Hodges' model: a New Invention

Created in the early 1980s, Hodges' model is clearly not a -

'New Invention' P. Halling

While Hodges' model is not a new invention, we have always needed to way-find. Maps are very powerful and even more so now that the world is literally within our grasp. What forms of way-finding can Hodges' model encompass ...

Psyche's journey: All aboard!?

The journey that is life and death... within which and beyond is the arrival of love.

The anatomy and physiology of the human body - the journey called development.

The wound healing journey, the granulated path.

The many skills to become more acutely aware of and honed to be a more effective communicator.

The ways and means by which a clinical procedure MUST be followed - with the essential detours that must include psychological considerations and assuring that 

dignity, respect and privacy are upheld.

This ineffable stuff called information how do we arrive there from data?

From information what is the direction of travel to knowledge - 

is W1S D0M a postcode?

This ineffable stuff called evidence, where is that to be found 

and then by what routes can it be applied?

The journey of the health and social care record from blank to comprehensive.

The journey past the signage (paper ... IT systems) that denotes local vocabularies.

The student's journey from novice to expert.

The patient's journey from illness to recovery; relapse to recovery, 

through palliative care to end of life.

Transitions: from care at home, to hospital, home or residential setting.

The patient's journey to hospital: paramedics, ambulance, corridors and bays, 

accident & emergency, ward, transfers, home.

The patient's narrative journey repeated to own doctor, paramedics, nurse, another doctor, social worker, physiotherapist, occupational therapist (not as long as it used to be?).

Crisis informational: worry - going for tests, scan ... attending clinic for results.

 Informational and temporal compression of the above due to headwinds of pressure on beds.

Self-referral journey to destinations (services) and agencies to be confirmed.

The medication journey (not yet personalised) absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion.
The other medication journey that precedes (reconnoitre) rationale, information giving, consent, titration, established regime, withdrawal, medication stopped.

The terrible journey that sees family losing their loved ones twice over.

Explicit and implicit journeys how closely observed formally and informally.

The trip around the other hubs that also turn: the bed hub, social services hub...

The journey through the calendar that is reflected in so many diaries.

The journey called supervision and why is the start session square so hard to find - time for?

The journey called allocation from referral to assignment of care coordinator. 

The journey through procedure land which includes a territory called complaints.

There is the healthcare journey that claims respect as it is predicated upon the postcode.

The journey of idealism and legacy that is called integrated, 

person centred, holistic care and reflective practice...?

Care programme approach review - initial, intermediate, discharge meeting and community review.

The path clearly delineated but less (not yet) travelled

 - health promotion, preventive medicine, self-care, self-efficacy and health literacy (education).

The journey through so many environments: inner - outer space.
The journey that is hope... and Psyche's way-finder...

How many of the care domains of Hodges' model 

do you ensure you pass through - including the spiritual?

Of course, this list only scratches the surface...

All these journeys can be found and navigated through Hodges' model.

NORTH

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

WEST--------------------------------------- EAST

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

SOUTH

As for the sign 'New Invention'...

Last Saturday at 0700 I left WN4 and headed south for Hay-on-Wye. I arrived at 0930 after passing through Clun and the hamlet of New Invention. I returned with a box of secondhand books, including a couple on education history purchased on my last visit in November 2015. These were useful in the studies at Lancaster. Once sold, 22 books in all, I had £20. Six other books went to the charity shop. An enjoyable trip.

Photo by Philip Halling, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Call for contributions: 'Interpreting the Information Age' new avenues for research and display

November 24 – 26 2014

Science Museum, London

In autumn 2014, the Science Museum will open a new permanent gallery, Information Age. The gallery will expose, examine and celebrate how information and communication technologies have transformed our lives over the last 200 years. To mark this launch, the Museum is hosting a three day conference which will discuss how the history and material culture of information can be made relevant for today’s audiences.

