Toronto, Ontario, Tokyo (Haneda, Kiba, Ookayama), Osaka (Fushimi), Tokyo (Harajuku, Shinjuku, Toyama, Waseda)
Pearson gate E77. Short escape from chilly Toronto for rainy Tokyo. No courtesy upgrade today, so will sleep vertically against the window wall. Enjoyed chicken pho with vegetarian broth in Maple Leaf Lounge, multiple refills die to small bowls. (Toronto Pearson Airport Terminal 1) 20150224Haneda arrival gate corridor. Speedwalk fronted by windows in makes the long trek in daylight from international arrivals to the immigration hall less tedious. Airline terminal formerly just domestic fights, now includes Air Canada from Toronto. Easy walk to monorail, much closer to central Tokyo than Narita airport way out east (Tokyo Haneda Airport) 20150225Kiba Park Bridge and fountain plaza. Rainy walk to Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo on a different route from past trips. Path from Kiba station north through park leads to landmark Kiba Koen Ohashi bridge, over Kasaibashi Street and the Sendaiborigawa River. (Kiba Park, Tokyo) 20150226Scholarly after-lunch discussion. Beyond formal presentations, privilege of relaxed time for conversation of speculative ideas about the future. Wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds add to a rich dialogue. (7th floor, 9 West building, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ookayama, Japan) 20150227Symposium on Service Systems Science. @JimSpohrer saying Moore’s Law for Service Systems may be found in Smart Service Systems with Cognitive Assistants, at the 8th annual symposium hosted at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Full day of lectures by experts, some regular participants in the invited workshops. (Tokyo Institute of Technology, 9 West Building) 20150228Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum. Learning about varieties of rice used, and how sake is made. Small samples at end of tour still more alcohol than I’ve consumed in a year. Rainy day deterred outdoor sightseeing. Rode shinkasen bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, day of touring, then continuing route by car to Osaka. (Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum, Fushimi, Japan). 20150301
Fushimi Inari Shrine. Beginning of ascent through thousands of vermilion torii gates at Shinto shrine, on a rainy late afternoon in early March. Brief sightseeing opportunity on routing from Tokyo to Kyoto on shinkasen, continuing on to Osaka in the car of a colleague. (Fushimi Inari Shrine) 20150301Fox Capture Plan, Club Metro. Jazz fusion trio in Kyoto basement music venue. Stood for an hour on concrete floor for band to start, our group double the age of the target audience. Japanese music lovers appreciative but enthusiasm restrained as compared to western audiences. Fox Capture Plan opened, we stayed halfway though set by Jizue before jet lag suggested leaving early. (Club Metro, Kyoto, Japan) 20150301Coleading systems workshop. Graduate students for systems-inspired leaders in material science immersed in learning. Started with self-introductions of participants with narrow specialities, then exercise for pairs and trios to find a synthesis of their expertise. Lecture on systems concepts will be followed by more exercises. (Osaka Prefecture University) 20150303Osaka Castle. Wandered into park when contemporary art at Osaka Prefecture Government doesn’t exist anymore, then Museum of History closed today. Loose schedule, so riding subway around town not quite randomly. (Osaka Castle Park) 20150303Takeshita Dori. Quick trip to Harajuku to visit the Daiso dollar store, since couldn’t find the one in Shinjuku. After 8 p.m., still some young people hanging on Takeshita Dori, but Wednesday isn’t the most popular night out. (Takeshita Dori, Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan) 20150304Toyama Park. Mountain biker hopping up steps in forested ravine between apartment buildings at dusk. On walk from Okubo district to Waseda University, got turned around on descent then ascent into green space. Large map signs every few city blocks combined with compass clarified navigation on confused mobile phone. (Toyama district, Tokyo, Japan) 20150305Pit Inn Shinjuku. Jazz duo with masters Fumio Karashima on piano and Yoshio Suzuki on bass. Repertoire of jazz standards, with creative variations far from the originals. Strings ringing, two musicians, nowhere to hide. Great acoustics in historic basement venue, maybe one-quarter full for the second set on a Thursday night, 9:30 to 10:40 p.m. so that patrons can get the subway home and go to work on the next day. (Pit Inn Shinjuku, Tokyo) 20150305Temple at Kikuicho. Carp in pond at temple, one of six pauses extending the 30-minute morning walk to an hour. Water trough here had toothbrushes and facecloths out, perhaps for people who don’t have a home. Temple is partially behind a 7-11 store, no English labeling for less fame than the Honshoji temple a little further south, and the Seigenji temple a little further west. (Kikuicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo) 20150306AsianPLoP 2015 introduction. Experienced pattern language shepherds start off the conference by demonstrating how a writer’s workshop works. The AsianPLoP style can have a more interactive dialogue with author, than the rigourous PLoP style where the author remains outside the discussion. (4th Asian Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs, Waseda University, Tokyo) 20150306AsianPLoP Day 1 plenary. Hiroshi Nakano, “Japanese Spirituality and Pattern Language”, insight into Christopher Alexander’s pursuit of: “What is beauty? What is good?”. Described some history of the past 50 years, now suggesting “project language” for specific works that might accumulate to a “pattern language” over time. A “manual for a centering process” has episodes that connect with and enhance the prior episodes, repeating endlessly to become the timeless way. (4th Asian Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs, Waseda University, Tokyo) 20150306Mebius Yotsuya. JinoMasaJay Fusion Rock live music with Kenji Jino Hino (bass) Masa Obama (guitar), Jay Stixx (drums) in small basement club. Complimented by band for finding the venue, as even locals have problems finding it. I was probably the only person in the room not understanding Japanese language. Trio seemed to enjoy show, with jams rolling through tunes by Pat Metheny, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, plus others. (Mebius Yotsuya, Tokyo) 20150306
Hoshoji temple, Tokyo. Bright orange torii gates looking west from Waseda station mark stairs for long climb up to orange gate for Buddhist temple, with statues inside windows on both sides. In the main building, a bride, groom and two parents seemed to be in the midst of a private marriage ceremony with a monk. Just one of the many temples just off the Waseda University campus. (Hoshoji temple, Nishiwaseda, Shinjuku, Tokyo) 20150307
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 […]
