Stafford Beer
Stafford Beer | |
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Operational research, management cybernetics |
Anthony Stafford Beer (25 September 1926 – 23 August 2002) was a British
Biography
Early life
Beer was born in
Beer did not use his given first name "Anthony", instead preferring his middle name of “Stafford.” His younger brother Ian also shared this middle name. When Ian was sixteen, Beer persuaded his brother to sign a document promising not to use “Stafford” as part of his name because Beer “wanted the ‘copyright’ of [the name] Stafford Beer.”[5]
United Steel
In 1956 he joined United Steel and persuaded the management to fund an operational research group, the Department of Operations Research and Cybernetics, which he headed. This was based in Cybor House, and they installed a Ferranti Pegasus computer, the first in the world dedicated to management cybernetics.[6]
SIGMA
In 1961 he left United Steel to start an operational research consultancy in partnership with
Cybersyn
In mid-1971, Beer was approached by
This led to Beer's involvement in the never-completed
Beer also was reported to have read and been influenced by
Later activity
In the mid-1970s, Beer moved to mid-Wales where he lived in an almost austere style, developing strong interests in poetry and art. In the 1980s he established a second home on the west side of downtown Toronto and lived part of the year in both residences. He was a visiting professor at almost 30 universities and received an earned higher doctorate (DSc) from the University of Sunderland and honorary doctorates from the University of Leeds, the University of St. Gallen, and the University of Valladolid. He was president of the World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics.
Falcondale Collection
In July 1994 Beer ran a residential course at the Falcondale Hotel in Lampeter. Nine sessions were recorded as a video learning resource, and are collectively known as the Falcondale collection. They are available online at the Data Repository of Liverpool John Moores University.[10] The sessions covered art, science and philosophy as well as the practical application of cybernetics in society, government, community, management and business. Transcripts were made of the discussions and are also available from the same repository.[10]
Family life
He was married twice, in 1947 to Cynthia Hannaway, and in 1968 to Sallie Steadman. His partner for the last twenty years of his life was Allenna Leonard, a fellow cybernetician. Beer had five sons and two daughters, one of whom is Vanilla Beer, an artist and essayist.[citation needed]
Work
Management cybernetics
According to Jackson (2000) "Beer was the first to apply cybernetics to management, defining cybernetics as the science of effective organization". In the 1960s and early 1970s "Beer was a prolific writer and an influential practitioner" in
Cybersyn
During the
Viable System Model
The Viable System Model (VSM) is a
Syntegration and Team Syntegrity
Syntegrity is a formal model presented by Beer in the 1990s and now is a registered trademark. It is a form of non-hierarchical problem solving that can be used in a small team of 10 to 42 people. It is a business consultation product that is licensed out to consulting firms. The term comes from the words "
POSIWID
Stafford Beer coined and frequently used the term POSIWID (the purpose of a system is what it does) to refer to the commonly observed phenomenon that the de facto purpose of a system is often at odds with its official purpose. In an address to the
Awards
Beer received awards from the
Literature
Stafford Beer wrote several books and articles:[17]
- 1959, Cybernetics and Management, English Universities Press.
- 1966, Decision and Control, Wiley, London.
- 1968, Management Science: The business use of operations research, Aldus Books, London, Doubleday, New York.
- 1972, Brain Of The Firm, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, London, Herder and Herder, USA.Translated into German, Italian, Swedish, French and Russian.
- 1974, Designing Freedom, CBC Learning Systems, Toronto, 1974; and John Wiley, London and New York, 1975. Translated into Spanish and Japanese.
- 1975, Platform for Change, John Wiley, London and New York. Reprinted with corrections 1978.
- 1977, Transit; Poems, CWRW Press, Wales. Limited Edition, Private Circulation.
- 1979, The Heart of Enterprise, John Wiley, London and New York. Reprinted with corrections 1988.
- 1981, Brain of the Firm; Second Edition (much extended), John Wiley, London and New York. Reprinted 1986, 1988. Translated into Russian.
- 1983, Transit; Poems, Second edition (much extended). With audio cassettes: Transit – Selected Readings, and one Person Metagame; Mitchell Communications, Publisher, 2693 Route 845, Carters Point, NB, Canada, E5S 1S2.
- 1985, Diagnosing the System for Organizations; John Wiley, London and New York. Translated into Italian and Japanese. Reprinted 1988, 1990, 1991.
- 1986, Pebbles to Computer: The Thread; (with Hans Blohm), Oxford University Press, Toronto.
- 1994, Beyond Dispute: The Invention of Team Syntegrity; John Wiley, Chichester.