From the development of global telegraph and computer networks, the creation of constellations of satellites that silently orbit our earth, and the growth of radio, telephony and cellular networks; each technology can be understood through a network of people, practices, devices and infrastructure. Approaches which focus on overly technical histories, individual innovation or inevitable progress fail to acknowledge the role of users in the history of technologies and marginalise a majority of readers or visitors who are engaged by human stories and social history. By contrast, Information Age has taken a user-centric approach, not only in the stories and objects selected for display, but in the way the gallery has been designed and developed. Participation with a diverse range of audiences has been at the heart of the process, providing new avenues for research, fresh perspectives on our collections and original ways to interpret the information networks of which we are all part. We invite papers that include insights from researchers, academics, museum professionals, community partners and participants.

The conference structure is proposed to include:

Day 1: New avenues in the history of information and communication technologies

Day 2: Interpreting and displaying the history of information and communication technologies

Day 3: Reflections on the process and practicalities of participatory practice

We are especially interested in papers that address the following themes, but are happy to consider other proposals. Please contact the organisers for guidance. 

New avenues in the history of information and communication technologies

• From devices to networks: taking a broader approach to the history of information and communication. How has historical analysis expanded our understanding of information networks as inherently social-cultural phenomena? How can museums move beyond displays of devices, to reveal how networks unite people, places and ideas?
• User-driven innovation: technological change does not only occur at the moment of invention, but in the hands of users, who adapt and appropriate new technologies. What tools and techniques can we use to reveal previously hidden user stories?
• Spaces and places of information: How are institutions celebrating the local and global stories in the history of information and communication technology? What partnerships are being formed to support this?

Interpreting and displaying the history of information and communication technologies

• Collecting information: what are the challenges of collecting the material culture of information and communication? How can opening collecting processes to wider audiences enhance understanding, and what are the benefits for both researchers and the wider public?
• Displaying information: innovative approaches to the history, present or future of information and communication technologies.
• Preserving information: the challenges for museums, libraries and archives in preserving our increasingly digital lives.
• Whose story? As institutions strive to tell the story of information and communication technologies from the perspective of users and co-producers, how can we ensure that we are representing a diverse range of voices? 

Reflections on the process and practicalities of participatory practice

• Breaking down barriers: what approaches are being taken to ensure museum collections are accessible to wider audiences? What interpretation approaches can be adopted?
• Collaborative interpretation and design: how are institutions and audiences working together in exhibition development? What are the benefits to the museum, participant and ultimately the gallery visitor? What are the perceived risks to the museum’s authority?
• Ensuring legacy: how do museums capture the process of participatory practice in a meaningful way? What evaluation methodologies can be adopted? How can museums support partners and participants in the longer-term? 

How to contribute

To submit a proposal, please send a 250 abstract outlining the topic of your paper, along with a 100 word biography, to [ research AT sciencemuseum.ac.uk ] by Friday 28th March 2014.

We welcome proposals which could be delivered either as paper presentations or for consideration as panel discussions with other contributors, along with proposals for workshops which practically address the conference themes.

My source: HUMANIST list

Book Review: iv Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History

Mathematics + Art

As a reader fascinated by the connections between knowledge and the disciplines in which it is placed, it was encouraging to note reference to "Psychophysics" (p.136) the title of a book by Fechner. This is discussed under Suprematism with the development of tools for experimental psychology and evolving consciousness. The early 1900s was a time a search for higher consciousness and not just invention but new invention, made-up words for poetry, as art strove to shed light on the mind reaching for a "transrational" level of reasoning. It seems little has changed as many artists still seek the spiritual and Absolute in their work.

Reading of psychophysics is reinforcement for me of the many disciplinary bridges of which the book presents one. In Hodges' model you often find yourself traversing psychosocial, socioeconomic, physicopolitical, psychopolitical, psychosomatic and other bridges. This book demonstrates how in the four domains (plus spiritual) of Hodges' model, art and mathematics are interchangeable with respect to mind - body (reality), the objective and subjective. There are bound to be many writings that might follow on Malevich's Black Square, his icon to the secular age. I have wondered about Hodges' model as a culturally neutral, inert space, if there can ever be such a thing. Free will and probability provides a bridge of even greater span (for me 'here') in social physics (p.145). Using mathematics to understand human behaviour. What would Quetelet make of big data today and the often 'lively' debates between psychology and psychiatry?

