Welcome to synergistics
Synergistics is the art and science of building synergy and collaboration, with the principles of collective intelligence, for prosperity and sustainability in turbulent times.
To live together on a small planet, we need new ways of organizing cities and economies and societies. This calls for a new operating system, one based on collaboration and collective intelligence. We need a ‘smart’, technical kind of intelligence – but even more, we need a ‘wiser’ kind of intelligence, which brings together different ways of thinking – social, technical, ecological, political and cultural.
The emerging art and science of synergistics is a long term program, now taking shape in the midst of turbulence and disruption. There are practical projects, methods and tools, along with insights, stories and maps, and visual thinking is an essential part of this. There is an open invitation to join this Collaboratorium and engage with the Conversations and projects / Co-productions.
The source-book for many of these ideas is the newly published – DEEPER CITY
The materials are shared between this site and Urban-3.0 . Here you will find:
- the Conversations – ongoing program of open debates, with learning and thinking on collective intelligence
- the Co-productions, recent and ongoing projects which explore & demonstrate the potential of collective intelligence
- the Toolkit with practical methods and guidance: and
- a Resources library, with demonstration pathways for many kinds of human problem.
On the Urban-3.0 pages you will find –
- synopses & samples from The Book
- Pandemic 3.0 and the Mind Games – lateral thinking on turning crisis into transformation
- background on the concepts and applications of Synergistics
- deeper and wider insights from Visual Thinking
Also here are various materials….
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Deeper City quick tour – overview of ideas, stories, methods and tools
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Deeper cities wider views – Joe Ravetz in conversation with Effie Amanatidou – for the backstory and forward look
- Deeper City – Ch1 – prologue – bigger ideas, wider visions, FAQs and how to use the book…
- keynote on CHAI – ‘Collective Human-Artifical Intelligence’ – to the International Smart City Forum at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference Shanghai – WAIC-Joe-Ravetz.mp4 (with dual language script WAIC-Joe-Ravetz-Chinese-English)
And there’s a general invitation to join the global Collaboratorium on Urban-3.0 – a forward program with multiple locations, stakeholders, fields, case studies, pilots, experiments and innovations….
Conversations – overview
The Synergistic Conversations are open debates in a program of collective learning, thinking, co-creation and co-production. We work by dialogue and deliberation and creative visualization, using the synergistic toolkit as a guide. Each event
Each event is a kind of Mind-lab / Synergy-lab, each with an international panel, and using interactive visual tools.
The events are online until 2021, then hopefully moving to ‘blended’ combinations of online / on-site: there are some advantages with online, e.g. lower carbon / easier participation, compared to onsite).
People are invited to join these events as they come up, on the registration links on the next page. For comments or queries, please contact joe.ravetz@manchester.ac.uk – or visit the form on http://www.urban3.net
See the next page Conversations/ for the events as they emerge…
Each of 6 key themes is creating an emerging ‘collective book-form’ – an online networked book / platform, with
multiple co-authors – to better reflect and mobilize the collective intelligence of the community.
And the new extendable whiteboards began to emerge, as an ideal medium for visual synergistic thinking, to support the collective book-forms and ‘collaboratoriums’ of the future (i.e. laboratory for ‘collective collaborative intelligence’).
Co-productions – overview
This is the ‘inhouse’ Collaboratorium – an experimental zone for a ‘collective intelligence laboratory’. Here the synergistic methods are being developed and tested in a range of projects, large and small, from around the world.
The disruptive power of smart technologies is now emerging. This calls for a new agenda – ‘Smart-Wise Inclusive Cities’ (SWIC), which steer the ‘smart power’ towards social equality, sustainable livelihoods & open governance. SWIC-India is a small pilot to test the synergistic methods, ready for scaling up to global level
Qatar may be at a crossroads in environmental history. With the world’s third-largest natural gas reserves its wealth is huge, but vulnerable. Everything could change with international climate change policy, market effects, or national priorities. For the shift to renewable energy, there is a clear advantage for the first mover. All this points to a Foresight-III approach to building capacity, for collaborative learning, thinking, creating and doing.
Water governance is split across public, private and civic sectors: there are many gaps, overlaps and barriers to integrated catchment management. To design more effective governance structures, we can use Synergistic principles. Then we can address the whole of the water cycle: supply, demand, water quality, groundwater, flood risk management and drainage.
Peri-cene
(Peri-urban climate-environment)
From space, the human impact on the planet is seen by the spread of cities, but cities themselves are spreading into much larger areas of sprawl, around and between them. The planet has arguably entered the ‘Peri-cene’ – a new global human-environment system shaped by peri-urbanization. The PERI-CENE project will provide the first ever comprehensive assessment of global peri-urbanisation, with its climate impacts, risks and vulnerabilities. For more see http://peri-cene.net

Toolkit – overview
The Synergistic Toolkit is designed for working with complex inter-connected problems. It shows how to turn a ‘Nexus’ of contradictions, into a ‘Connexus’ of opportunities. It’s a package of methods, tools, techniques, and templates.
The Toolkit helps to understand a complex present, and explore the pathways to opportunities in the future. It works with a 4 stage process – ‘Systems / scenarios / synergies / strategies’.
Systems
First we explore the wider and deeper nature of the problem.
Find out more
Scenarios
Second we look at the forces of change and future uncertainty.
Find out more
Synergies
Third we look for visions and shared opportunities between all.
Find out more
Strategies
Finally we turn the visions into pathways for strategy and action.
Find out more
Resources – overview
The synergistic resources will be a structured collection of materials, on the art and science of synergistics, and the pathways ‘from smart to wise’.
This is ongoing work in progress, with mappings on each of the 40 synergistic pathways
Deeper City is about collective intelligence and the next generation operating systems, local and global. This comes in different forms. There’s a jungle type intelligence for a ‘smart’ city where the ‘winner-takes-all’. And there’s a civilizational intelligence, for a ‘wise’ city, where ‘winners-are-all’. So how to get ‘from smart to wise’? Deeper City maps out 40 pathways, ranging from cities to economies, technologies, ecologies, politics, insights and the global future. These are not ‘solutions’, more like more useful ways to ask the questions…