Markham, Ontario; Toronto, Ontario; Scarborough, Ontario; London, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec; Brussels, Belgium; Woluwe Saint Pierre, Belgium; Amersfoort, Netherlands; Hameenlinna, Finland
Hilton Markham: Have apps do more work, says @gail_murphy #ibmcascon by designing more for episodic memory (e.g. recent items) than semantic memory (i.e. search). People work in episodes with many context task shifts. Different roles should get different tools, but share a team context in synchronized views. Context is the situation in which something happens. (Hilton Toronto/Markham Conference Centre, Markham, Ontario) 20161101Factory Theatre: Masterful preview of “Acquiesce” @FuGenTheatre production @FactoryToronto David Yee playwright and lead actor. Wide ranges of characters performed by John Ng, Richard Lee and Rosie Simon. Non-linear script, inventive stage design and evocative sound design. Unexpected points of levity. Expect this play to be recognized with positive reviews in days to come. (Factory Theatre Mainstage, Adelaide Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20161101Logan Ave. At Queen St. E.: New fence by laneway at the top of our street as former drug store and church will soon be demolished to put in 7 storey condominium. Leslieville Historical Society had represented community interests, plans seemed to have passed through city hall. (875-887 Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20161103Riverdale Park West: Playing field lights on, but cool temperatures see only dogs off leash running across the grass. Early evening before Canada switches off daylight savings time, the sunset time will read differently tomorrow. (Riverdale Park West, Toronto, Ontario) 20161105Mashion Bakery: Ample supply of Chinese sweet buns and savory pastries even in the dark early evening, on the Sunday we turned the clocks back to Standard Time. Racks of more in the back of the store, with clerks moving more up to the front. Friendly service, in and out. (Mashion Bakery, Spadina Chinatown, Toronto, Ontario) 20161106Bulk Barn Front Street: Gluten-free pizza crust mix based on rice flour for tonight’s dinner. Dough was hard to shape, so added oatmeal flour to deal with stickiness. Baking resulted in cracker-like thin crust. Topped with pide lahmacun ground beef was dry, would have been better with a pizza tomato sauce. (Bulk Barn, Front Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20161107Factory Theatre: Powerful story, nuanced performance of “The Enchanted Loom” @FactoryTheatre @CahootsTheatre @MagicalMudge director. Brain surgery, memory and mind, real and not real, family and war, survival and love. Bea Pizano, Asha Vijayasingham, Zorana Sadiq, Sam Kalilieh, Kawa Ada, Peter Bailey. Theatre-almost-in-the-round with audience on both sides of stage. Reminiscent of Shakespearean plays in impact. (Factory Theatre, Adelaide Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20161108
The Power Plant: Solo show with Yto Barrada (2015) “Geological Time Scale”, an assembled group of primarily monochrome pile rugs from Western Central, Middle Atlas, Morocco, fills the main space. The “Faux Guide” exhibition includes framed found drawings and prints on the walls. Gallery opens for early evenings on Thursday. (The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Harbourfront, Toronto, Ontario) 20161110Perfect Chinese Restaurant: Leftovers from 14 dining, because three Peking Duck, two lobster, two steamed fish, two bok choy with mushrooms, pork chop, steamed chicken is too much. Intercepted at resto with the group who took the casino bus to Niagara Falls and back. (Perfect Chinese Restaurant, Sheppard Avenue East, Scarborough, Ontario) 20161113887 Queen Street East: Building on corner wrapped up for deconstruction. Pharmacy moved east to another location a few months ago, in anticipation. Ground frost and snow could be a month away, so site could be ready for construction when temperatures warm up again. (887 Queen Street East at Logan Avenue, Riverside, Toronto, Ontario) 20161115Charcoal Kebab House: Unexpectedly well-appointed decor at Uyghur-style restaurant out in the suburbs. Portions large, so leftover lamb kebabs, langman noodles, rice polo, dumplings to take home to sons. They said the food was as authentic as Beijing, but the quality of ingredients are higher. (Charcoal Kebab House, Ben Jungle, Scarborough, Ontario) 20161117Cronyn Observatory: First visit to central campus of Western University, although I had previously attended a class in residency. Saw multiple tour guides leading troops of visitors around. Unexpectedly warm day, locale is further southwest than home. (Hume Cronyn Memorial Observatory, Western Ontario, London, Ontario) 20161118YUL Duty Free: Linear ceiling lights on the long walk from domestic gates to international. Passed time on phone calls before flying over the Atlantic. Appreciating the French influence while still in Canada. (YUL Montreal Trudeau Airport) 20161124Au Vieux Saint Martin: Walked Nocturnes Sablon. Should have ordered rabbit as did Pierre for dinner, the last time I had it, he cooked it circa 1982. Bypassed the pork kidneys that Bee ordered. Jet lag on afternoon was minimal, we decided to drive instead of taking train for evening, in case my legs gave out. (Au Vieux Saint Martin, Place du Grand Sablon, Brussels, Belgium) 20161125Place Dumon: Cutting lotte zeeduivel (angler monkfish) for steamboat hotpot dinner later. Fish is so ugly, sellers display without head, then remove filaments and membranes for home cooking. Firm flesh, won’t dissolve in soup. Humbled by Belgian market offering pheasant, hare, horsemeat, spooning out steak tartare into takeout containers. Variety back home is so much smaller. (Marché de Stockel, Place Dumon, Woluwé-Saint-Pierre, Belgium) 20161126Chocolate Village Museum: Wandering Koekelberg, saw sign leading to old Victoria Chocolate factory, now renovated as history for the whole chocolate industry from 1896 through those acquired in the 1930s and then the 1970s. Late in afternoon for tour, saw the tile murals including the three artisinal confectioners. The Godiva Chocolate offices are on the next street over. Continued walk through Molenbeek, down to Place Ste. Catherine. (Chocolate Village Museum, Rue De Neck, Koekelberg, Brussels Capital Region, Belgium) 20161126Mondriaanhuis: Pieter Mondriaan became Piet Mondrian after moving to Paris in 1911, we learned from a museum at his place of birth. Collection is long on history, showing early paintings and works by later artists obviously influenced. Pierre, Bee and I coordinated to meet with Sjon, who lives in Amersfoort, to discuss systems research. A short day trip to a an orderly town, in the country east of Belgium. (Mondriaanhuis, Kortegracht, Amersfoort, Netherlands) 20161127Stockel: Steamboat hotpot with angler monkfish, squid, beef, pork, mushrooms, cabbage. Long chopsticks for cooking, regular chopsticks for dining. Leisurely Sunday night dinner, resulting soup with rice noodles is warming for the coming winter. Broth was brought to boil in the morning, then simmered in the thermal (vacuum) cooker while were out of the house, making dinner service after sunset easy. (Stockel, Woluwe Saint Pierre, Brussels Capital Region, Belgium) 20161127Renewable Energy House: International collaboration, faster to discuss face-to-face. Brussels is a nexus, EU offices are in this district. Flying in from Shanghai last night, from Toronto 3 days ago, we’ll route to Finland tonight on different directions. (Renewable Energy House, Rue de Arlon, Brussels, Belgium) 20161128
HAMK Visamäki: Open data workshop for Häme region, discussing ways to change traditional thinking, and facilitating groups. Hosts prepared for Minna to come, stocked with flip chart and lots of post-it notes. Video bridge for dial-in participants, ad hoc using camera on laptop computer. (HAMK Visamäki campus, Häme University of Applied Sciences, Hämeenlinna, Finland) 20161129
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 […]