- Audio
- 1973, Stafford Beer. "Designing Freedom" The 1973 Massey Lectures RADIO CANADA INTERNATIONAL TRANSCRIPTION: E1121 "The Real Threat to all We Most Dear", E1122 "The Disregarded Tools of Modern Man", E1123, "A Liberty Machine in Prototype" E1124, "Science in The Service of Man" 1h 53:30.
- 1990, Stafford Beer, "Forty Years of Cybernetics", Gordon Hyde Memorial Lecture at the Cybernetics Society in London, January 1990 (audio file: 1hr 27mins).
- Video
- 1990, Stafford Beer, The Intelligent Organization on YouTubeStafford Beer at Monterrey Tec, March 1990 illustrated by Javier Livas
- About Stafford Beer
- 1994, Harnden, R and Leonard, A. (Eds.), How Many Grapes Went into the Wine: Stafford Beer on the Art and Science of Holisitic Management; John Wiley, Chichester.
- 2002, Rosemary Bechler and Rob Passmore, "Stafford Beer: the man who could have run the world",[18] openDemocracy, 7 November 2002
- 2003, Whittaker, David, Stafford Beer: A Personal Memoir; (Includes an interview with Brian Eno) Wavestone Press, Charlbury
- 2004, "Ten pints of Beer: The rationale of Stafford Beer's cybernetic books (1959‐94)", Kybernetes, Vol. 33 No. 3/4, pp. 828–842. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920410523724
- 2006, Jonathan Rosenhead, "IFORS' Operational Research Hall of Fame Stafford Beer", in International Transactions in Operational Research Vol 13, nr.6, pp. 577–581.
- 2009, Whittaker, David, (Ed.) Think Before you Think: Social Complexity and Knowledge of Knowing; (Selected writings of Stafford Beer with life chronology), Foreword by Brian Eno, Wavestone Press, Charlbury
- Morozov, Evgeny (July 2023). "The Santiago Boys". The Santiago Boys (Podcast). Retrieved 10 April 2024.
References
- ^ "Manchester Business School Alumni". Retrieved 13 June 2018.
- ISBN 978-3-642-14315-1. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
- ^ Rosenhead, Jonathan (2003). "Stafford Beer, 1926-2002". Journal of the Operational Research Society. 54 (2).
- ^ "Obituaries: Stafford Beer". The Telegraph. 28 August 2002. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
- ISBN 978-0226667904.
- ^ Cabezas, Guido. "Stafford's Curriculum Vitae". Guido Cabezas Fuentealba. Universidad del BioBio. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
- Brighton Polytechnic, Moulsecoomb, Brighton14 February 1973.
- ^ Beer, Stafford (14 February 1973). "Fanfare for Effective Freedom: Cybernetic Praxis in Government by Stafford Beer" (PDF). evergreen.edu. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 May 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-262-52596-1.
- ^ a b "Stafford Beer: The Falcondale Collection". opendata.ljmu.ac.uk. Liverpool John Moores University. December 1994. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
- ^ Stafford Beer, Cybernetic and Management, English Universities Press, p. 150.
- ^ Michael C. Jackson (2000), Systems Approaches to Management
- ^ a b Raul Espejo, Cybersyn Archived 27 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine, metaphorum.org; retrieved October 2007.
- ^ Syntegration: The Science webpage Archived 15 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine, syntegrity.com; accessed 22 August 2015.
- .
- OCLC 1352480147.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ Bibliography Stafford Beer, Cwarel Isaf Institute, Juli 2000.
- ^ "Stafford Beer: the man who could have run the world". openDemocracy. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
Further reading
- Pickering, Andrew (2004), "The Science of the Unknowable: Stafford Beer's Cybernetic Informatics", in Rayward, W. Boyd; Bowden, Mary Ellen (eds.), The History and Heritage of Scientific and Technological Information Systems, Medford, New Jersey: Information Today, Inc, retrieved 19 March 2013
External links
- Stafford Beer papers held at Liverpool John Moores University
- Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende's Chile Archived 27 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine
- Stafford Beer Biography from Vanilla Beer
- "What is Cybernetics?" by Javier Livas on YouTube
- Biography of Anthony Stafford Beer from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
- Organizations
- Cybernetics Society Memorial
- The Metaphorum Group – Developing Stafford Beer's Legacy in Management Cybernetics
- Systems & Cybernetics in Organisations (SCiO) – "focus on practice and members support activities." accessed 3 July 2009
- Introduction to the Viable Systems Model and use in Cooperatives
- Web site of the cybersyn project