Chapter 4 Formalism includes a definition:

"Today we use the word "formalism" to name both the mathematical and the artistic impulse to isolate form (abstract structure), but the term has a different origin in the two fields." (p.153).

Flatland is a marvellous book (plate 4-2, p.157) as is Gamwell's outline of the perception of space: Helmholtz's learned geometry. (p.156). Key mathematicians and their work feature here; Peano, Frege, Cantor and how consistency entails existence (p.161). Language introduces noise as much as when spoken it needs air as a medium. The focus on language, meaning and poetry with resort to made up words and pictograms to analyse rhythmic patterns is fascinating. There is this too:

"The task of artists who work with paint is to provide graphic symbols for the units of our mental processes. . . . The artist's task would be to provide a special sign for each type of space. Each sign must be simple and clearly distinguishable from all the rest. It might be possible to resort to the use of color, and to designate M with dark blue, B with green." (p.171). Khlebnikov.

The book prompts you to read further: Bohm and the interpretation of Hilbert's thought, "meaning-free" and "meaningless" begs further study.

In mathematics humanity has sought to understand not just the discipline but our place in the Cosmos. In chapter 5 (pp.196-223) we learn of Leibniz's project to invent the first artificial language.

More to follow ...

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

	Continuous phenomena: 24 hr air temperature
	Discontinuous phenomena: Bank deposit (p.134)

Lynn Gamwell (2016) Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691165288. p.283.

(Thanks to PUP and John Wiley for the review copy.)

Call for Papers “THE CULTURAL EXPLOSION OF AI: ...

Navigating the Intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Society, and Culture”

Artificial intelligence has burst into the cultural space with the speed of an explosion. As with any powerful explosion, its initial impact is a spectacular blinding flash, followed by a shock wave with real effects. Perhaps we are still at the very beginning, but often the intensity of the blinding flash is proportional to the real effect that follows, both in terms of sweeping away existing forms and as long-term cultural “radiation”.

According to Lotman, a cultural explosion is a period of transformation when rapid and large-scale changes occur in cultural systems, leading to a significant increase in the creation of new information. It is estimated that artificial intelligence produces as much cultural text in one year as humanity has produced throughout its millennia-long history until the advent of the digital age. More interestingly, this new textual production is entering its most productive phase with the invention of Transformer architecture, which is almost a literal algorithmic realization of Lotman's concept of translation — the main mechanism of semiotic metabolism in the Semiosphere.

Training Large Language Models (LLMs), which is the foundation of AI, suspiciously resembles the way Umberto Eco models culture in the structure of a rhizome, which computer scientists call a "neural network." His encyclopedic model is based precisely on what LLMs extract from huge arrays of existing text—the statistic constancy of sign usage. In a polemic with textual immanentists, Eco postulates as part of the reader's encyclopedic competence the ability to inferentially reproduce the possible contexts of sign usage that make up the text. For many, the “magic” of artificial intelligence in its current form lies in its understanding of our questions to it, achieved with the Attention Mechanism, which, as a principle of cooperation between author and reader, is quite literally described in "The Role of the Reader" (1994).

The hardest to find were a fruitful correspondences between generative semiotics and generative media like Chat GPT, as paradoxical as that may sound, but surely there are such correspondences, and they are likely to be discovered in the future. In any case, as a theory of meaning generation on the one hand and an endless machine for creating meaningful texts on the other, the cultural explosion of AI will not leave this breed of semioticians unemployed.

We welcome contributions on the following key topics, but not limited to them:

- Semiotic models of AI generated cultural content
- Semiotic analysis of AI texts generation
- Semiotic theory of generative media
- Socio-cultural consequences of AI's advent
- Transdisciplinary collaboration between semiotics and informatics
- AI in creative practices in the arts
- AI in creative practices in marketing and advertising
- AI in research and education
- Cultural-economic implications of AI
- AI in pop culture
- AI in videogames and XR

Send here your proposal for papers (200-300 words): DigitASC AT nbu.bg

Deadline for the abstracts : 31 January 2025;

Deadline for full papers: 15 June 2025;

Deadline for the final revised papers: 31 August 2025;

Publication: December 2025

Digital Age in Semiotics & Communication, a journal from the Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies at the New Bulgarian University and founded by Prof. Kristian Bankov, explores the new forms of knowledge, social and linguistic interaction, and cultural phenomena generated by the advent of the Internet and information technologies.

