Toronto, Ontario; Vancouver, BC.
Prince Edward Viaduct at dusk. View west from Danforth, towards towers at Bloor and Yonge. Red sky at sunset suggests sunny day tomorrow. Temperature just above freezing means winter pants, park and cap for cycling. Approaching the shortest day of the year, getting dark (Toronto) 20111202 1636Vegan Raw Festival. Christmas Cannelloni, with zucchini was wrap, red pepper and arugula for festive colours, cheese of cashews, agave, lemon juice and beetroot. Delicious. Free samples courtesy of Jennifer Italiano and her chef, from Live Food Bar (Toronto) 20111203 1438Scrap Metal Gallery entry. “1. If this sign is on, the gallery is open. 2. If this sign if off, the gallery is closed but we forgot to turn the sign off. 3. If this sign is off, the gallery is closed. 4. If this sign is off, the gallery is open but we forgot to turn the sign on.” An installation titled “This Sign (For Scrap Metal), 2011, by Micah Lexier. Contemporary art at its finest, in a new private gallery in the back courtyard of 11 Dublin Street, in the Bloor Street West / Lansdowne Avenue neighbourhood (Toronto) 20111210 1505
Alpine Skis On Skytrain. Symbol of west coast living. Have seen riders with skis and snowboards on Skytrain as well as Seabus, because public transportation to North Vancouver slopes from home is so easy. (Vancouver, B.C.) 20111220 1554
Douglas Austrom and Carolyn Ordowich shared some reflections developed jointly with Bert Painter (Vancouver, BC) on some draft humanistic principles, the three Tavistock perspectives, and a meta-methodology with Systems Thinking Ontario. Proponents of Socio-Technical Systems design refer back to the 1960s-1980s research of Fred Emery and Eric Trist of the Tavistock Institute. Calls to reinvent […]
Doug Schuler joined the monthly Systems Thinking Ontario meeting for a conversation about the potential for patterns and pattern languages to help address wicked problems on a large scale, via technology, loose coordination, and social commitments. Doug was exposed to the original A Pattern Language in the mid-1970s. It aimed to generate towns and buildings […]
Literacy has been proposed as an understanding of a small number of pervasive principles appropriate to making informed personal and societal decisions. Systems literacy includes an understanding of systems that influence you, and your influence on systems. Peter Tuddenham has been leading an initiative on Systems Literacy across a variety of systems organizations, particularly with […]
The Creative Systemic Research Platform (CSRP) Institute, led by Susu Nousala and Jelena Sucic, is distinctive in approaching systemic design from a bottom-up, longitudinal perspective. The co-presidents were able to join us in conversation at a Systems Thinking Ontario session, remotely from Finland and Switzerland, at a significant time disadvantage. Many approaches to systemic design […]
To appreciate how systemicists worldwide collaborate, Gary S. Metcalf joined Systems Thinking Ontario for a conversation. Gary served as president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences 2007-2008, and of the International Federation for Sysrtems Research 2010-2016. From 2003 to 2018, he was a graduate instructor in Organizational Systems and Research on the faculty […]
While the term “theory of change” is often used by funders expecting an outcome of systems change for their investment, is there really a theory there? The November 2020 Systems Thinking Ontario session was an opportunity for Peter H. Jones (OCADU) and Ryan J. A. Murphy (Memorial U. of Newfoundland) to extend talks that they […]
In conversation, @zeynep with @ezraklein reveal authentic #SystemsThinking in (i) appreciating that “science” is constructed by human collectives, (ii) the west orients towards individual outcomes rather than population levels; and (iii) there’s an over-emphasis on problems of the moment, and…Read more ›
In the question-answer period after the lecture, #TimIngold proposes art as a discipline of inquiry, rather than ethnography. This refers to his thinking On Human Correspondence. — begin paste — [75m26s question] I am curious to know what art, or…Read more ›
How might our society show value for the long term, over the short term? Could we think about taxation over time, asks @carlotaprzperez in an interview: 92% for 1 day; 80% within 1 month; 50%-60% tax for 1 year; zero tax for 10 years.Read more ›
For the @ArchFoundation, #TimIngold distinguishes outcome-oriented making from process-oriented growing, revisiting #MartinHeidegger “Building Dwelling Thinking”. Organisms are made; artefacts grow. The distinction seems obvious, until you stop to ask what assumptions it contains, about the inside and outside of things…Read more ›
In web conference, #HermanDaly says #EcologicalEconomics used to get attacked from the right, now it's from the left. Panel @revkin @jon_d_erickson @ktkish @sophiesanniti #TimCrowshaw #KatieHorner livestreamed #sustainwhat .Read more ›
Complementing the idea of a @longnow , @nfergus provokes the challenge of a #shortthen as the online social media platforms distract the larger perspectives on history.Read more ›
In his system of system concepts, Russell Ackoff made the distinction between reformation and transformation in many of his lectures. Here are two written sources. From Redesigining Society (2003) … Systemic Transformation A system is transformed, as contrasted with reformed, when its structure or functions are changed fundamentally. Such changes are discontinuous and qualitative, quantum […]
While Ackoff’s definitions of goals, objectives and ideals have been republished (and rewritten) multiple times, the 1972 definitions were derived from his original dissertation work. Accordingly, in addition to the human-readable definitions, some mathematical notation is introduced. — begin paste — OUTCOMES 2.30. End (an immediate intended outcome) of a subject A in a particular […]
The fifth way of knowing, as described by West Churchman, is a Singerian inquiring system. (This fifth way of knowing is more colloquially called Unbounded Systems Thinking in Mitroff and Linstone (1993)). The book On Purposeful Systems (Ackoff and Emery, 1972) was derived by Ackoff’s dissertation that was controversially coauthored with West Churchman. Purpose can […]
Understanding Process-Function Ecology by Ashwani Vasishth leads to luminaries in the systems sciences, including C. West Churchman, Eugene P. Odum and Timothy F.H. Allen.
As an irony, the 2020 book, The Innovation Delusion by #LeeVinsel @STS_News + #AndrewLRussell @RussellProf shouldn’t be seen as an innovation, but an encouragement to join @The_Maintainers where an ongoing thought network can continue. The subtitle “How Our Obsession with the New has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most” recognizes actual innovation, as distinct from […]
An online social network reproduces content partially based on algorithms, and partially based on the judgements made by human beings. Either may be viewed as positive or negative. > The trade-offs came into focus this month [November 2020], when Facebook engineers and data scientists posted the results of a series of experiments called “P(Bad for […]
