Vienna, Austria; Danube University Krems; Krems, Austria; University of Surrey; Guildford, UK; London, England; Toronto, Ontario.
Austrian Airlines Toronto to Vienna. Just realised that I’m breaking my personal rule to fly across oceans on a carrier with a Canadian flag. Direct flight for short trip trumped brand preference. Fortunately, the Austrians aren’t known as an aggressive culture. I expect to nap, and wake up in Vienna. (OS 72, still boarding at Pearson International Airport YYZ) 20150702Danube University Krems. Small university campus just one street by two blocks up hill from small town. Attending pattern language conference, PURPLSOC is third within a year. Would have meet practically all Christopher Alexander scholars by now, may focus down in future events with some interested in collaborating. Shortest lead time ever, 8 hours on plane, 3 hours on train, 1 hour to find campus, barely time for lunch, check-in and shower before first speaker started at 2:30 pm. (Danube University Krems, Austria) 20150703Wellenspiel, Krems. Conference dinner by the Danube River in Austria. Weather has been warm, around 30 degrees C and sunny. Mountain altitude, air is clean. Some familiar faces from prior pattern language conferences. (Krems, Austria) 20150704Closing ceremony at PURPLSOC. Network of yarn symbolises colleagues meet over a few short days of intense interaction. Tangle is tossed in parachute to create a knotty mess. First learned this at PLoP 2014 in Illinois. (Danube University Krems, Austria) 20150705S7 platform, Praterstern. Morning commute to airport from Vienna city centre hotel on suburban line S7. Started journey a little earlier than originally planned, discovering that I would be sitting nearly 30 minutes, as trains don’t run more frequently. Austrian efficiency means trains run on time, so the best surprise is no surprise. Flights to London Heathrow will be connecting, lowering airfare and adding miles. (Praterstern, Vienna, Austria) 20150706Glass overhead walkways. From Frank Whittle at south to Alan Turing at north, buildings connected to encourage random interactions between researchers walking and thinking. Design of campus with buildings below 4 stores an antithesis of skyscraper thinking. Statue of Turing on plaza a little further north may be overearnest recognition, as he was never part of this university, and would only come home to Guildford on weekends while a teenager at boarding school. (University of Surrey, Stag Hill campus, Guildford, UK) 20150707
Stainless steel sculpture and fountain. William Pye (1969) “Narcissus”, with spray of water on west side of small lake in northeast Stag Hill campus. Terrain at university is scenic but hilly, signs posted that accessibility may lead to indirect routes. British summer morning is cool, wearing long pants in anticipation of afternoon rain. (University of Surrey, Guildford, UK) 20150708Main entrance to Guildford Cathedral. Angel musicians engraved in glass by John Hutton are inset into bronze doors. One glass panel was vandalised in 2009, and restored by a protégé of the original artist a year later. Guildford Cathedral was consecrated in 1961, one of three modern cathedrals of the Church of England, the others in Liverpool in 1978, the other in St. Albans in 1877. Cathedral is by the south end of the university, had afternoon stroll up and down hills as a break from sitting. (Guildford Cathedral, Surrey, UK) 20150709Bridge NGL 15/X49: Public footbridge beside Guildford Viaduct over River Wey rail crossing reflects British multifunction design, as pedestrians served as well as as trains. Narrow path on south side of New Guildford Line (NGL) starts from Woodbridge Road at the east, to Woodbridge Meadows on the west. Forest naturally shades the path. Route jogs closer to rail built at higher level, going around the Sea Cadets camp. Low stress walk to university in the morning, steps at west end not so welcoming for the cyclist hoisting his ride. (Guildford Viaduct over River Wey, UK) 20150710SIEYP panel: Post #ISIE2015 panel #SIEYP2015 Symposium on Industrial Ecology for Young Professionals looks forward on directions for research. Audience of over 100 graduate students and postdocs could shape the future of the field. Panel includes: Reid Lifset (Yale U.), Ming Xu (U. Michigan), Chris Davis (U. Groningen), Noa Meron (Tel Aviv U.), Weslynne Ashton (IIT), Megha Shenoy (independent, India), Chris Kennedy (U. of Toronto). Afternoon will have self-organizing groups for discussion. (Lecture Block, Stag Hill campus, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK) 20150711Millennium Bridge. St. Paul’s Cathedral across the River Thames, from the third floor cafe of the Tate Modern. Truncated reservation by B&B in Guildford opened opportunity for single Saturday night in London. Museum is one of the few cultural institutions open late. (Tate Modern, London, England) 20150711Saatchi Gallery front ramp: Grandfather watches French child enjoying kickboard, running in circles up the steps and gliding down again and again. Saatchi Gallery opens at 10 a.m. on Sunday, I arrived a few minutes early and sat on a bench next to Duke of York Square, by Sloane Square. After opening, a quick tour of the galleries was worth the trip, evening with the confusion of rerouting to the tube after the British 10K London Run shut down bus services on the streets. When I left the gallery 45 minutes later, the child was still running around in circles, and I noticed others also behaving well on skateboards around the shopping district. (Duke of York Square, London, England) 20150712
Richmond Adelaide Centre Courtyard. A perforated wall and partial shading aims to give a quiet outdoor respite in the shadows of downtown towers. Hidden behind a wall facing a busy westbound one-way street, pedestrians are more likely to find the spaces than drivers teaching by. (Richmond Adelaide Centre Courtyard, Toronto) 20150713
The idea of managers being proactive only dates back to 1964, as classes of functions described by Abraham Zaleznik: homeostatic, mediative, and proactive. Predispositions may or may not be altered through educational development.