A topic is chosen for each issue by the editorial board, but the topics will be always related to the issues of the digital environment. The working language of the journal is English. It uses double-blind review, meaning that both the reviewer’s and the author’s identities are concealed from each other throughout the review process.

Link to the archive of the first six issues: https://ojs.nbu.bg/index.php/DASC/issue/archive

For more information and submission of papers: DigitASC AT nbu.bg

My source:
--

Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra
3004-530 Coimbra, Portugal

E-mail: iestudosfilosoficos AT gmail.com
Sítio Web: http://www.uc.pt/fluc/ief
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@uidief
Academia: https://coimbra.academia.edu/ief

Seeds in 'architecture' iii

Prof. Younés describes 'three essential dualities': 

• IMAGE and WORD 
• TYPE and MODEL
• IMITATION and INVENTION

IMAGE and WORD 

Nursing has its historical images, that are continually presented, the lamp, hands imbued with care and support and others. The attraction to Hodges' model was through its similarity to mind-mapping, but with offering an foundational structure for reflection and critique (learning). So image has been there from the start.

Younés writes: "Within the dialectic of the visible (objects apprehended by the senses) and the invisible (ideas or forms apprehended by the mind), the image acts as a symbol when it supports the visibility of an idea." ... "Forms can be seen as structural potentials ..." p.238.

Younés classifies images (p.241), or the artistically factual through three divisions:

1. visual images (that would include icons and interface features)
   
2. mental images
3. verbal images (including metaphors and descriptions).
   

 "... the mind constructs a world within a world, and then reflects upon its own activity, as well as its own aesthetic appreciation of such activity."

I must stress the Younés context is architecture (and philosophy), but here extending to meaning I'm reminded of the way Hodges' model can span the arts and sciences, and original influences on why this model stood out for me through its facility for mind-mapping.

TYPE and MODEL 

 Here (p.242) Younés returns, not just to the origin, but the concept of origin through Form, the word and the type. Searching for universally shared purposes, within the permanences of human experience  this is health and social care too.

Taking in data, information, knowledge from assessment and other activities, this is usually contextualised - associated with a care domain. A return to the origin (nexus) of Hodges' model, the center is vital to retain balance and provide assurance in what we are doing, or not, and why.

"The architect imitates things as they have essential significance, but he or she does not copy any particular thing. This enables the layered transformation of natural models, without which the column would have always remained a tree. The form of the imitation is always different from that of the model. The roof is different from the forest's canopy. It is here that the pleasure of invention and the evaluation of the new enter, for it is within the recognized distance between the forest's canopy and the roof, that much of art occurs." p.244.

How times change in two decades. So many seek a roof, with architects having a recognized role in providing solutions post-natural disaster and political displacement of people. Not just homelessness, but homes that can cope, adjust to climate change. COVID has reminded us of the rejuvenating properties of nature, of the forest canopy, even that afforded by city centre gardens. 

We now see a roof not merely in physical terms, but social. As the night skies brighten we try to secure the canopy of the stars.

IMITATION and INVENTION 

Have we forgotten the contribution of positive role-models in learning? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and this throws up the constant educational dilemma of the theory - practice gap. Should we be exposed to practice without the guiding mentor represented in theory - that is also evidence-based?

There is an interesting exploration of SCOPE, DISCOURSE and NATURE: On Scope

"Thus a theory that is systemic aims at a certain level of completeness for it establishes the internal organization of architecture as a discipline, and it explains its external relations to other arts, to techniques, to social factors. Put differently, the interior individual realm concerns the intellectual freedom, the inner reflection of the architect-maker. The exterior individual pertains to the thoughts resulting from one architect reflecting upon another architect's work, as well as the individual architect's reflections on the suitability of her or his building to a context. The interior collective bears upon the conscious or unconscious content of culture which thrive within the images of of operative myths that inform architectural production. The exterior collective designates that commonly built sense regarding the suitability of architecture (decorum) within its milieu par excellence: the city. The above concerns the scope of an architectural theoretical system, on the urban, architectural, aesthetic, social, and practical levels." p.245-246.

