Visualising activity within a space

The idea of a system space is not easy to visualise. It is even more difficult to visualise a function within a system space, especially when it is a dynamic system that is constantly evolving. To understand this way of thinking, you might consider a game of football. Normally, it would be considered as a game played between two opposing teams on a football pitch.

A different way to look at this is to think of the pitch as a space that contains football players: a football space. The football would travel around in this space passing from one player to another. Patterns of play would be observed that involve cooperative movements of players in the football space, which influence the movement of the ball in one direction or another. Players move around in this space, changing their positions and relationships to each other. The coach can alter the patterns of play in this football space by substituting players, or, by changing the relationships between the players.

Imagine now that on this football pitch (in this football space) four games are being played simultaneously. There would be eight teams of players and four footballs in the same football space. Imagine the confusion that might be caused; it would be chaos.

Now, imagine you are a coach for one of these teams; wouldn't it make sense to talk to one or more of the other coaches to get your respective teams to cooperate and help each other rather than get in each other's way? With such arrangements being made, it wouldn't be long before other similar arrangements were being made between other coaches. Teams would form strategic alliances and structure their play so as to maximise their ability to assist each other in winning their respective games.

In this situation, it wouldn't be appropriate to think in terms of teams playing on a football pitch, it would be preferable to change the conceptual model and think of players in a playing space that could realise all kinds of innovative patterns of play. It is just this kind of paradigm shift that is needed when transferring from traditional bricks and mortar business thinking to e-business thinking.