At the School of Cybernetics, we are experimenting with different ways of teaching, researching, and engaging. Ongoing dialogues with multidisciplinary partners help us identify what we must do to build new kinds of skills.

Here are some partner suggestions for what we could do more of to create more spaces for people to connect in a shared language around futures built on safe, responsible and sustainable systems.

Practice empathy

Observe and listen

Collaborate with unlikely partners

Build interoperability across sectors

Establish cross-functional teams

Develop better advocacy skills

Tune in to consumer voices

Listen to what customers are saying

Think through systems via a human and ecological lens

Look to First Nations knowledge systems to inform practice

Strengthen resilience in yourself and your team

Enable self-efficacy

Foster the desire to be challenged

Perceive and look for what is missing in data or in the room

Recognise metaphors and patterns

Be attuned to linguistic abstraction or verification

Encourage critical thinking

Prioritise creativity

Allow time for sifting and sorting

Be creative in how you factor in critical assessment

Ensure engagement with audiences beyond your peers

Be agile and ready to change tack

Always consider cross and inter-disciplinary perspectives

Engage in advocacy for the best interests

Broaden access to technical skills

Understand how hardware works

Co-design with end users

Collaborate with people affected by the system

Design better content

Invite ethnographical perspectives from the tech sector

Provide customer education

Listen to dissenting voices

Communicate for impact

Tell stories

Share questions about who is included and who is not

See the whole story

Examine the interconnections between things

Mandate respect

Increase awareness of diverse ways of knowing

Have more interdisciplinary conversations

Engage with broader audiences

Counter overconfidence, hubris and control

Be generous and willing to receive new knowledge

Call out good intentions

Play your part in creating more access to education

Reflect on your role in the system

Deliberate carefully on what is the desired outcome

Respect each other’s value

Engage both generalists and specialists

Ensure depth and breadth in conversations

Prioritise soft skills

Learn how to empathise

Get the communication right

Impart knowledge and skills generously

Encourage multidisciplinary thinking

Foster collaborative systems

Integrate human and technical systems with the ecological

Adopt creative pragmatism

Use cybernetic systems thinking in daily life

Teach critical thinking as opportunities arise

Break down silos for deeper and continuing conversations

Hold regenerative conversations

Consider ecology and First Nations perspectives

Try speaking in analogies

Translate technical language for non-technical audiences

Develop your interpersonal skills

Apply different measures of success to different voices

Remember that no one size fits all

Be sure to acknowledge that success is different for everyone

Be aware of the consequences of the systems you enable

Support colleagues to pursue interdisciplinary skills

Bring more art into the science and technology sector

Be sure to adopt soft listening and soft leadership

Build more data literacy in journalists

Ask better questions

Use data to tell stories

Incorporate data visualisation in education

Experiment with bi-directional mentoring

Lead out from the middle

Shift away from being transactional

Honour this place and its histories

Practice compassion

Collaborate and co-create for better outcomes

Contribute to increased diversity

Look for new perspectives and sit with the discomfort this may bring

Be open to new relationships

Act on serendipitous encounters

Do intercultural research

Consider the community context

Exercise collaborative leadership

Increase opportunities for entry

Express humour

Be humble

Look to lived experience

Hold various ways of knowing simultaneously

Bring humility to data science

Practice empathy

Bridge expertise with cybernetics

Develop reflexivity

Be genuine in efforts to increase diversity

Provide guard rails

Engage with critical thinkers

Invest in social technology

Keep an open mind

Develop an inclusive lens

Engage with more young people

Develop a strategy for corporate engagement

Look for lateral connections

Practice humility

Invite internships

Consider being a mentor

Invest in First Nations connections

Ensure diversity in decision-making

Prioritise plurality

Practice active listening

Take care of yourself

Engage with and understand the environment around you

Allow for longer-term time spans

See and give feedback

Apply a social and ecological lens to technical systems

Consider multidisciplinary frameworks

Broaden reach of knowledge via digital marketing

Learn how to integrate systems

Make the AI decision-making process transparent

Be transparent in systems design

Consider how to translate research across disciplines

