Page 1 of 1

venture modeling

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 1998 9:30 am
by Bill Buchanan
Greetings systems colleagues....

Being relatively new to this list, first an introduction. Im Bill
Buchanan, a cognitive experimental psychologist, practicing
industrial-organizational consulting to many of the leading firms in
Silicon Valley for the last 20 years. Im also the founder of PaCSI,
Pacific Complexity Science Institute, just now emerging as the third US
location for the study of complexity science, after Santa Fe Institutes
(santafe.edu) 10 yrs. of operation, and now the two year anniversary of
the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI; necsi.org). There is
also a new international initiative, http://complexsocieties.org/, just
being organized as a federation of global complexity institutions. All
of the work of these groups is grounded in systems analysis, design, and
the pursuit of "whole" systems understanding......hence my recent
inquiry about the part-whole issue as it applies to the SD
"problem"-oriented perspective.=20

What characterizes Complexity Science above all, I think, is that it
sets no methodological or disciplinary boundaries on its exploration or
modeling of natural phenomena, hence cant get caught in what I see as
"methodolatry" and limited expertise traps that can hold back the
optimal progression of systems science otherwise possible.=20


My current focus is on modeling/simulation of venture start-ups, mostly
in hi-technology areas, using a full variety of known qualitative and
quantitative methods. See the site garage.com, http://www.garage.com/,
for an emerging new company that will be applying these techniques in
its attempt to optimize time-to-IPO or acquisition. Im working to bring
to this effort the leading edge of information systems technology for
"mini-ERP" integration, including some proprietary human-level AI/agent
technology, to drive a fresh perspective on organizational systems
venture science. =20

Would love to hear from any of you on this list who share experience,
models, and directions similar to the venture work described above. Am
particularly keen to find current SD kinds of venture and team model
structures. Have read Vennixs good work...Group Model Building, 96.
But does anyone have/know of more recent work along this line that
employs the Complex Adaptive Systems(CAS) orientation in an
information/decision theoretic framework, and that utilizes a
Bayesian-like orientation? Am always looking for software tools that fit
into this perspective, as well. My own web site will be up soon that
describes my software engineering in this area, which encompasses work
on two tools, Persona=99, an agent simulator, and Vensoft=99, a venture
organization simulator. The former has 20yrs. experience condensed to
date, the latter about ten.

Cheers....Bill
From: Bill Buchanan <waba@scientist.com>