Toronto, Ontario; Sarnia, Ontario; LaSalle, IL; Allerton Park, IL; Mount Carmel, IL; Toledo, OH; Markham, Ontario.
Play reading with supertitles. Workshop @FuGenTheatre of Da Jia by Sophie Gee Nervous Hunter mixing English, Cantonese + Mandarin. Story in development, feels like Canadian Chinese families (Toronto) 20140902Real cattails, bronze birds. Ontario Travel Centre at Sarnia is a convenient rest stop before crossing into Port Huron. American border guard confiscated Canadian grape tomatoes (Sarnia) 20140909Blue Water Bridge view north. Crossing St. Clair River westbound from Sarnia to Port Huron on a Tuesday noon means no delays. Landmark lighthouse, is that a boat? (Port Huron) 20140909Lock 16, LaSalle Il. Historic Illinois & Michigan Canal, with boat for education and events. Wooden locks still intact, could require rebuilding if we ever needed heavy use again. Lock 16 at LaSalle, Il 20140910PLoP plenary. Introduction to Writers’ Workshop approach by Richard Gabriel as a more teacher-like, in the library at the Allerton Park Retreat Center for Pattern Languages of Programs Conference 2014 (Allerton Park) 20140915Writers Workshop at PLoP 2014. Reviewing process led by @rpg with @taka_iba as up first. Writers group labeled as Narrow Road to the Deep North focused on social applications of Alexandrian pattern language (Allerton Park) 20140915PLoP 2014 closing ceremony. Network of yarn as social graph of relationships gained at the end of Pattern Languages of Programs conference. Warm way to say goodbye. (Allerton Park) 20140917Wabash and White Rivers. Mount Carmel IL is at the junction of the Wabash and White Rivers. Twin Rivers Resto for relaxed lunch with Tom and Dorothy, we have all gotten grey hair since grad school days (Mount Carmel, IL) 20140918Trying out glassware. At the Libbey Factory Outlet in Toledo, appreciating the large variety of shapes for drinking glasses. We prefer shapes that fit the hand, but can they also be modern? (Toledo, Ohio) 20140919Wedding band. Bride at leisure after nuptials completed on a sunny fall afternoon. Swing band adding gaiety to the fun of the wedding. Markham Museum a festive site for all. (Markham) 20140920No parking mural. Pedestrian Sunday buskers in Kensington Market cause bike dismount in front of mural with dogs playing cards. Real dogs in yard next to garage. (Toronto) 20140928Boardwalk fall sunset. Runners in shorts, dog walkers, baby strollers enjoying the warm September dusk, before the dark brings cool. Expect good weather tomorrow. (Toronto) 20140929
California Sandwiches. Even splitting a veal sandwich on a date is a lot of food for lunch. Cheap date for old married couple (Toronto) 20140930
Two Major Research Projects (MRPs) — they might be called master’s theses elsewhere — by Zaid Khan and David Akermanis reflect the Systemic Design agenda within the OCADU program on Strategic Foresight and Innovation (SFI). To graduate, all SFI students complete an MRP. With many subjects and techniques covered during SFI studies, only a […]
While it’s important to appreciate the systems thinking foundations laid down by the Tavistock Institute and U. Pennsylvania Social Systems Science (S3, called S-cubed) program, practically all of the original researchers are no longer with us. Luminaries who have passed include Eric L. Trist (-1993), Fred E. Emery (-1997), and Russell L. Ackoff (-2009). This […]
In order to move forward, the Systems Changes Learning Circle has taken a step backwards to appreciate the scholarly work that has come before us. This has included the Socio-Psychological Systems, Socio-Technical Systems and Socio-Ecological Systems perspective, from the postwar Tavistock Institute for Human Relations. The deep dive on “Causal texture, contextualism, contextural” takes us […]
For those who haven’t read the 1965 Emery and Trist article, its seems as though my colleague Doug McDavid was foresighted enough to blog a summary in 2016! His words have always welcomed here, as Doug was a cofounder of this web site. At the time of writing, the target audience for this piece was […]
In the famous 1965 Emery and Trist article, the terms “causal texture” and “contextual environment” haven’t been entirely clear to me. With specific meanings in the systems thinking literature, looking up definitions in the dictionary generally isn’t helpful. Diving into the history of the uses of the words provides some insight. 1. Causal texture 2. […]
Towards appreciating “action learning”, the history of open systems thinking and pioneering work in organization science, the influence of Action Learning Group — in the Faculty of Environment Studies founded in 1968 at York University (Toronto) — deserves to be resurfaced. 1. Trist in Canada 2. Environmental studies, and contextualism in organizational-change 3. Action learning, […]
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 ›
Social ecology and environmental psychology described @dstokols @Social_Ecology , interviewed by @katiepatrick . References #WilliamsJames on attention. Book on Social Ecology in the Digital Age released in 2018.Read more ›
Concerns on #personaldata should be reframed as interpersonal, says @sheldrake , less the nodes and more the edge connections. “I want to take back control” superficial, @hartzog says control doesn’t scale. Agency is about negotiation in the world, more rhizomatic…Read more ›
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.
Resurfacing 1968 Buckley, “Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist: A Sourcebook” for interests in #SystemsThinking #SocioCybernetics #GeneralSystemsTheory #OrganizationScience . Republication in 2017 hardcopy may be more complete.
Proponents of #SystemsThinking often espouse holism to counter over-emphasis on reductionism. Reading some definitions from an encyclopedia positions one in the context of the other (François 2004).
Saying “it doesn’t matter” or “it matters” is a common expression in everyday English. For scholarly work, I want to “keep using that word“, while ensuring it means what I want it to mean. The Oxford English Dictionary (third edition, March 2001) has three entries for “matter”. The first two entries for a noun. The […]
