{"source":"https://substrate.dougbelshaw.com","title":"Substrate","updated":"2026-10-03T22:11:14.000Z","items":[{"title":"OrgLens: 2. Making an organisational health check people can actually use","url":"https://substrate.dougbelshaw.com/orglens-2-making-an-organisational-health-check-people-can-actually-use","date":"2026-10-01T16:52:00.000Z","category":"ideas","excerpt":"In my first note on OrgLens I asked whether an AI agent could diagnose an organisation using Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM). The answer was yes, more or less. The reports were written for someone like me using terms such as System 3*, algedonic channels, and requisite…","image":"https://substrate.dougbelshaw.com/api/uploads/58184f39-d6a9-4f7e-b7ef-ca4e80eebc58.webp","imageAlt":"White arrows pointing in different directions on a blue background"},{"title":"OrgLens: 1. Can an AI agent do systems thinking?","url":"https://substrate.dougbelshaw.com/orglens-1-can-an-ai-agent-do-systems-thinking","date":"2026-10-01T15:28:37.000Z","category":"ideas","excerpt":"Systems thinking is a way of looking at organisations as sets of connected parts rather than as collections of individuals or departments. The Viable System Model, or VSM, is one approach within it. It asks whether an organisation has the parts it needs to keep going: people doin…","image":"https://substrate.dougbelshaw.com/api/uploads/a695611b-e2b9-49bb-b4b6-7ce9a607b4e3.gif","imageAlt":"Gif with wavy lines within a circle"},{"title":"I think I want to get out of the screens game","url":"https://substrate.dougbelshaw.com/i-think-i-want-to-get-out-of-the-screens-game","date":"2026-09-30T08:57:10.000Z","category":"reflections","excerpt":"You got to, as they say, have a system. And one of mine is to, by default, wear shorts between April and September. That means today is the last day of default shorts-wearing in 2026, as we enter six months of much darker days here in the North East of England. I have extremely b…","image":null,"imageAlt":""},{"title":"Weekstarter 40/2026","url":"https://substrate.dougbelshaw.com/weekstarter-402026","date":"2026-09-28T11:44:33.000Z","category":"notes","excerpt":"Photo taken by me in Bluebell Wood, Morpeth Intro While I haven't got ages to write one today, I decided over the weekend that I would get back into the habit of writing weekly updates. I haven't written a weeknote since archiving my blog and spinning up Substrate. I'm also going…","image":"https://substrate.dougbelshaw.com/api/uploads/29c0ef70-470a-418d-8619-1a8b548329e3.jpg","imageAlt":"bluebell-wood.jpg"},{"title":"A European voice assistant for the Rabbit r1","url":"https://substrate.dougbelshaw.com/carrot","date":"2026-09-27T10:09:24.000Z","category":"ideas","excerpt":"A few months ago, I published a note about installing Android on my Rabbit r1. This post is about going a step further to create carrot: A voice-first home screen for the Rabbit r1. Hold the side button, ask something, let go, and hear the answer. Point the camera and ask \"what's…","image":"https://substrate.dougbelshaw.com/api/uploads/9906c542-94fa-4467-b5d8-3003500f6624.jpg","imageAlt":"Photo of carrot on Rabbit r1"}]}