INDIVIDUAL

|

 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

interior individual	exterior individual
interior collective	exterior collective

 

I started these three posts noting the addition of 'architecture' to titles, concepts, and 'stretching' disciplines. Also guilty here; in mitigation, I'm aware of how in the mid-late 1970s technical drawing as taught was to change radically in the digital wave.

Hodges' model provides a drawing board, with analogue and digital potential.

I will continue to draw upon the (inspirational) discipline of architecture, it informs and sustains thought, construction, meanings, language use, and effort here.

There is much more to glean from this paper, so I hope to revisit it in the future - with further annotations on my copy.

Over the years I have noted related items in the press (yes, I saved the following):

Designs for life: architecture in the disaster zone, FT Weekend.

and read - A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis

By David Rieff

See also: 

Seeds in 'architecture' i 

Seeds in 'architecture' ii

Younés, Samir. “Constructing Architectural Theory.” Philosophy 78, no. 304 (2003): 233–53. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3752046.

Cognitive and Affective Empathy c/o Simon Baron-Cohen

   New Scientist 3311

"At the bottom, Nicholas Conard, archaeologist and director of the nearby museum in Blaubeuren, Germany, pointed to a layer of rock. 'Right here is 20,000 years ago,' he said. Then he pointed about a metre lower. 'Here, we are at 40,000 years ago.' 

I was in awe, suddenly aware that I was standing where our early human ancestors lived and breathed so long ago. But it was what they invented that inspired my trip. Hohle Fels is where, in 2008, Conard and his colleagues discovered the earliest known musical instrument, a flute carved from a vulture bone that is thought to be about 40,000 years old.

It is the product of what I argue are parallel revolutions in human cognition. In my career studying the human brain through the lens of understanding autism, I have devoted a lot of time to understanding empathy, its role in our evolution and how it still underpins human interaction today. But around the same time that the brain changes arose that enabled us to use empathy, another equally critical set of changes took place: the evolution of a pattern-seeking brain network, what I refer to as the systemising mechanism, that provides the foundation for human invention - including that of musical instruments." p.34.

INDIVIDUAL

|

     INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

"One of these circuits, the empathy circuit, enabled a raft of new behaviours, including the ability to deceive others, teaching, self-reflection, social "chess" and flexible communication that relied on shared reference, including storytelling. These explain why modern humans could make stealth weapons and jewellery: we were keeping track of what others might think, know, intend, feel, want and believe." p.36. COGNITIVE EMPATHY theory of mind

AFFECTIVE EMPATHY "- the drive to respond to another person's mental state with an appropriate emotion." p.36.

Baron-Cohen, S. (2020) Our Restless Minds, New Scientist, 248: 3311, pp.34-39.

Autism Research Centre, Cambridge University

The Pattern Seekers, Simon Baron-Cohen.

'Life's compass' ...

'... I have been thinking a lot about the responsibilities of leadership. How do people in positions of power reach decisions and do they fully consider the consequences of these decisions? In questioning how someone chooses to lead, I'm also asking how that individual navigates the possible courses of action, and what kind of compass is being used to guide them. It has made me think about how any of us choose to navigate our way through life and where we look for a sense of direction. I wonder what we might change about the choices we make if we were more reflective about what serves as a compass in our lives.'

'"The Invention of the Compass" is attributed to an anonymous painter of the late 16th century, although there exists a roughly contemporaneous plate of the same title, and of an almost identical image, engraved by the Dutch artist Jan Collaert the Elder. In the original painting an old man with a long white beard, and dressed in a voluminous red and brown cloak, sits behind a large table in the centre of a room. As well as a canopied bed and another desk spread with books and scientific instruments, there is a model, or vision perhaps, of a carrack sailing ship hanging from the ceiling. There is also a large round compass device that sits heavy on the floor on the left foreground of the canvas. ...'

