See the patterns shaping change.
Act with clarity, hope, and agency—even when certainty is not available.
Henry's Fork of the Snake River in Idaho, where we live and work. Photo: Sheila Nedrow
The world is changing faster than many of the structures we rely on can adapt.
Leaders, consultants, coaches, and investors are being asked to make consequential choices with few precedents, incomplete information, and rapidly changing conditions.
Social Pattern Literacy gives you a map of how social systems change over time—helping you recognize emerging patterns earlier, understand the conditions in which new forms can take root, and bring people, structures, and resources together around futures worth building.
“Imagine you were living at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Wouldn’t you have liked to know how to see the key organizational processes and structures that enabled some business people to contribute to society and get very rich?
How about when the Internet became widely used—would you have wanted to recognize the opportunity to connect buyers and sellers worldwide, as eBay did—or bring volunteers together to create a free encyclopedia, as Wikipedia did?
Whether your goals are money or positive change in the world, would you like to see the patterns at work among those shaping our world now? I teach social pattern literacy. We cannot know the future with certainty, but I can teach you the patterns that have shaped our societies throughout history. And continue to shape us today.”
Mary Ann Allison
Our primary offering
Social Pattern Literacy in Action
Learn to recognize emerging ways of organizing and working together—and use them to advance your goals in a rapidly changing world.
Work with us individually or with others. In this tailored program of supported action research, learn to recognize emerging patterns, choose structures that fit the work, and build alliances of intention. Study your own situation and its environment, drawing on our guidance and experience using AI in research. Act on your findings, learn from the results, and revisit your questions and goals as conditions change.
Develop your ability to
- Read emerging patterns. Use historical patterns to recognize new ways of organizing and the conditions that help them take root.
- Choose a good fit. Match structures and processes to the problems you face, recognizing what to keep, adapt, or add.
- Build alliances of intention. Bring people and groups together around a shared intention, coordinating their contributions while preserving their independence.
- Learn through action. Put research findings into practice, study the results, and revisit your questions and goals as conditions change.
See the situation before deciding what to do
We may blame people, motivation, or commitment when the real difficulty is that a familiar structure or process no longer fits the work.
Social Pattern Literacy helps you:
- recognize what kind of problem you are facing
- distinguish deeper shifts in how people organize and relate from surface-level novelty
- decide what to keep, what to add, and what to recombine
The goal is orientation sufficient for thoughtful action.
“Whenever I look at political and societal problems now, I always remember to ask myself is this a wicked or augmented problem? Mary Ann’s model of problem types clarifies so much for me and helps me to think more realistically about ways we might address them. This gives me hope.”
A grounded reason for hope
How we communicate has always shaped what we can do together. AI is now accelerating change and expanding our ability to respond.
New does not automatically mean better. The opportunity is to combine inherited strengths with capabilities now becoming possible.
When we can see today's turbulence in the context of larger historical patterns, more choices become visible. That is a grounded reason for hope.
Putting Social Pattern Literacy to work
Seeing the pattern helps you test possibilities and choose your next move with greater confidence.
Leaders
Lead more effectively through change by reading shifting conditions and designing structures and processes that fit the work.
Consultants and coaches
Place trusted tools within a larger social and historical frame, helping clients recognize broader patterns.
Investors
Recognize emerging forms and the conditions they need, bringing capital, people, and structure together around promising futures.
“You make clear the patterns I know are there but can’t quite see. This helps me design collaborations that work with the deeper currents of social change, not against them.”
Grounded in research and experience
Social Pattern Literacy is grounded in Emerging Social Dynamics, the research model developed by Allison Group founder Mary Ann Allison, PhD. It began with award-winning doctoral research at New York University and has been field-tested and refined for more than two decades.
Explore the researchOther ways to work with the Allison Group
Conversations and advisory work · Workshops, briefings, and speaking
Explore ServicesBegin with a question.
Bring a question, challenge, opportunity, or decision you are facing. The first conversation is 45 minutes, with no charge.