pattern wisdom

I didn't really like English studies at school, but I loved the year 11 unit called "transformational grammar", in which we learned to use an almost mathematical perspective to break down the structure of sentences into their component part. The idea, developed by Noam Chomsky and other earlier linguists,  was that once the structure of grammatical sentences was understood, you could then be infinitely creative while maintaining a 'sensible' sentence. Language patterns. It wasn't until decades latter that I would learn the word that was originally attached to this field of study: "generative grammar".  I had first heard the word in an entirely different context, in an international forum promoting genuine dialogue among people with different perspectives. Peter Senge called it "generative dialogue". I was intuitively drawn to the idea of generative dialogue even though I understood very little about it. As I dug deeper and tried to understa

I told her I had magical powers. I was standing in the kitchen of a colleague's house with his young daughter. The other adults were preoccupied so I decided to play a little game with her. I'd never been in their house before, but I told her I knew what was in each of the three drawers beside us. I covered my eyes and asked her to pull out the top drawer. "There are knives forks and spoons in that drawer" I said. She didn't seem very impressed. I covered my eyes again. Open the second drawer I said. "Are there are cooking utensils, wooden spoons,  ladel, egg flip, tongs, things like that?" "There are!" she replied, sounding a little more engaged. OK, let's try the bottom drawer. "This will be a bit harder", I say, "I'll have to concentrate." I feigned thinking hard. "OK, open the drawer", I say. "Are there rolls of cling wrap, baking paper? Maybe some tea towels and oven mitts?" "Wow",

It was 2011. I had never heard of him, but when I heard someone I respected say "I read anything Christopher Alexander writes," I was curious. When I got back to Melbourne (the comment was made in a little town in Wales) I scoured and searched and eventually located a hard cover copy of the 1100 page 1977 classic  A Pattern Language in some obscure bookshop. I still remember paying an extraordinary amount of money for it ($174 if I recall correctly). Maybe a bit reckless, especially given I hadn't even read a review; I wasn't even sure what it was going to be about, but sometimes I have these intuitions ... and for reasons I can't properly explain, they are very rarely wrong. My bookshelf if full of books that have nudged my thinking, authors who have given voice to ideas, concepts, frameworks or arguments that have shaped my own view of the world. But I don't think a single text has had as profound an impact as A Pattern Language on, not so much 'what I

I have taught myself to cook by recognising patterns rather than following recipes. I stumbled on The Saucy Spice Co. when away in our van many years ago. I loved the product and when we got home found a local stockist and started to use it regularly. The concept is simple, combine in a packet a particular collection of spices with a recipe. Typically, the things you need to add / buy included onion, stock and/or coconut milk along with meat and rice. After I had been using it for a while it dawned on me: every recipe uses the same formula.  1. Sauté onion in oil. 2. Add the spices and heat for a minute or two until aromatic. 3. Add meat and brown. 4. Add liquid (maybe some tomatoes) and cook for an hour or two. 5. Add a few garnish-y, soft flavours and serve with rice or bread. Ta da. Now I appreciate that there are nuances, and trained chefs might be horrified, but I figured I now knew the basics of curry making.  I could now go the fridge and my spice drawer and make up recipes. I

The first time I made paella, it wasn't a disaster, but it felt like I was simply hoping for a good outcome rather than creating one. The second time was better, but I struggled to get the volume of stock and the intensity of the heat right. By the third time I understood the variables so much better, and managed to get a socarrat that I was proud of. We have been lucky enough to have spent winter weeks in northern NSW over many years with a big bunch of friends, doing not much apart from drinking cups of tea, surfing and sitting around nattering, alongside keeping the work fires burning. Integrating work and recreation is always tricky, especially because these days the mobile device ensures work conversations and issues are always in your pocket. The first week I typically find myself checking emails and messages throughout the day. By the second week, I find I can segregate more easily, so I am less distracted by work when I'm doing more social things. By the third week I t

My first encounter with personality-typing was not a good one. At university I came across a basic framework based on four temperaments: Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic and Melancholy. By answering a series of self assessment questions, respondents were assigned a dominant and secondary temperament. It came at a time when I had some friends who I admired. I was drawn to them, not only as mates, but as people who aspired to be like. We, and a whole bunch of other people we knew completed the assessment survey. My two mates both had Sanguine Phlegmatic profiles. They were outgoing, likeable Aussie blokes who had a certain nonchalance about authority. Me on the other hand, I was Phlegmatic Melancholy. I didn't like the stereotypical description of my type, which would have been OK if, on discovery of my typing, my mates exclaimed, 'Yep, that is so you!'. It would be much later that I came across a quote attributed to American actress Pearl Bailey, " There's a period of

The first memory I have of loving patterns was when we had to start learning our times tables in grade 2. I found maths relatively easy, I think in hindsight because I was able to understand the way numbers worked in patterns. For me learning times tables wasn't about rote learning, it was about the number patterns. It was about, for example, with the 9x table how the first number went up by 1 and the second number decreased by 1; 18, 27. 36 etc. It was about how for the 11x table it was simply the repetition of numbers; 11,22,33 etc.  So-called magic squares were (in the simplest form) a 3 x 3 matrix where all the rows and columns needed to add up to the same total. I was less interested in figuring out the solution than understanding the pattern of the numbers in a solution, which, once cracked, could be applied to a magic square of any dimension. In my high school text book the largest magic square I could physically fit onto a page was something like 30 x 30; a matrix with 900

My mum was dressmaker / sewer. She had her own room complete with knitting machine, Berlina sewing machine and mannequin. It was her space and she would spend hours in there, creative and calm. As a child the term 'pattern' had one meaning; it was those cutouts that mum would buy in order to knit or sew an item of clothing. As an adult I have been known to have visceral reactions to being near or inside fabric shops, born of what seemed like countless hours tagging behind mum as she perused the endless rolls of material. I can still hear the sound of the industrial scissors against the bench top as purchases were made. The best bit of the whole experience (relatively speaking) was when, as they would sometimes do, the woman would nick the fabric and then proceed to tear it off the roll by grabbing the corners and reefing their arms apart - I thought that looked cool and the ripping sounded decadently playful. Who would have thought that I would come around and develop a love of

  The DIKW pyramid is a common way to frame the continuum between data and wisdom. I'd add in an extra layer between knowledge and wisdom: intelligence. As I write we are navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, so let me illustrate the pyramid using the number of reported cases per day in my home region, Geelong. Data: Everyday, people get tested and the results of those tests get reported. Let's say for the sake of the illustration, that the number today was 10. This is the data. Information: That data is packaged and communicated, so we have access to information. "Today there were 10 reported positive cases of COVID-19 in the Geelong region. Knowledge: Digesting that information, facilitates knowledge, so that I can  know  that the number of reported positive cases today was 10 people. Intelligence: Integrating that knowledge into context creates an important transition from knowledge to intelligence. What does the number mean? What is the trend? How does it compare with othe