'It is as if this painting (Caravaggio) intended to serve as a compass, helping to move our steps and actions in the direction of caring for others. This is a powerful idea, and it suggests that all images contain that potential to influence how we live. Where we choose to direct and keep our gaze to some extent can determine how we permit our lives to be guided, if not in a physical sense then toward a value system that can end up having an impact on the way we engage with the wider world.' (My emphasis)

Ack. Enuma Okoro, Life's compass, The art of life, Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 1-2 February 2025. p.2. (Still need to subscribe, marvellous reading!)

Caravaggio, The Seven Works of Mercy

The Invention of the Compass

INDIVIDUAL

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

moral compass personal values my choices	maps - compass position - navigation direction - distance degrees of freedom
the public the public good group think	leadership power political freedom

Enuma Okoro, Life's compass, The art of life, Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 1-2 February 2025. p.2.

Images: 

New Inventions of Modern Times [Nova Reperta], The Invention of the Compass, plate 2
https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/659663/1403273/main-image

By Caravaggio - Unknown source, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10286196

Previously:

'compass' :: 'map'

The invention of language

7 After the Fall

'Adam's one task in the Garden had been to invent language, to give each creature and thing its name. In that state of innocence, his tongue had gone straight to the quick of the world. His words had not been merely appended to the things he saw, they had revealed their essences, had literally brought them to life. A thing and its name were interchangeable. After the fall, this was no longer true. Names became detached from things, words devolved into a collection of arbitrary signs; language had been severed fom God. The story of the Garden, therefore, records not only the fall of man, but the fall of language.' 

    Paul Auster

In, Robert C. Stalnaker (2008) Our Knowledge of the Internal World. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. hb. p.132.

Auster, P. (1985) The New York Trilogy (New York: Penguin Books). p.52.

From: Harvard Business Review - The Four Phases of Design Thinking

I came across the following post on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network - The Conversation:

10:54 AM Thursday July 29, 2010
by Warren Berger

What can people in business learn from studying the ways successful designers solve problems and innovate? On the most basic level, they can learn to question, care, connect, and commit — four of the most important things successful designers do to achieve significant breakthroughs.
Having studied more than a hundred top designers in various fields over the past couple of years (while doing research for a book), I found that there were a few shared behaviors that seemed to be almost second nature to many designers. And these ingrained habits were intrinsically linked to the designer's ability to bring original ideas into the world as successful innovations. All of which suggests that they merit a closer look.

You can read the whole of Warren's original post, while below I have taken his focus concepts CONNECT, CARE, COMMIT and QUESTION and associated them to the care (knowledge) domains of Hodges' model. Following that there is a rationale. ...

connect	question
care	commit

Connect:Intrapersonal
Placed in the intra-interpersonal domain this is the domain of concepts, thoughts, ideas, creativity and innovation. This is the essence of Warren's reference to 'connect' -

Designers, I discovered, have a knack for synthesizing--for taking existing elements or ideas and mashing them together in fresh new ways.

The INTERPERSONAL links page also highlights other conceptual 'inhabitants' here; in particular knowledge management, the semantic web and psychology. If analysis and reduction is the outcome of the hard sciences, then here as Warren writes is synthesis, integration and invention. We can see how self-belief is critical to many innovators who pursue their dreams regardless of rebuffs by the establishment, to whom - within the health career model - they are also diametrically opposed.

Question:Sciences
The ability to question lie at the heart of human activity, and although thought and mind are represented in the interpersonal domain, questions also exemplify the output of human reasoning powers in the SCIENCES. Evidence based care depends on an ongoing process-ion of questions that drive research. Problem solving with its iterative sequence of assess (question), plan, action, evaluation (question). The health career model reminds us though of the need to consider not only quantity, logic and objective measures, but the role of qualitative research and methods.

Care:Sociology
Seeing Warren's inclusion of 'care' drew me to his post. Here he concludes:

Focus groups and questionnaires don't cut it; designers know that you must care enough to actually be present in people's lives.

Health and (social!) care are social activities. Our students are socialised into the professions and disciplines as they pursue their careers. Our work depends on the effectiveness of human communication and relationships. You can read about 'counselling' and only get so far; ultimately health care is experiential. It is something to be practised.

