Cybernetic Lookbooks: An Emerging Visual Approach for Organizational Understanding

Abstract

Academic research often privileges written language in both production and dissemination of knowledge. However, language exists alongside visual and material artifacts in the definition, sensemaking, transportation, and stabilization of organizations (Boxenbaum et al., 2018). In contrast, a focus on language is not as prominent in the realm of fashion, where visuals, aesthetics, and materiality are core (Castaldo Lundén, 2020; Jenß & Hofmann, 2019; Julier, 2006; Pecorari, 2021). This paper demonstrates how an appropriation of a commonly used visual artifact in fashion—the lookbook—can promote the surfacing, sensemaking, and co-creation of new organizational realities. The cybernetic lookbook compiles a series of visual representations of the organization, created through cybernetic diagramming practices—diagrams that reflect feedback loops, scales, thresholds, leverage points, and cybernetic awareness. These visual representations emerged in the context of intervention research with three organizations—two early-stage startups and one responsible technology ecosystem-enabler. Reflections on the process suggest that cybernetic diagramming afforded three types of convening spaces—conversation spaces, co-production spaces, and reflection spaces—prompting new shared understanding about the products being built, new product innovation ideas, and potential new ways to communicate organizational stories as well as that of the research itself. It is hoped that this contribution may open novel avenues for visual methods experimentation for organizational understanding.