform them.For the last 5 years I have continued my learning. Through the Relational Coordination Collaborative (https://heller.brandeis.edu/relational-coordination/index.html). Through my work with white people unlearning racism with Showing Up for Racial Justice Bay Area (https://www.surjbayarea.org/). And through my work in the rapidly evolving field of Social System Mapping with Greater Than The Sum (https://coda.io/d/The-SSM-CoP-Portal_dhyWazGVOub/The-SSM-CoP-Portal_suP7t#_luJJW). I see another decade of this work, both academic and practical unfolding before me. Supporting effective networks tackling environmental systems collapse that are racially just is calling me!My story continues to evolve. If you see resonance with yours, tell me!I'm at best.jim@gmail.com or www.linkedin.com/in/bestjim/
Listed skills include Enterprise Architecture, Change Management, Program Management, Strategy, and 24 others.