Commit:POLITICAL
Warren deals with the way designer's view risk and committing early to an idea and the project that might follow. For me 'commit' and being committed has explicit political - power - connotations. So, Warren's reference to commit in the sense of producing a model or prototype and working through problems can be extended. Invention and design may be cognitive pursuits, but they are non-trivial in that they must ultimately and literally be negotiated. Being able to 'commit' needs to be sanctioned. Individuals need to be empowered, or recognise when to either proceed or seek advice and guidance. Furthermore, Warren notes:

The designer's ability to "fail forward" is a particularly valuable quality in times of dynamic change. Today, many companies find themselves operating in a test-and-learn business environment that requires rapid prototyping. (?)

Perhaps the recognition in health policy of the need to balance negative and positive risk taking, self-care and personalised budgets can also be discerned in the above?

Acknowledgement:
Thanks to Warren Berger and HBR

Advocacy No. 1

What’s your view on nurses as advocates?

For nurses advocacy is seen as a constant facet of the role. It may not be as pronounced these days, but it is always present. If a person (patient or carer) needs an advocate in that 'non-legal' sense, then as nurses we are ready and willing to assist and present the patient's views. Quite a few years ago there was much navel-gazing that questioned the appropriateness of nurses as advocates. Where are the boundaries and how do you define non-legal? How independent can nurses be?

This no doubt presaged the advent of formal and dedicated advocacy worker schemes, a development reinforced by the emphasis on human rights over the past decade. Rather than travelling along the care pathway WITH the patient, carer(s) and health care team, advocacy workers are ready to get involved - independently - as the care situation reaches a crossroads (and pauses momentarily). In my experience though it is not easy to find longer-term independent advocacy input. Sometimes it is the very need to call 'time' - to seek space to reflect and weigh pros and cons - that is an issue.

Unless their role is radically changed, nurses will always be an initial advocate. Nurses are in the midst of care, their privileged relationship and proximity to the patient, their knowledge of the issues, diagnosis, interventions and prognosis makes advocacy a natural (caring!) response. I raise this because if advocacy is a political concept and the nurse’s role as advocate is less than it used to be, then what is left - beyond the political essentials of pay & pensions?

This blog is in danger of becoming a litany of examples by which I reveal my age. ... Back in the late 1970s and 1980s nursing was far more political and in the UK those were certainly employee-employer troubled times. They had quite an effect did those Union badges! Metallic drops of red, blue and green that adorned so many lapels, instant decoration for the grey suit with waistcoat that I used to wear (my mum thought I looked smart for once). Mental health always seemed more, shall we say union-attuned, than general nursing and yes the power of the unions had a lot to answer for in the UK; but where are we today?

Acting as an advocate you really can make a difference. Individual needs are nursing's bread & butter; but why stop at one person, when the needs of the many...?

Perhaps my view on this is a personal illusion, brought on by the purchase of Jane Salvage's ‘Politics in Nursing’ (1985)? Did this book, like most, merely reflect the times? I must confess the book did not 'activate' me. (Although, as the website may demonstrate, my head was lost above the clouds.)

In my student and early years the advice was keep your nose clean; deposit your assignments on time into the school of nursing's coffers and get through the current placement. There were exceptions as might be expected in a huge aged asylum, though thankfully when necessary action did not fall upon the conscience of one individual (that takes real conviction, courage & dedication). The issue was 'public' witnessed by several colleagues, all dedicated to high quality care. A case of a problem shared…...

The point of all this: If nursing has largely withdrawn from the role of advocate, than what is left politically? Maybe for you nursing is still there, the sparks flying as the activists sharpen advocacy's edge? The nursing pioneers Nightingale, Seacole, Makiwane, Breckinridge, Walking Bear Yellowtail, Peplau; and many others set an agenda. To what extent have we (nurses) addressed this? What remains to be done and what new challenges do we face?

The pioneers made a real difference. Not only did they build the ship, they set us on a course. If I were a student I'd be shouting "Are we there yet!" Has nursing arrived? If not, why not, how can we correct course and where - in the time of constant re-invention - is the new horizon?

Hodges model: What is it? [2] It’s an interface...

