Allenna Leonard
Encyclopedia
Allenna Leonard is an American cyberneticist
Cyberneticist
A cyberneticist or a cybernetician is a person who practices cybernetics.Heinz von Foerster once told Stuart Umpleby that Norbert Wiener preferred the term "cybernetician" rather than "cyberneticist", perhaps because Wiener was a mathematician rather than a physicist.On the other hand, Nicolas...

, consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...

 and Director of Team Syntegrity Inc. of Toronto, Canada, internationally, specializing in the application of Stafford Beer's Viable System Model
Viable System Model
The viable systems model, or VSM is a model of the organisational structure of any viable or autonomous system. A viable system is any system organised in such a way as to meet the demands of surviving in the changing environment. One of the prime features of systems that survive is that they are...

 and Syntegration
Syntegrity
Syntegrity is a formal model presented by Anthony Stafford Beer, a British theorist, in the 1990s and now is a registered trademark. It is a form of non-hierarchical problem solving that can be used in a small team of 10 to 42 people...

.

Biography

She received a B.A. Classic liberal arts curriculum from the St. John’s College
St. John's College, U.S.
St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...

 in Annapolis, Maryland, a M.A. in Higher Education Administration from the George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...

 in Washington D.C. and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...

, in administration with a concentration in cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...

.

Leonard is consultant under auspices of The Complementary Set, especially applications of the Viable System Model
Viable System Model
The viable systems model, or VSM is a model of the organisational structure of any viable or autonomous system. A viable system is any system organised in such a way as to meet the demands of surviving in the changing environment. One of the prime features of systems that survive is that they are...

, a part time University Teacher, Licensee T.S.I. and a representative of Cwarel Isaf Institute. Currently she is Director of Team Syntegrity Inc. of Toronto, Canada. She was President of the American Society for Cybernetics
American Society for Cybernetics
The American Society for Cybernetics is an American non-profit scholastic organization for organization for the advancement of cybernetics as a science and the interdisciplinary collaboration and synthesis of cybernetics. The society contributes to the cooperation around the research and...

 from 2002 to 2004, and was elected President for 2009-2010 of the International Society for the Systems Sciences
International Society for the Systems Sciences
The International Society for the Systems Sciences is a world-wide organization for systems sciences.- Overview :The initial purpose of the society was "to encourage the development of theoretical systems which are applicable to more than one of the traditional departments of knowledge."The idea...

.

Allenna Leonard has been Stafford Beer’s partner in life and in work from 1981 until his death in 2002. She states on her web page that she is committed to continuing to use and publicize his work, and that her special interest is using Syntegration
Syntegrity
Syntegrity is a formal model presented by Anthony Stafford Beer, a British theorist, in the 1990s and now is a registered trademark. It is a form of non-hierarchical problem solving that can be used in a small team of 10 to 42 people...

 as a forum for democratic dialogue, especially on issues of public importance.

Publications

Allenna Leonard has published several works on cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...

 and the work of Stafford Beer. A selection:
  • 1994. How many grapes went into the wine : Stafford Beer on the art and science of holistic management. Edited with Roger Harnden. New York : Wiley.
  • 2001. The Systems Perspective: Methods And Models For The Future. With Stafford Beer.
  • 2006. Cybernetics and Public Administration. With Angela Espinosa.


Articles and papers, a selection:

External links

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