Øyvind Vada’s work is about how governance can be executed in a world where the public, private and third sectors are changing rapidly due to globalization and increased complexity. How we, as individuals, think, talk, decide and act together in all types of social systems, both locally and globally, is a function of a more and more interwoven world. Classical reductionist and hierarchical approaches to governance tend to fail due to these changes. To reduce the gap between governance theory and governance practice, Vada argues that there is a need for new approaches that embrace complexity. He has developed a memetic approach for doing so, taking into account that we as individuals belong to different formal and informal social systems. These systems can be regarded as combinations of hierarchies, networks and markets. Individuals and groups of individuals in social systems are, in Vada’s approach, treated as agents. As agents, we are free and goal-directed entities that maximize utility, benefit and/or fitness. We often have local and limited knowledge, and cannot always foresee effects of our individual actions on larger collective wholes. Governing organizations includes governing agents. Vada argues that it is possible to design for a desired emergent outcome, where agents interpret predefined memes that influence how they perceive and process themselves, their surroundings and the tasks at hand. Different sets of predefined memes are created as tools and cognitive templates that form and process subjective thoughts, communications and actions, both individually and collectively. Vada proposes an alternative way of allocating resources and exercising control and coordination in social systems – a new form of governance. He suggests a method where memes are instrumentally infused into social systems through processes where free and bounded rational agents are regarded as participants and players that impact their surroundings based on their own subjective agency. He shows how agents become carriers of shared memes in different arenas for diffusion and adaption. The predefined memes are formed as iconic and discrete models that can be applied to individual day-to-day situations as well as complex collective challenges. In the arenas, memes are woven into active exercises and assignments. Individual agents recognize the value of other agents’ viewpoints, make sense of the social systems they are part of and collectively create solutions that reduce the gap between the system’s strategic intent and its operational success. The main task of Vada’s work is to merge an improved version of memetics with the intentions of classical governance. He has created a replicable method, which is potentially applicable in all organizations. The method seeks to balance a designed and planned approach to steering and coordination with emergent factors that are always present when human agency takes place.

1. Memetic governance
Design for emergent goal achievement
Øyvind Vada
www.memetor.eu/vada
vada@memetor.eu
http://ecco.vub.ac.be/
WHY ?
WHAT ?
HOW?
ECCO Seminar, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). May 5 2011

2. Principles for the approach
• Simplicity
• Essence
• Less-is-more

3. WHY?

4. Why
Memetic Governance?
• The world is changing rapidly due to globalization and increased complexity.
• Globalization represents increased communication and the dynamics of more and
more closely connected countries, markets and societies.
• How we think, talk, decide and act together in all types of social systems is changing.
• Different social systems we belong to, adapt to contexts of constant change, and at
the same time these social systems are agents of the same dynamics.
• Inside our social systems, other individuals with different educational, cultural and
social backgrounds increase interaction and mobility
• These changes is happening on a local, national, regional and global level at the
same time in and among private, public and third sector organizations.

5. Why
Memetic Governance?
• To reduce the gap between governance theory and
governance practice, there is a need for new
approaches that embrace the complexity that follows
globalization.
• Classical reductionist and hierarchical approaches to
governance tend to fail due to these changes.

6. WHAT?

7. What?
• Governance
• Social System
• Agents
• Emergence
• Memetics

8. What: Governance
• The term governance is used both in private and
public sector, and refers in my work to the systemized
steering and coordination of social systems, perceived
and treated as combinations of hierarchies, networks
and markets (Williamson 1975).
• Today different interpretations and applications of
the term governance are applied in different social
systems locally, nationally, regionally and globally.

