Hello there.

My name is Ian McClelland. Adjacent Possibilities is a newsletter about the patterns and regularities of complex systems, the dynamics of cultural and technological change, and the challenges of public and non-profit management. Amid a general sense of uncertainty in the world, I’m here to think about the fundamental nature of the changes taking place around us, to figure out why things feel stuck, and how they might be better.

I studied globalisation and development at Manchester University in the mid-2000s at a time when the post-Cold War consensus was still firmly in place. Then my first career job at Oxfam coincided with the 2007-2008 financial crash and that consensus began to fracture. A decade of austerity in the UK, followed by Brexit, has increased division, further fuelled by the rise of social media and rapid technological change.

I left full-time employment in 2024 after 16 years in the aid sector, spending the last 10 years supporting innovation and efforts towards localisation. I was privileged to work on some great community-led initiatives, but became disillusioned by the politics and managerialism. I have been consulting for the last two years, taking any extra time to read and learn about the dynamics of culture and complex systems and what better bureaucracies might look like.

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