So, what are we to make of the uses which are being made of terms like ‘innovation system’, system innovation’, ‘systemic innovation’? In undertaking this inquiry, and before concerning ourselves with questions of institutionalisation and enabling or disabling policies, do we seek some conceptual clarification, even cleansing? Or do we start in ‘the swamp’ of practice, to borrow Donald Schön’s metaphor, and explore what people are doing in the name of different conceptions? The latter is an inquiry into what we do when we do what we do, that I take from my conversations with Humberto Maturana (see Ison 2010). Before responding to these questions let me first address two matters that are relevant to our discussions. The first concerns the nature of the thinking that informs a conversation about systems. The second is the intellectual territory that a conversation about systems can draw upon.