Hämeenlinna, Finland; Helsinki, Finland; Lahti, Finland; Espoo, Finland; Suomenlinna; Copenhagen, Denmark; Toronto, Ontario
Sibelius Akatemia Harmonikka: Recital in Hameenlinna, leading up to the Coupe Mondiale (World) Accordion Competition in Turku, Finland. Noora Nyyssönen, Viivi Tigerstedt, MinnaRistamäki (Verkatehdas, Hämeenlinna, Finland) 20151001
Bulevardi 31, P317: Master’s students @metropolia taking a stretch after the first hour of lecture on Service Systems Thinking. Combined classes from Industrial Management and Logistics programs, for a special two hour presentation. From the instructor’s view, there was a lot of content to cover, maybe we can structure a better paced program next time. It’s the 10th year anniversary since we cofounded the Master’s program in Industrial Management. This building housed the Helsinki University of Technology until 1966. (Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu / Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Bulevardi 31, Helsinki, Finland) 20151002Linna Bike Cafe: Celebration by Kata and Emmi @LinnaBikeShop Cafe, new business partnership. Family and friends came to wish well, enjoy in cameraderie. Mud cake a big hit in chocolate richness. A few days ago, observed much activity in preparing the space and scrubbing the kitchen. Now ready for customers. (Linnan Pyöräverstaan Kahvila, Verkatehdas, Hämeenlinna, Finland) 20151003Kariniemi Park: Pikku-Vesijärvi pond is famous for largest musical fountains in the Nordics, but after dark, not on a fall Sunday afternoon. Friend has moved to small town Lahti, commuting 3 days a week to Helsinki, enjoying the quiet after 5 years in busy London. Re-establishing previous university ties to share intelligence on how times have changed (Kariniemi Park, Lahti, Finland) 20151004Arabiakeskus: Red berries on trees, approaching the Hämeentie Factory Block of the Arabia district, known for its long history in design. Are those rowan (mountain ash) trees? Attended the “Creating the Mindset of Sustainable Societies” class, one of the core courses in the Master’s Programme in Creative Sustainability at Aalto University. Caught afternoon student presentations on final day of class. Challenged to be critical when prior context of assignments wasn’t fully explained. Will see the students two more days this week. (Arabiakeskus, Helsinki, Finland) 20151006
Alvar Aalto puisto: Iconic Alvar Aalto signature building of former Helsinki U. of Technology under wraps in renovation for new Aalto U. Undergraduate Centre bringing together students in technology, business and arts and design studies. Metro station across the street scheduled to start operation in fall 2016 as part of first phase of Lansimetro. On campus to visit my Ph.D. supervisor to check in on progress. (Alvar Aalto puisto, Otaniemi, Espoo, Finland) 20150907Old Church Park: Grave markers at Plague Park Ruttopuisto, some from the thousand victims of the 1710 plague. The park was a cemetery from the 1780s until 1829. Pedestrians walk by the site on Bulevardi on the way to Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and the West Harbour, without a second thought. (Old Church Park, Vanha kirkkopuisto, Bulevardi, Helsinki, Finland) 20151008Urban Mill: Lecture on Planetary Boundaries by @katri1iisa for Systems Thinking 1 class of Creative Sustainability programme. Easing students into world issues, deeper theory left to in the spring session. Venue has nice projection equipment, Prezi shows up with slides on 3 sequential screens. Space full of students taking major or minor, plus a few observers catching up on learning. (Urban Mill, Otaniemi, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland) 20151009HAM Tennispalatsi: Ai Weiwei @aiww (2005) Coffin @HAMHelsinki is tieli wood from dismantled Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) temple. Resembles a coffin and a dining table, but doesn’t function well as either. Museum was closed on my visit to town last year, exhibition now takes up entire third floor. Saturday afternoon busy with parents trailing children, and movie audiences downstairs. (Helsinki Art Museum, Tennispalatsi, Helsinki, Finland) 20151010Susisaari: Permaculture in a Suomenlinna home, letting the chickens out of the coop for a few minutes around the yard. Chickens are productive at 5 or 6 eggs per day. House originally was built by a Russian general in the year before the czar fell in the revolution of 1917. Living spaces are gradually being modernized, while conforming to condition that the exterior is be preserved, as part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. (Susisaari, Suomenlinna, Helsinki, Finland) 20151011CPH Passport Control: Sign in lounge flashed boarding 55 minutes before departure. Lineup explains why. CPH is more popular than previously experienced. Border control officer was a woman with a sense of humour. (Copenhagen Airport) 20151012Third floor high ceiling: Mesh sphere pendant lights on top floor of old Bank of Upper Canada building gives a celestial feel to the room. Sandblasted walls and wrought iron balcony are a nice contrast to the presentation on new cloud container technologies. Presenter prefers command line SSH over friendly browser interface. (Digital Ocean Meetup, MyPlanet HQ, Toronto) 20151015University College, West Hall: Late afternoon sun illuminates stained glass rose window at annual book sale. West Hall held the University of Toronto Museum when the building was burned in the fire of 1890. The original window was created as a secular installation by Joseph McCausland in 1858. When the building reopened in 1892, the rose window must have been repaired or recreated. Looking for old books that are not available for borrowing from a public library, my search on this visit resulted in zero finds. (West Hall, University College, University of Toronto) 20151016Morse Street School: Exercised democratic right to vote in federal election. Polling station in gym had practically no line-up. Primary school students were just finishing the day, leaving together with crossing guards to get across the busy intersection up the street. (Morse Street Public School, Toronto) 20151019St. Michael’s Health Centre: Riding elevator up from the 3rd floor Family Practice Unit up to the 8th floor Eye Clinic. Purposefully double booked appointments, as previous ophthalmologist visits have included dilations before exams, this including wait time for