Toronto, Ontario; Indianapolis, Indiana; Peoria, Illinois; Salina, Iowa; Madison, Wisconsin; Lake Forest, Illinois; Chicago, Illinois
AGO: Resting spot @agotoronto Pablo Picasso (1928) “Seated Woman” in permanent collection since 1964. Free admission on Wednesday nights means larger crowds, and summer tourists fill the whole facility. (Art Gallery of Ontario, Dundas Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20170801Robarts Library: South-facing view of city, as I’m reading history of science during a slow holiday weekend. “In 1982, [Eric Trist] wanted to create at York University a Centre for Action Learning but faced resistance from the University Senate”. Richard Trahair, (2017) “Behavior, Technology, and Organizational Development: Eric Trist and the Tavistock Institute” p. 289. (Robarts Library, 11th floor, University of Toronto). 20180805Congee Queen: Family from Vancouver visiting in town, so got generations together for lunch to catch up on news. Restaurant name underscopes the extent of the menu, as the table filled up with food. Hungry sons, no leftovers. (Congee Queen, Agincourt Mall, Scarborough, Ontario) 20180806Yen Ching: Mixed research agenda with social, at intercept dinner after driving 11 protracted hours from Toronto. Discussed release of paper on “Calvin Pava’s Legacy: Sociotechnical Systems Design for the ‘Digital Coal Mines’”, and histories leading up to its writing. Spouses had parallel conversation on less academic pursuits. (Yen Ching Restaurant, E. Washington Street, Indianapolis, IN) 20180808Peoria Riverfront Museum: Seward Johnson (2014) “Return Visit” 31-foot painted bronze dwarfs spouse referring to her own book. A contemporary common man receives the 1854 Gettysburg Address delivered by Abraham Lincoln in Peoria in 1854, relevant still today. We only had a short visit around the grounds, and the Caterpillar Visitor Center next door, en route from Indianapolis IN to Fairfield IA, not enough time to see the exhibits inside. (Peoria Riverfront Museum, Washington Street, Peoria, Illinois) 20180809Salina: Twilight dinner around the fire, visiting with extended family representing three generations of farmers. The meal featured home grown beef, tomatoes, cantaloupe, plus dessert of marshmallows heated over open flames to make smores. Stories of the house where today’s elders grew up, and the multiple barns nearby eventually knocked down by storms. (Salina, Iowa) 20180810
Salina: Finishing up construction of the ramp to the deck that wraps around the house. Slope of the terrain means platform on pillars driven into the ground. Potential for parties to watch the sunset, with western exposure. DLH says physical activity helps the thinking for writing. (Salina, Iowa) 20180811James Madison Park: Sunset on Lake Mendota, just north of state capital building. Further along the shore, U. Wisconsin Madison campus, where i attended in an ISSS meeting in 2008. Only a short visit on this routing, to deepen some intuitions on systems knowledge with a retired professor. (James Madison Park, E. Gorham Street, Madison, WI) 20180814Lake Forest: Shown the 9-foot Bosendorfer grand piano in the home of my master’s degree advisor. One of the last instruments built by the Austrian instrument-maker, before the company was acquired by the Japanese. The couple downscaled to an empty-nester home, I had forgotten that DY had seen the big house for 4 kids in 1984, on our original migration driving from Vancouver to Toronto. (Lake Forest, Illinois) 20180815Cybernetics in Chicago: The Role of Multiple Levels by Timothy F.H. Allen @ASC_Cybernetics keynote speaker. Described systems sciences colleagues often as naive realists. Complexity is the way you look at a system. Funtowicz & Ravetz (1992) see quality in postmodern production as internal, within the process of doing science or creating art. Modern science is hostile to postmodernism. (American Society for Cybernetics, University Center, Chicago, Illinois) 20180816.Pritzker Pavilion: Free @TheSeaAndCake show, walking with @redesign around @Millennium_Park after dinner. Families relaxing on blankets on the lawn in back, serious listeners up at the front. A flashback to graduate school days, when I was living carefree in the Chicago area. Natives are friendly. (Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois) 20180816Cybernetics in Chicago: Systems research and backstories with Timothy FH Allen + @snousala sharing contexts. Discussion in quiet room beside the main conference meeting. Often the best conversations aren’t scheduled formally on the program. (ASC Cybernetics, University Center, State Street, Chicago, Illinois) 20180817Cybernetics in Chicago: Systems sciences discussion @redesign@snousala, with Timothy FH Allen extending the previous day’s keynote presentation at greater depth. All of us are ISSS members who coincided at this venue, oriented more towards open systems theory based in biology, and less in cybernetics. Catching everyone while we can. (ASC Cybernetics, University Center, State Street, Chicago, Illinois) 20180818Cybernetics in Chicago: Temporal Variety of Horizon Bias @redesign at ASC Cybernetics annual meeting. When we think about requisite variety, we don’t always think about time. (American Society of Cybernetics, University Center, Chicago, Illinois) 20180818Alice and Friends: Saved room for vegan chocolate mousse pie, raw key lime cheesecake, mint chocolate soy ice cream. Splurged on satay skewers and dumplings, before main dishes pan-Asian. Catching up on news since last year’s visit, Northwestern U. put us together as family in 1980. (Alice and Friends Vegan Kitchen, N. Broadway Street, Chicago, Illinois) 20180819Maple Leaf Square: Bass booms from Drake concert shook the 24th floor apartment