Find better ways to interrelate

Ensure STEM engagement is 2-way

Allow for feedback

Embed safety by design into data collection

Ensure access and inclusion

Design technology to be inclusive

Smash the glass ceiling

Break the ivory tower

Invest in developing team skills

Strengthen emotional intelligence in self and teams

Look to Restorative Justice

Consider Non-Violent Communication

Examine Deliberative Democracy

Teach new ways of knowing

Embed emotional intelligence into technology

Balance creativity and technical expertise

Develop technical advocacy that empowers people

Move at the speed of trust

Celebrate this time for generalists

Recognise systems beyond the technical

Include designers, curators and end users in decision-making

Empower diverse people to act

Sponsor educational opportunities

Reframe technical literacy

Consider technology in context of people and the environment

Learn from systems

Observe feedback loops

Remember that inclusion creates innovation

Look to philosophy

Care for Country

Enable First Nations people to lead

Disrupt thinking

Encourage imagination

Coordinate to enable greater collaboration

Integrate learning for a collaborative approach

Employ generalists to translate knowledge

Continue to look for deep and broad technical skills

Partner with well-established organisations

Engage with multidisciplinary centres

Tell stories of positive technology solutions

Balance cautionary tales with optimal outcomes

Draw on what is uniquely Australian

Identify examples of what works here in this place

Exploit opportunities in tech data policy and regulation

Build translation skills across disciplines

Bring multiple sectors together

Go beyond regulation to mitigate harms

Embrace new knowledge for safe, sustainable, responsible systems

Adopt a systems approach for a bird’s-eye view

Remember that no one is the smartest person in the room

Develop a common language to talk to each other about the future

Measure the benefits of technology against the trade-offs

Build the skills we need for the future by going beyond the technical

Consider that all businesses are digital

Enable more time for experimentation

Test as you build and try new approaches

Understand human behaviour and emotions

Break down organisational silos

Help different areas of business understand other functions

Collaborate across skills domains

Create safe environments where it is okay to try and fail

Encourage teams to reflect and learn

Develop resilience in the face of setbacks

Promote safety in workplace, psychological as well as physical

Mentor and help others grow

Develop and build the skills needed for the future

Release women from administrative roles

Earn trust in leadership

Build the intellectual muscle in organisations and systems

Tune in to where people are

Embrace diversity and multidisciplinary voices

Engage with a broad consumer base

Make educational tools widely available

Build capacity

Create opportunities to acquire knowledge

Practice inclusion to create innovation

Promote upskilling that is radical and an ongoing

Don’t outsource skills

Seek Australian practitioners and make tools available to them

Procure locally

Look to art as well as STEM to boost skills

Include creativity in conversations about technology

Emphasise nature and the environment as we talk about technology

Enjoy more nature walks

Create more freedom to play

Build a cybernetic sandpit

Tell better stories about the future

Engage with industry, artists, and interns

Bring industry and researchers together to create large-scale programs

Acknowledge that deep tech literacy is important for everyone

Learn from financial literacy campaigns

Include more industry placements in PhD programs

Create bigger programs designed to make more impact

Embed researchers into both big companies and small organisations

Include ethical practitioners in organisations of various sizes

Activate the Cybernetic Practitioner Network

Join up networks to expand reach

Publish case studies

Verify, test and check,

Apply what we know

Demonstrate and critique technological processes

Apply one domain to other domains to create new markets

Invest in research that can influence policy outcomes

Enhance technical skills across disciplines

Create spaces and time for people to translate and connect

Develop a shared language about safe, responsible and sustainable systems

Understand the rhythm of the system

Design interventions that steer the system

Interested? Join our Cybernetic Practitioner Network!

You are on Aboriginal land.

The Australian National University acknowledges, celebrates and pays our respects to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people of the Canberra region and to all First Nations Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and work, and whose cultures are among the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

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