PAIN CONSULT

Concept design workshop

Peter Jones, OCAD UniversityISSS 2012 San Jose

The Language/Action Perspective

Concepts, History, & Applications

WHAT IS A CONVERSATION?

Communication

Colin Cherry defined “communication” as the exchange of normatively defined meanings and creating understanding between purposeful social participants.

WHAT IS A CONVERSATION?

Communication act …That creates understanding between purposeful social participants.

A particular exchange takes place between at least 2 people, representing individual interests or intentions, or collective interests represented by individuals.

TWO DIVERGING VIEWS …

Shannon-Weaver Communication TheorySignal expressed from a Source to Destination.Transmitter-receiver (Very AT&T)Feedback repairs breakdowns.

ConstructivistAgents co-create conversation based on mutual meaning (background). Intentions are interpreted, actions coordinated.Emergence & novelty are possible.Sensemaking repairs breakdowns.

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WHICH FIT WHERE IN SYSTEMS LINEAGE?

History of key ideas …

Unfinished timeline by Hugh Dubberly, 2009

2006Christakis & Bausch publish How people harness their collective wisdom to create the future in colaboratories of democracy

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Rittel Argumentation (IBIS)

Pask Conversation Theory (Interaction of Actors)

Winograd Language-Action Perspective& Flores

Christakis Dialogic Design& Warfield Science of Generic Design

CONVERSATIONAL SYSTEMS

Ontological Design, a phenomenological approach to conversations that invent

new modes of being & co-create action.

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1969 1986 2006

PIVOTAL PUBLICATIONS

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Language-Action Roots in 3 movements (1980’s)

UC Berkeley Dreyfus, Flores critique of AIWinograd joined from StanfordUnderstanding Computers & Cognition (1986)

Electronic Workplace Flores’ PhD & vision of paperless office (1980)“Management & Communication in the Office of the Future”

Coordination Theory Movement toward CSCW & workflow based on commitment governanceThe Coordinator email system (1987)Action Workflow

CONTEXT & BACKGROUND

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MATURANA & Living Systems

Is conversation a structural coupling of cognitive agents?

Autopoesis Humans are self-producing, self-organizing

Structural coupling Complementary interaction with environment – Largely in a social medium

Cognitive system Domain of interactions with environment to act with relevance

Languaging Arises as coordinating actions forcoordinating action.

Recursion to create a consensual linguistic domain.

SOFTWARE EMBODIMENTS

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The Coordinator – 1986

Orchestrator Mail - 2010

SOFTWARE EMBODIMENTS

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Action Works – Coordinator & Action Workflow

SERVICE SYSTEMS MODEL

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David Ing, 2008: Offerings as Commitments and Context: Service Systems from a Language Action Perspective

September 1, 2008, at UKSS 2008, Oxford, UK

SERVICE SYSTEMS MODEL

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David Ing, 2008: Offerings as Commitments and Context: Service Systems from a Language Action Perspective

Protocol for coordination of commitment to deliverables, process, relationship.

TYPES OF CONVERSATIONS

Conversations for …Orientation Interpersonal Purposeful

Conversations for Possibility

Conversations for Action

Austin & Searle: Speech Acts theory of speech behavior

Social facts “two or more agents with collective intentionality”

Institutional facts: Social facts that become public, established events (e.g., money, organizations, systems)

Conversations for Acknowledgemen

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Conversations for Clarification

Phatic Conversations

How was your weekend?

Too much yard work. Yours?

Conversation for Possibility

What if we were to allow patients to post personal reflections in the medical records system?

What would that do for us? How might we do that?

Conversation for Action

(Offer) Let’s write a proposal to the IT board for a research project on this idea.

I’m in. (Accepted) We need a position paper. Can you write a draft by next week? (Request)

Conversation for Possibility

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Diagram by Hugh Dubberly, from Jones (2009) The Language/Action Model of Conversation: Can conversation perform acts of design?

Interpersonal queries, inquiries, & propositions that open a context. Common ground (background), including prior intent & continuing conversations.

No “goals” in conversations for possibility, but rather co-creation of understanding and novelty.

Conversation for Action

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Purposeful communications that coordinate actions between individuals. Initiation of requests, agreement on conditions, accounting for promises.

5 BASIC PERFORMATIVE SPEECH ACTS

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Assertives commit a speaker to the truth of an expression.

Directives (requests, commands, & advice) cause the listener to follow a requested action.

Commissives (promises & oaths) commit the speaker to future actions.

Declarations establish accord with a proposition (e.g., pronounce a couple as married).

Expressives convey a speaker’s attitudes or emotions about a proposition (e.g., praise, gratitude).

From Searle / Austin’s Illocutionary Points

Conversations for Action

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What is an organization were conceived as a network of conversations? Inside & Out?

What if – fundamentally –unit level operations were commissives & directives?

DESIGN METHODS & THEORIES

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Design and business are conversation systems.

Products & services are networks of conversations for action.

Designing acts are performed & recognized by language.

Geometry of Languaging

Christakis (2006) extends Conversation in Dialogic Design Science – based on principles established in Warfield’s Domain of Science Model

Geometries of language action shape intent / outcome

Dyad Smallest social systemTriad Introduces witness & offset perspectiveQuartet Balanced pairs structure5-7 Collaboration required12-20 Dialogue required20-50 Listening required

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Syntegrity Model

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Group dialogue geometry to triangulate perspectives on a topic

Mapping to Design Action

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Orientation Possibility Action

DISCOVERY ENVISIONINGDESIGN

& DELIVER

The declarative act is generative, literally creative. A state is created where there was nothing preceding it.

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Conversation is not a tool for outcomes; rather, language uses us, shaping & constraining our work & experience.

Riding our intentions, language both opens & limits collective experiences.