Toronto, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec; Jacksonville, Florida.
YTZ ferry. Landside terminal view of ferry to Billy Bishop Airport on Toronto Island. Runs every 15 minutes. This is my first time outbound from YTZ, as Air Canada only flies to Montreal from here. Porter Airlines dominates the terminal as its hubs. Free cafe in terminal is not Maple Leaf Lounge, but it’s more democratic. (Toronto) 20120103 1324Montreal Chinatown Gate Mural. Snowy January morning on Rene Levesque Blvd. Chinatown Gate with mural across the street, at St. Laurent entry (Montreal) 20120105 0845Rooftop pool in Montreal winter. Steaming indoor-outdoor pool at Hilton Bonaventure, in an early Montreal morning with temperature well below freezing. I probably haven’t been in this pool since the early 1990s, and then not with snow around it. No time on this trip for swimming. (Montreal, Quebec) 20120116 0928Jacksonville Landing on St. John’s River. Late afternoon January in northern Florida, with blue skies. Rock music playing, just a few tourists walking by with children. Welcome relief from winter, great weather offsets rebooked flight and leaving home early in the dark. Expect most of weekend indoors in meetings (Jacksonville, FL) 20120120 1650Florida Theatre, Gordon Lightfoot. In Jacksonville, FL, Gordon Lightfoot on tour for 13 days of 15. I was coincidentally in town for a conference, and snagged row 5 tickets with JMW 2 hours before show. Last time I saw Lightfoot was in Massey Hall in Toronto in the mid-1970s. Songs familiar, performance now performance of a 73-year old is different. Hard to find anyone in audience under age 40. (Jacksonville, FL) 20120122 2041JAX Art by Joe Segal. Sculptures of wood and aluminum mounted on wall of Jacksonville Airport art gallery, created by northern Florida artist Joe Segal. Displayed together as a collection, but actually tagged as independent pieces for sale. Gallery is located landside in airport, so non-travelers can view, but would have viewed longer with flight delay if venue was airside. (Jacksonville, FL) 20120123 1540Guaranteed Pure Milk bottle, Montreal. Rooftop art deco 1930s installation restored in 2009, 10 metres high, 6 tonnes of steel. Viewed from 11th floor window of the Cite du Commerce Electronique to the north. Preservation of whimsy demonstrates that Montreal doesn’t always take itself seriously (Montreal, Quebec) 20120125 0853Yael Bensoussan duo, Segal Centre. Vocals in French, plus guitar. Said she learned songs sung by her mother washing dishes. Introduced with alternate career as a second year medical student at U. of Montreal. Part of the Women of the World series at the Segal Centre, opening for Coral Egan (Montreal) 20120126 2007
Coral Egan, Segal Centre. Preview of “The Year He Drove Me Crazy” album for spring release, 3 years in making. New band, intimate venue with audience of about 150. Coral Egan performing as part of the Women of the World series at the Segal Centre (Montreal) 20120126 2052
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 […]
For the third of three workshops by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in October 2020, Kelly Okamura, Dan Eng and Joanne Dong led a Beacon Event for Global Change Days. This session was one in a series for global changemakers. Our expectation was that they would be hands-on practitioners, with relatively low familiarity with systems […]
For the second of three workshops by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in October 2020, we convened a session for the monthly Systems Thinking Ontario meeting. The focus of this workshop was a review of progress to date on methods by the scholarly team, informed by the adoption and use by the field team. The […]
For the first of three workshops by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in October 2020, Zaid Khan led a session for the Relating Systems Thinking and Design RSD9 Symposium. Our team had developed a set of reference slides for the three workshops, from which content that would most resonate with the audience could be selected. […]
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 ›
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 […]
Social Systems Science graduate students in 1970s-1980s with #RussellAckoff, #EricTrist + #HasanOzbehkhan at U. Pennsylvania Wharton School were assigned the Penguin paperback #SystemsThinking reader edited by #FredEEmery, with updated editions evolving contents.
