Dear all,

The recent correspondence on the need for a compendium of design terms reminds me of an equivalent for the systems community:

Title International encyclopedia of systems and cybernetics / ed. Charles François.
Imprint München, Germany : Saur, 1997.

This remarkable text is a mine of information on anything to do with systems, an essential reference work for those in the field.

Kind regards,
John Broadbent

Francois-Xavier Nsenga (fme) wrote:
[log in to unmask]"> 
When we develop a concept, we should consider the purpose so that it works
productively. If a concept is too broad, its can not reflect the specifics
of a field. If a concept is too narrow, it is not euristic enough.


Many of the problems on this list stem from lack of terminological
agreement. We came back to Step One of the Common Ground debate -- let's
build a common conceptual and terminological language and this will reduce
the posts and arguments with 99% so that we can concentrate on really
productive discussions.

Regards,

Lubomir

    

I totally agree with the above. We should have started with the prime task of
making precise where we stand and what we are talking about. On the other
hand, that might perhaps be what has been going on since the beginning of the
list ! A sort of an online brainstorming. Would then be someone or a team out
there to work specifically on the "conceptual and terminological language", a
"compendium" (Pradeep Yammiyavar's post, Tuesday, 29 Oct. 2002) of the field
? And if by any chance that has already been done, could we be informed of
the result ?



François-X. N.I. NSENGA

Teacher and Researcher
in Sociology and Industrial Design

P.O.box 643, Snowdon
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3X 3X8

Tel.: (514) 737-8300
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