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!