In our continuing series providing overviews of some of the key presentations scheduled for next week’s MIT Chief Development Officer Information Quality Symposium to be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, we are taking a look at a presentation offered by David Hay and Tom Redman. Hay is the President of Essential Strategies, Inc. and Redman is President of Havasink Enterprises. This joint presentation is entitled ‘Channels of Information and Financial Regulation’.

The session will highlight the necessity for corporate managers or regulators to achieve and maintain an understanding of communications and feedback loops so that they might more adeptly adapt and change their business.

This concept falls under what is known as cybernetics and they claim data and information quality is an essential element to navigating this amorphous territory. The term ‘cybernetics’ originates from the Greek, meaning to steer or navigate. The modern definition, attributed to Norbert Wiener, is “the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine.” Cybernetics, over the course of the second half of the 20^th century, experienced extreme evolution enabling it to distinguish between first order cybernetics (about observed systems), from second-order cybernetics (about observing systems). The Hay/Redman presentation focuses on one of the many disciplines associated with cybernetics known as management cybernetics.

The application of this discipline is particularly applicable when a system being analyzed is involved in a closed signaling loop. More specifically, this refers to when an action by the system is responsible for generating change within its environment and the change is recognized within the system as generated feedback. This information loop is known to be a circular-causal relationship.

Hay and Redman will explore ways to make communications channels as effective as possible so that messages are received clearly and concisely. This involves ensuring important information isn’t lost among all of the generated feedback data.

As a scientific discipline, cybernetics is governed by certain natural laws. Hays and Redman contend an understanding of these laws is absolutely crucial to creating and maintaining a successful enterprise. Their presentation will aim to show how the proper application of cybernetics can be used effectively in a corporate and/or regulatory environment.

David Hay and Tom Redman are scheduled to present at 10:45am on Thursday, July 18.