Warm Data Labs

Warm Data Labs

What is “Warm Data?”

What are “Warm Data Labs?”

Warm Data are contextual and relational information about complex systems.In other words, warm data involve transcontextual information about the interrelationships that integrate a complex system, as well as interwoven complex systems.

Warm Data Labs are group processes, which illustrate interdependency and generate understandings of systemic patterns for people with no previous exposure to systems theory. Warm Data Labs enable new societal responses to complex challenges.

Nora Bateson, the creator of the terms “Warm Data” and “Warm Data Labs”, first used the term “Warm Data” in a meeting in January, 2012. Warm Data and Warm Data Labs have now been used for more than 7 years and have reached a wide acceptance in research and science communities, as well as across public and private sectors.

The Warm Data Lab process is an exercise for use with groups, who are interested in strengthening and further practicing their collective ability to perceive, discuss, and research complex issues. By shifting perspectives through a transcontextual conversational structure, the Warm Data Lab process increases people’s abilities to respond to difficult or “wicked” issues. Because so many of the challenges that we face now are complex, we need approaches to meeting that complexity. Transcontextual interaction is the recognition that complex systems do not exist in single contexts, but rather are formed between multiple contexts that overlap in living communication and among living systems.

The Warm Data lab is a living kaleidoscope of conversation in which information and formulation of cross-contextual knowing is generated — this transcontextual information is the Warm Data. The conversational process is designed to seamlessly engage multiple theoretical principals in a practical format.

The Warm Data Lab also is a form of therapy for patients and other people who benefit from integrating their cognitive processes across multiple contexts.

More on Nora Bateson

Nora Bateson has worked for many years as an educator “teaching” and modeling perceptions of interdependency. Her father, Gregory Bateson, had his way of doing the same thing, and so did his father William Bateson. In fact, Nora’s family has been working on this issue for more than 125 years. Others also have been working on it, including the community of “systems theorists & systems thinkers” and cybernetics and complexity theorists.

More on Nora Bateson (Part II)

Nora often has mentioned that working for such changes in the way we perceive our world is a frustrating task. The intellectual activity is delicious and delightful, but more often than not the session ends with someone asking, “But how do I use these ideas in my work?” The gut-knowing that the world is interdependent is incongruent with the mechanistic patterns in which interaction with our families, jobs, and life struggles are habituated. Some people seem inclined toward this material, and others resist, but for all of us it takes time and practice. This form of perceiving and knowing is not only intellectual, it also is physical, emotional, cultural, and linguistic… and it lives in our imaginations.

More on Nora Bateson (Part III)

In Nora’s experience, this idea of Warm Data and the Warm Data Lab have been the most successful approaches she has found. And, she does not say that lightly. Nora does not see this work as a manipulation of people’s thinking. The task of changing our perceptual orientations perceptual change task here is offer the conditions in which the realizations can occur both individually, and collectively. Nora attribute the success of this project to the way people in a Warm Data Lab make their own individual connectings and linkings – it is not about any direct “teaching” from her. Nora has now done well over hundreds of Warm Data Labs around the world, with all ages, and levels of education, addressing any subject that is complex by nature.

Gregory Bateson (1975)
[©1975 by Jeff Bloom]
William Bateson
[from the William Bateson Archives, University of Cambridge]

More on Warm Data…

“Warm Data” can be defined as: Transcontextual information about the interrelationships that integrate a complex system. 

Warm Data is a specific kind of information about the way parts of a complex system, such as members of a family, organisms in the oceans, institutions in society, or departments of organization come together to give vitality to that system. By contrast, other data will describe only the parts, while Warm Data describes their interplay in context. Warm Data illustrates vital relationships between many parts of a system. For example, to understand a family, one must understand not only the family members, but also the relationships between them, that is, the warm data. In such cases, warm data is used to better understand and improve responses to issues that are located in the relational dynamics. Examples include understanding the systemic risks in health, ecology, economic systems, education systems and many more. The typical approach to issues decontextualizes specific information, which in turn can generate mistakes. On the other hand, warm data promotes coherent understanding of living systems.