9. What: Social System
• A prerequisite of a social system is interaction of at
least two persons.
• On the other end of the scale we can treat all
individuals on the globe as a social system.
• In sociological systems theory there are different
perspectives of what constitutes a social system.
• Talcott Parsons focuses on action
• Niklas Luhmann focuses on communication
• Jürgen Habermas applies the term communicative actions

10. What: Agents
• Individuals and groups of individuals in different social systems are in
my work treated as agents.
• Agents:
• Are reflexive: taking account of themselves and the effect they make
• Are free and goal-directed entities that maximize utility, benefit and/or
fitness.
• Act in their environment and interact with each other according to
certain rules, determined by their goals and knowledge (Heylighen
2009:6).
• Have cognitive limitations.
• Cannot foresee all global or long-term effects of their actions.
• Apply their rationality to what they perceive to be the choices available
to them.
• Are bounded rational (Simon 1957).

11. What: Agents
• Governing organizations includes governing agents.
• These are agents with an agency, both local and
individual and “global” and collective on behalf of
the social system they participate in optimizing (the
company, the department, the team).
• In most social system there is a balance between
Distributed Power (among the agents) and Central
Power (Management or Government)

12. What: Emergence
• Emergence refers to change that occurs within a system in a non-linear
way.
• In social systems, emergence is a consequence of the local interaction
between agents.
• It derives from the collapse of built-up tensions, sudden mergers of
formerly separate parts or the divergence of connected parts, resulting
in changes of network connections.
• Creativity, learning and change occur when emergence forms a
previously unknown solution to a problem and creates new outcomes.
• A complex social system is considered dynamic when the ongoing
interaction of agents leads to emergent and self-organizing effects that
influence the whole system.

13. What: Memetics
• Memetics is a post-positivist way to approach
perception, thought, communication and social
action. Memetics is derived from natural science and
genetics, and uses the same research programme
studying social diffusion and adaptation of signs and
objects.

14. What: Memetics
• Memes are sustainable information units manifested as
signs and/or objects
• Memes can be regarded as signs and objects that
influence and form individual and collective systems and
spread successfully within them
• Memes are naturally selected and adapted by human
beings based on “competition” of our consciousness. The
fittest and best-adapted memes will have a better diffusion
than the ones who do not fit into the cultural systems
they are “competing”.

15. The core of my work
• I argue it is possible to design for a desired emergence,
where agents interpret predefined memes that influence
how they perceive and process themselves, the world and
their social system(s) in the world, and thus think, talk,
make decisions and act, both individually and collectively.

16. HOW

17. How: Memetor Memes
• In my work memes are treated as tools and cognitive
templates that form and process subjective thoughts,
communications and actions, both individually and
collectively.
• I treat memes as forms/templates as opposed to content
• 123 memes are created for taking individual and
collective strategies into action

18. 4 of 123 Memetor Memes

19. Memetor Memes Criteria
• Individual and collective applicable and relevant in
all social systems and within different time frames
• Connective, Complementary and Reinforcing
• Generic, Replicable and Evolving

20. How: Memetor
• The memes are spread through The Memetor
Concept
• Memetor is a company located in Oslo, Singapore
and Bruxelles
• Memetor works with agents in different social
systems to transform the systems strategies into
action
• Through the different Memetor Programs using
preselected memes of the 123, people get
individually engaged and collectively coordinated.

21. How:
The process of infusion
• The Memetor Memes are infused into defined social systems through
different development programs facilitated by one or more Memetor
trainers.
• The Memetor Programs use both the physical and digital space to
achieve high levels of interaction and create a social dynamic where
participants share thoughts and perceptions in continuously-changing
small groups.
• The trainers use lectures, dialogues, reflections, practical rehearsals
and exercises to make the memes accessible for individual selection,
and adaption, and collective diffusion.
• The memes selected are the ones that fits best to the focus, challenge
and tasks at hand in the social system Memetor contribute.

22. Empirical studies
• Empirical studies of the effects of the Memetor
Programs are carried out in three specific social
systems:
• The national Police Force in Norway: Leadership
training over 6 years (change agents)
• Bergesen Worldwide Shipping: Merger between
Singapore, Oslo and Paris Fleet Management Offices
• NCC Construction: Leadership training over 6 years
The results of these studies will be presented in my PhD at ECCO, VUB

23. Thank you 