Before the news — a personal note

You are on this list because we know each other: from a project, a training, a conference, or a conversation somewhere along the way. So far I have done very little with that. From this issue on, I will send a short note once a month about what I am working on.

What will show up in these notes:

• Tautai Newsletter — the main thread: writing, books, and work on adaptive organizations.
• Judgment Zones – AI Capability Model — the model, its pilots, and what comes out of them.
• Cybernetic Futures – Community News — the cybernetics and VSM community: people, events, publications.
• The VSM Research Program — the research strand: papers, working drafts, collaborations.
• Tautai Salon München — invitations, whenever there is a salon evening.

You decide what reaches you. "Manage your subscription" at the bottom of every email lets you pick the topics you want and switch the rest off — or leave the list entirely, which is equally fine.

What I am aiming for is simple: that something in here is useful to you — a question worth thinking about, a model you can apply, an invitation you are glad to have. If it is not, write back. Replies come straight to me.

Krishan

Most organizations are past their first AI pilots and still cannot say where AI is actually carrying the work — and where nobody would notice if it were wrong. Judgment Zones is a capability model that places each unit on two axes: how deeply AI is entrenched, and whether anyone can tell when it fails. It is version 0.1 and entering pilot use; the zone claims are stated as hypotheses, not findings.

If you want to see where your units sit, a 20-minute Judgment Zones Check maps them on the chart. Details and the model itself: tautai.net/judgment-zones.

I’m writing a book (the third Tautai book). But instead of vanishing into a cabin for a year and emerging with something nobody asked for, I’m doing it differently: every chapter ships as an essay first, gets argued with by readers, then gets revised. The finished book — coming Q1 2027 — will be better because you helped break the early drafts.

You can find the first thoughts here.

Stay tuned. I am grateful for subscriptions and feedback on Substack and Medium (I want to avoid the need to fight spam here).