The Limits of Making Visible
A 10-post narrative arc tracing July 2022 – May 2023, from orientation through disintegration of a federated learning project - and what it revealed about design, visibility, and organisational response.
Part of: SCÖ/ADAPT - Swedish Vocational Rehabilitation (2022–2023)
- 1
What is Federated Learning?
July 20, 2022
I've recently started a research position exploring machine learning and design for Swedish vocational rehabilitation services - specifically, the possibility of using federated learning to support...
- 2
Networks in Vocational Rehabilitation: Reflections from Previous Work
July 26, 2022
I've spent the past week reviewing the literature on vocational rehabilitation models - ICF frameworks, biopsychosocial approaches, Swedish return-to-work research. Yesterday I documented that...
- 3
What Would Federated Learning Require?
September 15, 2022
In my earlier post, I described what federated learning is. Now, a few months into the work, I want to think through what FL would actually require in practice - and why I'm increasingly concerned...
- 4
Missions and Federated Learning: Reflections from a Seminar Series
December 1, 2022
The LiU Design department has been running a seminar series on mission-oriented innovation. I've been attending, trying to connect what I'm learning about federated learning to broader discussions...
- 5
Algorithm Archaeology at SCÖ
January 15, 2023
In previous posts, I've described what federated learning is and what it would actually require. This post is about what happened when I tried to understand the algorithm that the project was...
- 6
What Strong Typing Demands
February 1, 2023
In the previous post I described three kinds of artefact from the algorithm archaeology: concept maps that synthesised and performed a gap analysis of the Pathway Generator's structure against...
- 7
The Silent Pivot
February 15, 2023
In earlier posts, I described what federated learning is, what it would require, what happened when I tried to reverse-engineer the Pathway Generator, and what the discipline of typing its data...
- 8
The Limits of Making Visible
April 1, 2023
Design theory rests on an assumption so foundational it's rarely examined: that making things visible enables change. Prototypes surface problems or prove viability, or provide something tangible...
- 9
What I Learned at SCÖ
May 15, 2023
My employment at the coordination association ends this month. The ESF funding wasn't renewed. Up to eleven of us are being made redundant. The PhD continues, technically, but without the industrial...
- 10
Who Whom? Returning to Von Busch and Palmås After SCÖ
June 1, 2023
I first read The Corruption of Co-Design (Von Busch and Palmås, 2023) when it came out late last year, around the same time I was writing about organisational metaphors and performance and substance....