Dave Snowden

Dave Snowden
Dave Snowden
Born	David John Snowden (1954-04-01) 1 April 1954 Ongar, Essex, England
Residence	Lockeridge, Wiltshire, England
Nationality	Welsh
Education	BA (Philosophy) MBA (Financial Management)
Alma mater	University of Lancaster Middlesex University
Occupation	Academia, researcher, consultant
Employer	Cognitive Edge
Religion	Roman Catholic

David John Snowden (born 1 April 1954) is a Welsh academic, consultant and researcher in the field of knowledge management. He is the founder and chief scientific officer of Cognitive Edge, a research network focusing on complexity theory in sensemaking.^[1][2]

Snowden, an authority on the application of complexity theory to organisations,^[3] tacit knowledge^[4][5] and an observer of the way knowledge is used in organisations;^[6] has written scholarly articles and contributed to books on leadership, knowledge management, strategic thinking, strategic planning, conflict resolution, weak signal detection, decision support and organisational development.

He is an Honorary Professor in the School of Psychology at Bangor University holds an MBA from Middlesex University, and a BA in Philosophy from Lancaster University;^[7] and started his working career with Data Sciences Ltd (formerly Thorn EMI software), acquired by IBM in 1996. He was the Director of IBM's Institute for Knowledge Management, and the founder of the Cynefin Center for Organizational Complexity.^[4][8] Snowden developed the Cynefin framework, a practical application of complexity theory to management science.^[9][10][11]

Early life and education

Snowden was born in Ongar, Essex, England to Welsh parents. When he was three, his parents returned to Wales; and Snowden grew up in Mold, Flintshire, where he attended the Alun School.^[12] In 1975, he was awarded a degree in Philosophy from the University of Lancaster, where he was a member of County College. He then worked for the Student Christian Movement for three years. He obtained an MBA degree in Financial Management, studying part-time, from Middlesex University.

Professional life

In 1984, Snowden joined Thorn EMI Software - the consulting, systems integration, and outsourcing service division of Thorn EMI plc, a former UK defence electronics company. He joined Data Sciences Ltd;^[13] when Thorn EMI Software division became a subject of management buyout, (MBO) and demerged to Data Sciences in 1991.^[14] He held several positions while at Thorn EMI Software/Data Sciences.

In 1996, Data Sciences was acquired by IBM;^[15] and he became a director in the IBM Institute for Knowledge Management, and then founded their Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity.^[4][7][12] The framework helps managers determine the prevailing operative context, enabling appropriate choices and decisions.^[16] Snowden explains the choice of the term Cynefin /kʌnɨvɪn/: [it is] a Welsh word that signifies the "multiple factors in our environment and our experience that influence us in ways we can never understand".^[16] Cynefin has a meaning similar to 'habitat' and is also used "as an adjective used to convey 'acquainted' or 'familiar'."^[17][18]

He is the founder, and currently the Chief Scientific Officer, of Cognitive Edge, a research network focusing on the development of the theory and practice of sensemaking.^[12][19] He is an advisor on sensemaking to the Ministry of Defence, Singapore.^{[20][21][22][23]}

Academia

Prof Snowden was awarded an Honorary Chair in the School of Psychology at Bangor Universityin 2015. Snowden joined as a visiting professor at the University of Pretoria in 2007.^[1] He is currently an adjunct at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University; and a visiting fellow at Warwick University, Nanyang University, the Università Cattolica and the Singapore Management College.^[8][24]

He has held visiting positions at the universities of Canberra and Surrey.

Scholarly works

Snowden is the author of several articles and book chapters including the development of narrative as a research method, role of complexity theory in sensemaking, application of complex adaptive systems theory to a range of social issues and knowledge management.^[2] He has written a column on the trends in technology, social issues and the scientific use of narrative; called Everything is fragmented.^[25] In 2008, he and co-author Mary E. Boone won the Academy of Management award^[3] for an "Outstanding Practitioner-Oriented Publication in OB" for a Harvard Business Review article^[16] on Leadership. In 2011 the same paper was a Citations of Excellence winner as one of the 50 best papers published in 2007, based on research impact.

He is an editor-in-chief of the journal, Emergence: Complexity and Organisation and a director of funding allocation for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council on the subject of emergence.^[12][16][26] A selection of his scholarly works and articles, are the following;

• Snowden, David J. (1996). "Story telling: an old skill in a new context". Business Information Review 16 (4): 30–37. doi:10.1177/0266382994237045. 
• Snowden, David J. (July 2000). Cynefin, A Sense of Time and Place: an Ecological Approach to Sense Making and Learning in Formal and Informal Communities. Conference proceedings of KMAC at the University of Aston. CiteSeerX: 10.1.1.196.3058. 
• Snowden, David J. Cynefin: a sense of time and space, the social ecology of knowledge management in Despres, Charles; Chauvel, Daniele (October 2000). Knowledge Horizons: The Present and the Promise of Knowledge Management. Butterworth-Heinemann.
• Snowden, David J. (December 2000). "The art and science of Story or ‘Are you sitting uncomfortably?’". Business Information Review 17 (4): 215–226. doi:10.1177/0266382004237782. 
• Snowden, David J. (2002). "Complex acts of knowing: paradox and descriptive self-awareness". Journal of Knowledge Management 6 (2): 100–111. doi:10.1108/13673270210424639. 
• Snowden, David J.; Kurtz, C. F. (2003). "The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world". IBM Systems Journal 42 (3): 462–483. doi:10.1147/sj.423.0462. Retrieved 27 August 2012. 
• Snowden, David J.; Boone, Mary E (1 November 2007). "A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making of the circumstances they face". Harvard Business Review Journal (November 2007). 
• Lock Pin, Chew; Klein, Gary; Snowden, David (June 2007). Anticipatory Thinking (PDF). Asilomar Conference Grounds, Pacific Grove, CA.: NDM8 - the Eighth International Conference on Naturalistic Decision Making. 

References

Notes

External links

• List of articles by Dave Snowden