Why Warm Data?

Why...? Part I

Although statistical data is useful, it is also limited due to the common practice of decontextualizing the focus of inquiry. To study something is usually to pull it out of context and study it in isolation. Rarely is the study re-contextualized to examine the complexity of its larger scope of relationships. Warm Data bypass this limitation inherent to statistical analysis by centering the inquiry within a transcontextual research methodology, bringing not only context, but multiple contexts into the process.

In order to interface with any complex system without disrupting the cohesion of interdependencies that give it integrity, one must look at the spread of relationships that make the system robust. The sole use of analytic methods focused on parsing statistical (cold) data will often point to conclusions that disregard the complexity of the situation at hand. Moreover, information that does not take into account the full scope of interrelationality in a system is likely to inspire misguided decision making, thereby producing additional destructive patterns in an effort to remedy the issue.

Why...? Part II

Warm Data provide cross-sector information, because such data are the outcome of a research methodology premised upon the transcontextual interaction inherent in any system. The complexity of this sort of inquiry is daunting. For example, if one is to study the ways in which food impacts our lives, a multifaceted study of ecology, culture, agriculture, economy, cross-generational communication, and media must take place. This transcontextual platform provides a wider contextual framework for further inquiry into what forms and constitutes certain international contemporary issues such as eating disorders, starvation, and other health problems associated with diet.

Warm Data are generated through a Batesonian approach of examining interrelated processes in a given system. Such data provide the information about the relational interdependence among multiple systems. And, this information offers contextual understandings of complex systems, which are another level of exploration in the process of discerning solutions according to vital, contextual interrelationships.With this developing methodology, warm data are emerging as new species of information, beyond the limits of statistical data.

More on Warm Data Labs…

Warm Data Labs are exercises for use with groups, who are interested in strengthening and further practicing their collective ability to perceive, discuss, and research complex issues. By shifting perspectives, the Warm Data Lab process increases our abilities to respond to difficult or “wicked” issues. Because so many of the challenges that we face now are complex, we need approaches to meeting that complexity. Although there is a desire to reframe these complex issues in simple terms that might lend themselves to easy solutions, this usually leads to the dangers of unintended consequences of reductionism… and further problems. It is inspired by the research and ongoing development of the IBI’s work on How Systems Learn.

But, thinking in complexity requires the ability to perceive across multiple perspectives and contexts. Such an ability is not a muscle that has been trained into us in school or in the work world. It is a skill acutely needed in this era to meet our personal, professional and collective need to respond to crisis and to improve our lives.

Warm Data Labs are ideal for bringing a group together to raise the level of questions and understanding of a given topic. The Labs do not provide solutions. Rather, the Warm Data Labs are exercises that involves a group in elucidating the complexity and the possibilities for new perspectives.

How Warm Data Labs Work…

Warm Data Labs - Part I

The format of the Warm Data Lab is simple, even though the theory that underpins it is not.

  • A chosen complex issue is provided by the room;
  • Start by being seated 3-6 to a table ( depending on the size of the group).
  • Each table has a “context” on it that will be the frame through which the “complex issue” is discussed at that table. (at least 6 contexts)
  • Participants (as individuals) discuss at the tables as long as they wish before changing tables. They move when they want to another table or “context.”
  • There are no time limits, or set instructions. Participants join and leave conversations as they wish.
  • The process usually takes at least an hour, and can be continued.
  • Discussion

The Warm Data lab is a living kaleidoscope of conversation in which information and formulation of cross contextual knowing is generated. The conversational process is designed to seamlessly engage multiple theoretical principals in a practical format. The process relies on using two concepts: Transcontextual Interaction and Symmathesy.

Warm Data Labs - Part II

Transcontextual interaction is the recognition that complex systems do not exist in single contexts but rather are formed between multiple contexts that overlap in living communication.

Symmathesy: The ways in which systemic interdependency form is through contextual interaction and mutual learning. Symmathesy is the concept of mutual learning that encourages us to concentrate on how these contextual interactions inform one another, and generate learning.