droid to take effect. Bonus, as medical student offered flu shot, saving trip to mass inoculations. When wait times are predictable, van be efficient. (St. Michael’s Health Centre, 61 Queen Street East, Toronto) 20151020OCADU: Systems Thinking Ontario with Chris Kennedy describing Industrial Ecology, in a role as president of ISIE. Systems thinkers also asking questions about relations between IE and other fields and organisations. Interdisciplinary researchers working across interdisciplinary organisations means lots of overlaps. (Lambert Lounge, OCADU, Toronto) 20151021Trinity College Quad: Entered from north gate to annual book sale. Rainy, so came by car instead of by bike. As usual, found a few systems research books not available in the public library. (Trinity College Quadrangle, Toronto) 20151024Jonathan Ashbridge Park: Midday Sunday farmer’s market @LeslieMarket, second last weekend for the fall. Discovered that the listing of “Ashbridge Park” meant ‘Jonathan Ashbridge Park” off Queen St. E., not “Ashbridge Bay Park” off Lakeshore Blvd. E. Extra urban bicycling for exercise on a cool sunny day. (Jonathan Ashbridge Park, Queen Street East, Toronto) 20151025Metro Hall east passage underground: North wall by Art Team 1994 of 14 students, executed by Andrew Owen. On path from underground shopping to the east, escalators up the west. Thousands of office workers and visitors must pass by the artwork daily. South wall has a different theme. Where are these students, 20 years later? (Metro Mural Art Team 1994, Metro Hall, Toronto) 20151027 Students listed: Caroline Falby & Shingo Shimizu (East York); Matthew Hansen & Rhea Trembath (Etobicoke); Venus Mangilinan & Michell Selvaraj (Metro Separate); Matthew Chapman & Troy Marryshow (North York); Andrew Buchanan & Teresa Van Pinxteren (Scarborough); Cassidy Phillips & Sarah Hollenberg (Toronto); Karina Castro & Mateusz Krepicz (York).
East Chinatown: Trinity Supermarket at 587 Gerrard Street East was closed when we came back from travels, and now seems permanently shut. Disappointed that our neighbourhood stores aren’t doing so well lately, probably due to bright and shiny big box competitors. Hopefully, the demise of one store will boost the business for the other supermarket down the street, Fu Yao. (East Chinatown, Toronto) 20151030
Within the Systems Thinking Ontario community, we were fortunate to have Nenad Rava step up to explain how the Sustainable Development Goals came to be, and relate them to systems change. This May session of Systems Thinking Ontario was a quick follow-on for the March edition on Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the SDGs. […]
The book Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the Sustainable Development Goals, published in 2002 by Routledge, was released as open access in 2023 by Taylor-Francis for readers who don’t have access to a university library. For the March edition of Systems Thinking Ontario, we were honoured to celebrate the release with editor-coauthors Kaitlin Kish […]
A special issue on “Sustainable, Smart and Systemic Design Post-Anthropocene: Through a Transdisciplinary Lens” in the Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics edited by Marie Davidová, Susu Nousala, and Thomas J. Marlowe has been released. In that issue, the journey of the Systems Changes Learning Circle from 2019 through 2022 is reviewed. The editorial team, […]
In the ISSS 2022 Plenary talk, the first 25 minutes were a blast through (a) the rising interest in system(s) change(s); (b) appreciative systems (Vickers); (c1) the philosophy of architectural design; (c2) the philosophy of ecological anthropology; (c3) the philosophy of Classical Chinese Medicine; (c4) the philosophy of rhythms; and (d) methods of multiparadigm inquiry, […]
The theme for the February online meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario was sparked from the discussion from the January session on Root Metaphor and World Hypotheses. What does it mean to have a theory? How does sensemaking contribute to this? Gary Metcalf volunteered to guide a conversation on these topics. Two prereadings were to serve […]
Philosophy underlies the distinction in the three volumes of the Tavistock Anthology: founded on the World Hypotheses of Stephen C. Pepper, the Socio-Psychological Systems Perspective and the Socio-Technical Systems Perspectives are based on Organicism, while the Socio-Ecological Systems Perspective is based on Contextualism. This thread on contextualism can be traced from the association between E.C. […]
Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
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 ›
The selection of readings in the “Introduction” to Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2, Penguin (1981), edited by Fred E. Emery, reflects a turn from 1969 when a general systems theory was more fully entertained, towards an urgency towards changes in the world that were present in 1981. Systems thinking was again emphasized in contrast […]
In reviewing the original introduction for Systems Thinking: Selected Readings in the 1969 Penguin paperback, there’s a few threads that I only recognize, many years later. The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings. — begin paste — Introduction In the selection of papers for this […]
In a recording of the debate between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael C. Jackson on “Systems Concepts in Evaluation”, Patton referenced four concepts published in the “Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation” (2018) by the Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (SETIG) of the American Evaluation Society. The four concepts are: (i) […]
How might the quality of an action research initiative be evaluated? — begin paste — We have linked our five validity criteria (outcome, process, democratic, catalytic, and dialogic) to the goals of action research. Most traditions of action research agree on the following goals: (a) the generation of new knowledge, (b) the achievement of action-oriented […]
After 90 minutes on phone and online chat with WesternUnion, the existence of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland is denied, so I can’t send money from Canada. TicinoTurismo should be unhappy. The IT developers at Western Union should be dissatisfied that customer support agents aren’t sending them legitimate bug reports I initially tried the […]
