Toronto, Ontario
Riverside district: Backyard visitors coming through garage for Betty’s Paper Arts Estate sale. For 2 weeks, DY has been sorting through contents originally packed away and stored after Betty’s basement flooding. Then Betty unexpectedly passed away from surgical complications. This Sunday, the scrapbooking community has come together to redistribute the supplies. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20180603Koffler Gallery: Show+tell @KofflerArts Kimberly Rose, Mona Filip, Sameer Farooq, Jared Stanley, Lisa Ellis on Objects of Affection panel. Response to Esther Shalev-Gerz (2016) The Gold Room exhibition, Mona brought an artifact for interpretation. Museum conservator Lisa spoke of metal composition, poet Jared admired curved edge, visual artist Sameer wondered about users sociopolitically, shaman Kimberly saw it as one in a set of 80-year old culinary utensils. It’s a sieve that Mona’s great-grandfather tinsmith made that now is a kitchen ornament. (Koffler Gallery, Artscape Youngplace, Toronto, Ontario) 20180603 Centre for Social Innovation: Tried “Innovator for a Day” at @csiTO 215 Spadina. Got building orientation by a Community Animator. Picked a good day to visit, with Salad Day community building, then Town Hall as the move to 192 Spadina in September advances. Lots of energy in the place. (Centre for Social Innovation, 215 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20180605 Mattamy Centre: Official B.Comm. with distinction for @Ryan_Ing, in Business Technology Management co-op program at Ryerson University. Two older brothers and parents observing the proceedings, while the eldest brother is on a plane crossing the Pacific from China to California. This convocation was the first that Ryerson has held in the former Maple Leaf Gardens. (Mattamy Centre, Ryerson University, Carleton Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20180612Airship 37: Patio beside The Silver Bus in summer late afternoon, relaxing is between afternoon sessions leaning towards managerial, and the evening sessions leaning towards technical. Hangar-like space has garage doors opening up with south exposure. Event venue just south of the Distillery District and north of Lake Shore Boulevard East will probably eventually be transformed, with rezoning applications for sliver towers with the City of Toronto, and Ontario Municipal Board. (Airship 37, 37 Parliament Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20180614Fortune Seafood: Father’s Day early dinner, as bookings at Chinese restaurants are heavy. Double lobster, clams, pork chop, chicken, plus stir-fried mushrooms and a tofu casserole for me to maintain a plant-based diet. (Fortune Seafood Restaurant, Midland Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario) 20180617 Systems Thinking Ontario: Demonstration Syntegration led by @allennaleonard with trigger question “”What will it take for us to trust our most personal information and important life decisions to artificial intelligence?”. Briefing then two short rounds at two tables in about 2 hours, in contrast with the real event that could take 3.5 days. Concluding review on process, comparing with other systems methods that are knowledge-creating and dialectic. (Systems Thinking Ontario, OCADU, 205 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20180620Korea House: Intercept @antlerboy@pnahar1970@redesign@allennaleonard SCiO UK meets Systems Thinking Ontario meets National Institute of Design India, post #systemschange Wasan Island meeting. Triangulating on experiences having individually met prominent figures in the systems thinking community, comparing observations to confirm findings. Server first said they don’t see tea in the summer, and then brought the Englishman his own pot. (Korea House, Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20180621 Movenpick: New framework with NB and @oscillize, talking systems thinking approach in progress for upcoming workshops with social enterprise entrepreneurs. Unsure where our output artifacts might lead, a slower-pace longer translation towards understandability may work better. (Movenpick, Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20180622The Rex: Duo @beccastevensbsb@boutwillismusic@rexhoteltoronto not with bass, drums, and extra keys playing in BC last night. Rush off airplane for show, sips of beer on stage for calories. On to New York tomorrow. So much music from two pairs of hands, two voices. (The Rex, Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20180624The Redeemer: Live @JosephShabason@TorontoJazzFest@TheRedeemerTO of ambient jazz mostly originally recorded in the studio. Playing