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Dear Don, Thank you for your reminder. I had thought that Beer's VSM was common currency in designing products, services and systems. Obviously not! On the Internet, however, it is well represented. A Google search on "beer VSM" raises 24,500 results of which the first hundred or so are on target. Here's a brief explanation and some background on the Viable System Model (VSM) of Anthony Stafford Beer as it connects with design research. Beer's VSM is one of the five or so 'classic' system approaches to support new designs of complex products or services - where complex systems designs include (say) a pencil, a fork, or a word. The complexity depends on the viewer rather than the object. If you Google "Beer VSM wiki" it is the first item (from here in Australia) and found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_System_Model. The wiki item shows and explains the basic elements and structure of Beer's VSM. The understanding and use of VSM and its application to designing and researching design is, however, much broader and more complex than the wiki description. A starting point is to read all of Beer's books and then do a journal search on how people have used the VSM in research and design. Stafford Beer developed a Viable System Model (VSM) to show the absolute minimum in elements and structure that any autonomous system needs to be viable - whether a brain, country, animal, eco-system, computer system, pencil fork or word. A VSM model is always reflexive in that all and any element of the VSM contains a whole VSM if it is to be viable. Beer's VSM model was famously used via the most minimal information feedback as a means to redesign and successfully turn round the economy of Chile in the short while before Allende was killed (see, Cybersyn in http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Anthony_Stafford_Beer ). Mostly in the literature, the use of Beer's VSM is described in terms of organisation design. For an accessible description of VSM see also http://www.esrad.org.uk/resources/vsmg_3/screen.php?page=preface . Another easy to read description of Beer's VSM is that of Allenna Leonard on http://www.cybsoc.org/VSMKEY.doc . What has this to do with Design or the design of products or services ? Beer's VSM is a powerful design tool for the design of complex socio-technical systems. These are design systems (products and services) that involve people and technology. The combination of 'people and technology' includes pretty well the whole of all designed output. Examples of socio-technical systems would include (say), iPod, Mac computer, car, bookshelf, phd program, airport security, advertisement, silver jewellery, oil and gas refinery, anti-terrorism strategy and fork. Sometimes socio-technical systems are viewed as services and sometimes as products. For a simplistic example of the use of VSM in Organisation Design and Design Strategy see Love, T. (2008). Improving Design of Micro-business Systems via VSM and Constituent Orientation Analysis. In C. Rust (Ed.), Design Research Society International Conference 2008: Undisciplined! (pp. CDROM). Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Hallam University and Design Research Society [CDROM] available as a pre-print at http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2008/drs-sme-vsm.htm . This paper uses VSM as the basis to develop design guidelines for improving the design of business processes and organisational structures for the micro-business sector. One powerful aspect of Beer's VSM is the way it can be used to study pathology of design, i.e. the study of harm and failure of designs (before they are implemented) or understanding the deep-seated mis-structuring of a design that will result in failure. When the VSM model does not fully or exactly map onto a design then the differences are associated with well known systemic pathological failures that will play out in the life of the designed product or service. This immediately provides feedback to identify and rectify designs before they are put into production Beer's VSM covers the same territory and integrates well with other dimensions of design practice and design research such as interaction design, HCI, emotionally-based design, communication design and ergonomics. In part, it does this because it spans and provides a parallel representation of the theory-bases of several disciplines such as psychology, engineering, business and organisations, art and linguistics. My experience is that (after the few months of initial study needed to get a handle on it ) Beer's VSM offers an easy and powerful way of understanding many cross disciplinary and integrating issues that are badly addressed when looked at from single issue design research perspectives such as interaction design, communications, ergonomics or organisation design. To get some idea of the level of integration of the VSM and design theory, see the 1959 sketch for a cybernetic factory in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Stafford_Beer If anyone requires more explanation of Beer's VSM or any other systems tool in Design, please get in touch. If anyone wants an cheap ebook on the practical use of systems methodology, you can download one from http://www.praxiseducation.com/catalog/ebook-systems-thinking-associated-met hodologies-p-60.html Please make sure you got all the URL! (I'm the publisher). I'd love to hear from anyone on the list is actively using Beer's VSM or other systems approaches in design research and design practice. Best wishes, Terry ____________________ Dr. Terence Love, FRDS, AMIMechE, PMACM Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Group Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute Associate, Planning and Transport Research Centre Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845 Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask] Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK ____________________