Fit the people around an organization; or an organization around the people? Working backwards, say @MitroffCrisis + #HaroldLinstone, from current concrete choices to uncertain futures, surfaces strategic assumptions in a collective decision, better than starting with an abstract scorecard to rank candidates.
Should we do, or not-do? Russell Ackoff, over many years, wrote about (negative) potential consequences: There are two possible types of decision-making mistakes, which are not equally easy to identify. (1) Errors of commission: doing something that should not have been done. (2) Errors of omission: not doing something that should have been done. For […]
The final publication of the October 2016 Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium workshop "Some Future Paths for Design Professionals: DesignX and Systemic Design" was published as “Systemic Design Agendas in Education and Design Research” in FormAkademisk, following 2 years of rewrites, reviews and revisions.
Federated wiki is deployed on a node.js server, an environment which has become available on some cPanel shared hosting providers. Here are some instructions written while restoring a wiki site originally installed in 2014-2015 on a cloud provider.
Reading The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis, reminded me of a PhD course at UBC with Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, before they were recognized as Nobel prize candidates.
The story of #JosephNeedham by @simonwwriter, about the scholar behind the 27-volume Science and Civilisation in China starting in 1954 and continuing after his death in 1995. Arriving in China in 1942, Needham discovered gunpowder, printing and the magnetic compass…Read more ›
Talk at @gtalug on Let’s Learn Tech Online @torontolibrary with @p2pu @CiscoNetAcad @TorontoESS. Linux Unhatched online course conducted in groups of 8 to 12, meetings twice per week in person. Non-technical facilitator encourages peers to work out understanding together. Found…Read more ›
The WordPress O2 plugin with P2-Breathe theme results in a Facebook-like or Twitter-like streaming interface. The idea was first presented in 2013, evolving from the P2 theme in 2009 (originally launched as Prologue in 2008) when hosted on wordpress.com. “Beau…Read more ›
Talk at the Centre for Human Ecology, Glasgow, announced at http://www.che.ac.uk/tim-ingold-talks-about-the-sustainability-of-everything-10th-sept-2016/ Video posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncLv9Gk7XrI and https://vimeo.com/182572764 This digest was created by editing the text transcript generated by Youtube. View the video yourself for a more authentic reproduction. Lapses, grammatical…Read more ›
Plenary presentation by Tim Ingold, at the 2nd @AIBR_ International Conference of Anthropology. The 2nd AIBR International Conference of Anthropology brings together anthropologists from different parts of the world under the theme “Identity: Bridges, Thresholds, and Barriers.” [….] [6:58] So…Read more ›
In deciphering Yin-Yang and Five Elements (Five Phases) thinking, #Kaptchuk (1983) has a footnote and then an appendix that clarifies the way forward for appreciating foundations of Chinese medicine favouring the former.
The field theory in psychology by #KurtLewin 1943 derives from classical field theory (viz. electromagnetism and gravitation), predating quantum field theory (viz. subatomic particles). For psychology, Lewin wrote in 1943 how history (and a subjective view of the future) matters. It is correct that field theory emphasizes the importance of the fact that any event […]
Many who cite #KurtLewin haven't read the original 1947/1951 writings, say @strategybuild @ToddBridgman @kgbphd with the "refreezing" part of "unfreezing → changing → refreezing" emerging in a subsequent career of an idea that can be traced genealogically and archaeologically.
Human organizations may learn from wolves, with groups of 2 to 6 taking down elk, and cooperative expert groups of 9 to 13+ taking down larger bison. #DanielMacNulty, #AimeeTallian #DanielRStahler #DouglasWSmith (2014).
Meeting effectiveness is reduced after 7 people are involved, say @BainInsights consultants #Blenko, #Mankins, #Rogers. Follow the Rule of Seven for meetings. Who should come to a meeting is always a sensitive issue, and the basic precept is often “The more the merrier.” But more is rarely better when it comes to making decisions. Our […]
