We have been preparing for our ultimate incorporation for some months, pausing only to ensure we have the right balance of elements and sufficient profitability to sustain a much larger operation. However, with our new design currently in hand by Thord Hedengen, it seemed the right moment to declare our new structure, which will be progressively implemented in the second quarter of the year.

Syntagma Media will split into two operating divisions. The first, Syntagma Digital, will contain all our online properties — some 53 websites — including, three network magazines and the (currently) top secret plans codenamed, iSyntagma.

The second new division of Syntagma Media is named Dial Publishing and will handle all print and other offline publishing and consulting work. This side of the business is set to swing into action in Q3 and Q4 of this year.

It always amazes me the amount of work involved in changing even the smallest sliver of a fully-functioning business, so we do this sparingly at all times.

But the time has come to launch : Syntagma Digital.

By its nature, Superdemocracy (SD) uses dynamic flows of energy to create its systems, rather than by assessing the people in aggregated-responsibility positions, i.e., jobs.

If that seems more akin to magic than conventional analysis, it is.

Most jobs have large legacy pots comprising fixed areas of responsibility, usually maintained by protectionist clutter like trade union demarcations, “Spanish practices”, and just sheer inertia. Sometimes a job title is so all-embracing that it is difficult to see the absurdities embedded in it. The UK “Home Secretary” is a case in point.

Looking instead at the dynamic patterns of operation within any organization — the decisions that alter and influence the flow — and determining the Points of Maximum Competence for the execution of those decisions, results in a very different picture of how a system of management works.

Mystics have always known that there are forces at work in the world that are unseen by a vast majority of us. Many view them as “causes and effects” too complicated to be fully understood. Some recognize the essential energies of life at work and know that they are influenced and driven by thought.

Since the mechanism is invisible to most people, the outcomes are largely hit and miss. We build great edifices of operational superstructure to prevent certain outcomes arising by chance : laws, constitutions, training regimes, constant supervision, regulations, red tape. All this saps the energy of every organization and makes it largely unworkable without considerable effort and cost.

By mapping the energy flows against the outcomes that exist, it is possible to refine the plan of the enterprise. This may or may not be a necessary first stage for success.

But simply isolating the decisions that need to be made and ensuring they are taken at the Points of Maximum Competence, regardless of job title or seniority, will turn round a business or government more quickly than any inbuilt rigidities, such as plans, maps, layouts or constitutions. My thesis is that these Points are nearly always far below where the decisions are currently taken, especially in governmental systems.

That is why I say that SD is more like magic — the influencing of hidden forces to secure an identified outcome — than any other presently known methodology.

The next point is to identify the hierarchy of decisionmaking : purely local decisions, middle-point decisions, and over-arching, strategic decisions. Of course, under Superdemocracy, a lot of strategic shibboleths are revealed to be worthless, merely underpinning a false position of authority. Pseudo-authority is a major part of the SD analaysis.

More over at Superdemocracy - The Art of Corporate Governance.

This is Syntagma’s 500th post since this site was established in October 2006.

It’s hard to believe but we’ve been going for almost 15 months. The posting rate works out at 1.11 recurring posts per day — not that I ever wrote 1.11 recurring posts in a day.

Followers of English cricket and Naval battles will recognize 111 as “Nelson’s number”, which is an excellent omen here in the West Country. It means our constant quest for pieces of eight and Spanish doubloons should bear ample fruit.

I also want to remember Syntagma’s first incarnation as synastry.blogspot.com. It ran for a year on Google bandwidth, for which I thank them, and made a little bit of a stir in the blogosphere, which emboldened me to get our own domain, followed by a 50-strong network.

So here’s to another 500 posts and an even bigger splash when we reach 1000.

We are about to unveil our long-awaited new design for the Syntagma network, following on from the launch of our three network magazine portals late last year.

Thord Hedengren, who designed the portals, is also producing our new network look. The idea is to carry a similarity of design features from portal to site, creating a distinctive Syntagma style. As a network that started out on the Wal-Mart principle of “pile ‘em in ‘n’ stack ‘em high”, this will be a major departure for us.

But then, Petticoat Lane to Bond Street was always our secret trajectory.

We’re getting a draft of the designwork this week, so it shouldn’t be too long before Syntagma joins the fashionistas at the top of the style league.

Watch this spice [sic].