Dialogic Drinks 'Ritual Architecture and the Emergent Engineering of Culture' with John Dobbin.

Cultures do not spring into existence fully formed. They emerge out of the interplay, combination, accretion and evolution of the symbols and stories that permeate our social networks. As such, cultures are verbs, not nouns: something that we are continuously authoring, and something that it is continuously authoring us.

The heart of culture formation is ritual. The recursive enactment of rituals generates the living structure of culture. Change the rituals, change the culture.

In this dialogue I’d like to offer some ideas for us to play with: the role of emergent engineering for social change, a possible ‘implicate order’ of rituals, Christopher Alexander’s ‘life-creating’ architectural process, and Casper ter Kuile’s unbundling and remixing of spiritual practices.

We’ll also discuss the ethics of such approaches.

I look forward to seeing you in this most wonderful of rituals: the Dialogic Drinks.

Image Credit: [Time - Mati Klarwein]

John Dobbin

I help organisations become more adaptive, to help them survive and thrive in volatile and complex conditions and equip them to better face difficult and uncertain challenges.

In a career spanning 30 years, I have amassed considerable knowledge and experience leading digital transformation and Agile programs for large media, telecommunications, retail, government and finance entities in APAC and EMEA.

My current work is focussed on helping organisations significantly improve their performance through the implementation of Agile and Lean techniques, designing adaptive organisational structures, and through teaching Agile and Adaptive Systems theory.

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