Foreword
This book is about informatics, an area of study that focuses on information processes and "related phenomena" is a societal context. This is a bit fuzzy, but the explanation seems to be that an information system impacts multiple individuals, each of whom have their own context and cognition. The most common deficiency of systems is that they fail to identify the interests of the actors or the stakeholders
The author defines the word "system" as "a part of the world that is regarded as a whole." It can be broken down into components, has properties, and effects "state transitions." The system itself is an amalgam, and the actual actions area carried out by components (objects) within the system, which should (but do not always) work in concert.
An interesting analogy of system to a chemical factory, constantly at work on multiple orders for different outputs, designed to operate efficiently and with the utmost caution - but even so, sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes, they go horribly wrong. Likewise, information systems deal with data and events, and are designed to handle multiple actions on multiple data with efficiency and care. Sometimes, they go wrong.
In his consulting work, the author has encountered such situations, and has a series of "alternative perspectives and insights." The book is intended to be inspirational, to make the reader a keener observer, with a goal of helping them to be more proficient in identifying problems or, better still, seeing ways to avoid them.
EN: I was originally wary at this point, but it passed. There's a lot of fluff in the introduction, the goal of "inspiration" is often abstract, and the extensive use of metaphor and oblique references all are red flags ... but after reading a bit further, I found that departure from traditional methods of organizing information is the theme, and the fact that the book departs from those methods may not be a bad thing