“Biology, culture, and society are dependent at all levels upon the vitality of interaction they produce both internally and externally. A body, a family, a forest or a city can each be described as a buzzing hive of communication between and within its living, interacting ‘parts.’ Together the organs of your body allow you to make sense of the world around you. A jungle can be understood best as a conversation among its flora and fauna, including the insects, the fungi of decay, and contact with humanity. Interaction is what creates and vitalizes the integrity of the living world. Over time, the ongoing survival of the organisms in their environments requires that there be learning, and learning to learn, together. Gregory Bateson said, “The evolution is in the context.” So why don’t we have a word for those bodies, families, forests and other buzzing hives of communication—and for the mutual learning that takes place within those living contexts?” – From “Symmathesy, a word in progress” by Nora Bateson (2016)

Warm Data Labs - Part III

The Warm Data lab is a tool for revealing relationships that are integral and woven into the complexity of the issues we are working on. This process allows us to see new patterns, new causations, and to respond to them with a much broader comprehension. An important aspect of this process is that no two participants will have the same experience. Each person moves and connects their contextual framings through their own lens, in their own way.

The Warm Data Lab process is an inviting and seemingly simple way to bring a group of people into dialogue around complex issues. Anyone, of any age or profession can participate in a Warm Data Lab. From school children to executives, families and companies the Warm Data lab is an open forum of learning, discussing, and discovery. It is not based on prior knowledge, or skill, but will increase both in an atmosphere of mutual learning.

Hosting a Warm Data lab is another story. The host of this process must have a strong base in the many theoretical foundations that underpin the process. An effective Warm Data Lab experience requires a prepared and organized host. In contrast to the appearance of the simple openness of the Warm Data Lab, the rigor in which the Lab is set is critical.

“There is growing pressure to divide and distill environmental and social issues into smallest parts and put them in separate drawers in order to understand them and to solve them. Nora’s work reveals how this mechanical approach is at the core of today’s biggest challenges that we face. She gives language and terminology to the complexity, where in order to really find new solutions, we need to re learn how we think, feel and navigate from a very different mindset. She lays ground for new insights and ways to work across climate and ecological crises.”

Mihela Hladin Wolfe

Director of Environmental Initiatives, EMEA, Patagonia Europe

“One of the biggest shifts in my thinking thanks to the warm data lab has been around the nature of technology.  I used to believe that technology was inherently neutral, but I now see that line of reasoning as naïve.  A technology does not exist independently from its contexts. And these contexts are part of complex systems.  So it’s clear to me now that we need to think hard about whether certain technologies should ever be built or released.”

David Jones

Executive Producer/Principal Program Manager, Office Envisioning, Microsoft

Warm Data Labs

have been held over a hundred times around the world.

Some examples are:

  • Harvard (including participants from Deloitte, NASA, US Army, Cigna, & more)
  • Singapore: on the topic of “Sexual Consent” for women in the Islamic community, Muslim leaders, minister of security, & family therapists
  • San Francisco, USA: on Addiction
  • Jakarta, Indonesia:  on Addiction
  • Stockholm: on Immigration, Education, Health, Future of Work, Well Being in a Changing World
  • London, UK: WDL on Health (with doctors and politicians/NHS)
  • EU Parliament: on Democracy & Equality, with a group of 80 youth from 50 countries

Other countries where WDLs have been facilitated:

  • Finland
  • Mexico
  • Canada
  • Denmark
  • Norway
  • Portugal
  • Australia

Do You Want to Host a
Warm Data Lab?

 

If you are interested in hosting a Warm Data Lab in your professionalor local community, if you are interested in the training program for becoming a certified Warm Data Lab Host, or if you are interested in continuing a conversation about Warm Data, you can contact any of the Certified Warm Data Lab Hosts/Facilitators. The members of the International Bateson Institute who are Certified Warm Data Lab Hosts/Facilitators are listed here:

In addition, there are over 100 Certified Hosts/Facilitators worldwide.

For additional information, please contact:
The International Bateson Institute