A further response to the “What is Hodges' model?” question is that the model is an interface. We tend to think of the word interface as a modern invention, referring to an information solution or computer system aspect that conjures up hopes of qualities like ‘user-friendly’, ‘open’, ‘accessible’ and ‘uncluttered’.

Of course technology is not new, interfaces have been around for several millions of years, as realised in Clarke’s 2001. More recently, someone recognised the need for a H.H.I.: human-horse interface and reins were born (or emerged).

Just like the courage, patience and skill needed to manage horses, the same applies to sociotechnical interfaces realised in software (and hardware). If you don't listen and whisper and get it wrong, the rider could have the whip out, someone might be thrown and even if you do reach the finish line you’ll be chasing dust (even worse than that the dust may have settled!).

In the 1980s writing some (very BASIC) educational software (see, a,b,c below) on the Sinclair ZX81 and BBC microcomputer, this word interface even then demanded your attention. Interfaces present many challenges; they should be fit-for-purpose, safe! (health, air-traffic control...), logical, structured and organised (usually), also self-explanatory or self-describing if possible. In short intuitive and many would now also demand some 'intelligence'.

Those four perspectives from the house of ideas I mentioned the other day, that were combined into the ship or yacht's sails is a powerful analogy for another reason. It's an example of economy of effort – otherwise why bother? Bringing those four disciplines together folds space and time. We can start to relate items in one disciplinary domain (perspective) with others. Previously disparate disciplines are suddenly more accessible. (I'm not sure if that last line is a sentence, but never mind isn't accessibility a feature of interfaces?)

This is NOT just about creating an overview. In interface speak it can be fairly easy to create a quick and aesthetically pleasing 'front end'. If that's what is needed fair enough, but Hodges' model - while simplistic in appearance - is much deeper than that.

With reins in hand and sails trimmed our forebears shaped history, with a compass in mind the possibilities for travel are endless.

#	TITLE	PUBLICATION	YEAR	ISSUE	WORDS
a)	CAPA: COMPUTER AIDED PATIENT ASSESSMENT	Sinclair ZX81, advertised in Nursing Mirror	c.1982
b)	THE NURSING PROCESS - CAL program	BBC Micro published by Open Software Limited (OSL)	1983
c)	HAEM (see 4 below)	BBC Micro - (OSL)	1984
1	CAPA: Computerised Patient Assessment	Nursing Times (BBC micro program - OSL)	1986	82, 36	1500
2	Thunderbirds are Go? (Impact of technology in society - disasters, macro-engineering)	Popular Computing Weekly	1988		500
3	Modems are Cheap, it's the phone bills that hurt	Popular Computing Weekly	1989		500
4	HAEM: Computer Aided Learning: Creating A Program (Described production of a BBC micro program on blood and blood groups)	Nursing Times	1989	85,5	1500
5	Information Technology is Good For You! (Effects of information technology)	IT in Nursing, BCS-Nurs. Specialist Grp.	1989	1,1	2000
6	Creating a Community Mental Health IS (Creation of a community mental health resource centre - a multidisciplinary research project)	IT in Nursing and Paper at BCS NSG Conference	1990	2,4	2000
7	The Ins and Outs of a small mental health IS (et al.) as per 6	HC91 Conference Paper	1991		2000
8	Nursing: All in the mind (and machine?) (Models of nursing and computing)	British Computer Society -Nursing Specialist Group Conference Paper	1992		2000
9	Community Mental Health: IT in the Buffer Zone (co-author: David Beckingham)	Healthcare Computing 92 Conference (Poster)	1992		500
10	Computerised Models of Nursing (Data types in nursing - opportunities and problems)	HC93 Conference Paper	1993		2000
11	Using a Semantic Network to Represent Nursing Terminology (project for B.A. (Hons). Supervisor J Kirby - Medical Informatics Group)	BCS-NSG Conference Paper	1993		2000
12	Nursing: All in the mind (and machine?)	IT in Nursing	1993	5,4	2000
13	An Enthusiast's View of CAL (Problems in production of CAL - Simulation effects of Nuclear Weapons - conversion of GWBASIC to BBC BASIC from BYTE (with original author's permission - J Fanchi))	IT in Nursing	1994	6,2	2000