with Nicole Rampersaud, Phil Melanson, Kieran Adams, Bram Gielen and Dafydd Hughes, a complex of samples, programming and loops recorded with pedals on the floor. Technology makes music together as a band harder, not easier. (Church of the Redeemer, Bloor Street West, Yorkville, Toronto, Ontario) 20180625 SystemsThinkingTO: Games night @DerailleurAgile#SystemsThinkingTO group learning with exercises from the Systems Thinking Playbook. I led a modified Group Juggle for experiential Bateson proto-learning, deutero-learning and trito-learning. Open space technology posted parallel groups who chose to huddle together around tables, rather than roaming. (SystemsThinkingTO, LoyaltyOne, King Street East, Toronto) 20180628The Redeemer: Solo @Giom_Perret@TorontoJazzFest first tour across Canada with digital effects pedals for loops. Saxophone and blowing mouthpiece into microphone is a big change from scoring music for other players as backing, this show is more immediate. He has found Canadians to be friendly, unlike his hometown Parisians. (Church of the Redeemer, Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20180629
Heliconian Hall: Calm Otterville project @TorontoJazzFest, led by Andrew Downing. Slow melodies evocative of a summer day in a quiet village in a Southwestern Ontario. Relaxed pace, drew more laughter as the band was to “slow things down” on the next tune. (Heliconian Hall, Hazelton Avenue, Yorkville, Toronto, Ontario) 20180630
Systems Processes Theory has been under development for many decades, led by Len Troncale, a past president of the International Society for the Ssytems Sciences. Many have found getting a grip on the science to be a demanding task, both in scope and in depth. Over many decades, Lynn Rasmussen was a collaborator, refining and […]
The Socio-Technical Systems (STS) perspective, dating back to the studies of Eric L. Trist and Fred E. Emery, was on the reading list of organizational behaviour classes in my undergraduate and master’s degree programs. It wasn’t until 15 years later, when I got involved with the systems sciences and David L. Hawk, that the Socio-Ecological […]
Civic Tech can be described as projects using technology “for the public good“. Civic Tech may be related to, but different from Gov Tech. For the May 2024 Systems Thinking Onrtario, we had two knowledgeable guests in conversation. Dorothy Eng, executive director of Code for Canada since 2021, related her professional journey from engineering to […]
On my May trip through the UK, I accepted an offer to lead an Expert-Led Session at the University of Hull. I had previously been a Research Fellow of the Centre for Systems Studies, but haven’t travelled to the Hull for some years. As we worked out the arrangements, I found out that the seminar […]
I’ve been checking on the breadth of some personal research on systems thinkers. (The list is incomplete, and may orient more towards systems scientists). Searching on Scopus gives an h-Index that counts scholarly references (with a boost, for the first person on the list who received a Nobel prize in chemistry). The list below is […]
Reading a theorist who espouses the dao (tao) in their systems work? Here’s a challenge: is the writer referring to daojia, or daojiao? Daojiao 道教 is religious daoism, gaining legitimacy only with the Tang dynasty (712-758 CE), after many centuries with the religion of Confucianism as dominant. Classical Chinese philosophy is hard to interpret even […]
David L. Hawk (American management theorist, architect, and systems scientist) has been hosting a weekly television show broadcast on Bold Brave Tv from the New York area on Wednesdays 6pm ET, remotely from his home in Iowa. Live, callers can join…Read more ›
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 ›
In trying to place the World Hypotheses work of Stephen C. Pepper (with multiple root metaphors), Nicholas Rescher provides a helpful positioning. — begin paste — Philosophical perspectivism maintains that substantive philosophical positions can be maintained only from a “perspective” of some sort. But what sort? Clearly different sorts of perspectives can be conceived of, […]
Finding proper words to express system(s) change(s) can be a challenge. One alternative could be diachrony. The Oxford English dictionary provides two definitions for diachronic, the first one most generally related to time. (The second is linguistic method) diachronic ADJECTIVE Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic (adj.), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3691792233. For completeness, prochronic relates “to […]
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) […]