in building next door to the Scotiabank Arena. Our host hasn’t heard a concert that loud, before. Brief torrential downpours earlier in the evening subsided, I wished I had biked over instead of taking the streetcar and subway. (Maple Leaf Square, Bremner Boulevard, Toronto, Ontario) 20180821Costco Thorncliffe: Bicycle racks outside big box store suggests buying as much as a person can carry, rather than loading up a truck. Formerly the Coca-Cola headquarters built in 1964, the architecturally historic building was transformed and renovated for 2018. The neighbourhood included other modernist industrial buildings in the garden suburb. In 1966, the Don Valley Parkway ended at Lawrence Avenue, and wasn’t yet connected to Highway 401. (Costco Wholesale, Overlea Boulevard, Thorncliffe Park, East York, Ontario) 20180822SystemsThinkingTO: August session as games night, based on success of June episode that scored highly. Learned that participants enjoy participating, rather than just watching slide presentations and talking heads. Getting up from rows-and-columns tables a good move. (SystemsThinkingTO, LoyaltyOne, King Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20180823Edward Gardens: The 33rd time we’ve reconvened at the fountain to renew our marital commitment. CL was thoughtful in giving us flowers to celebrate the occasion. This year, the weather was cool and the fountain was drained. (Edward Gardens, Lawrence Avenue East, Don Mills, Ontario) 20180824Edward Gardens: Willet Creek flows south into the Don River West, after the bridges over the lower walks of the park. Absences of one son in California and another on an airplane is okay, they know the course well. (Edward Gardens, Lawrence Avenue East, Don Mills, Ontario) 20180824475 Unwin Ave.: Circular turnout is Outer Harbour Recreational Node, surmised from sign outlining waterfront fish from Lake Ontario safe to eat. Officially opened in 2015, I hadn’t noticed it before. Also discovered pave bicycle path through the bushes eastbound to Tommy Thompson Park. (Outer Harbour Recreational Node, Unwin Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20180827Dead End Studio: Opening night paintings @playthink installations @PTSDalchemy “It’s All in Your Head” show in artists’ space in one of the city’s last original industrial warehouses. Sun setting outside south-facing windows, view of billboards seen from the Gardiner Expressway. (Dead End Studio, 7 Fraser Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20180830
Dead End Studio: Opening reception installation @PTSDalchemy paintings @playthink “It’s All in Your Head”. Crystals shaped naturally, responding to emotional impressions focused on raw shapes. Cubism on canvases, exploring brain-body connections. (Dead End Studio, 7 Fraser Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20180830
While it’s important to appreciate the systems thinking foundations laid down by the Tavistock Institute and U. Pennsylvania Social Systems Science (S3, called S-cubed) program, practically all of the original researchers are no longer with us. Luminaries who have passed include Eric L. Trist (-1993), Fred E. Emery (-1997), and Russell L. Ackoff (-2009). This […]
In order to move forward, the Systems Changes Learning Circle has taken a step backwards to appreciate the scholarly work that has come before us. This has included the Socio-Psychological Systems, Socio-Technical Systems and Socio-Ecological Systems perspective, from the postwar Tavistock Institute for Human Relations. The deep dive on “Causal texture, contextualism, contextural” takes us […]
For those who haven’t read the 1965 Emery and Trist article, its seems as though my colleague Doug McDavid was foresighted enough to blog a summary in 2016! His words have always welcomed here, as Doug was a cofounder of this web site. At the time of writing, the target audience for this piece was […]
In the famous 1965 Emery and Trist article, the terms “causal texture” and “contextual environment” haven’t been entirely clear to me. With specific meanings in the systems thinking literature, looking up definitions in the dictionary generally isn’t helpful. Diving into the history of the uses of the words provides some insight. 1. Causal texture 2. […]
Towards appreciating “action learning”, the history of open systems thinking and pioneering work in organization science, the influence of Action Learning Group — in the Faculty of Environment Studies founded in 1968 at York University (Toronto) — deserves to be resurfaced. 1. Trist in Canada 2. Environmental studies, and contextualism in organizational-change 3. Action learning, […]
The news that Doug McDavid — my friend, colleague, and one of the original cofounders of the Coevolving Innovations web site in 2006 — had passed, first came through mutual IBM contacts. More details subsequently showed up on LinkedIn from Mike McClintock. Doug left us on May 9, while working at his desk, likely in […]
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 ›
Social ecology and environmental psychology described @dstokols @Social_Ecology , interviewed by @katiepatrick . References #WilliamsJames on attention. Book on Social Ecology in the Digital Age released in 2018.Read more ›
Concerns on #personaldata should be reframed as interpersonal, says @sheldrake , less the nodes and more the edge connections. “I want to take back control” superficial, @hartzog says control doesn’t scale. Agency is about negotiation in the world, more rhizomatic…Read more ›
Doing science should be wayfinding (pathfinding), says #TimIngold , gaining grounding in the art of paying attention, towards research as the pursuit of truth. Truth is more than objective facts, where science and art are embraced with materials, so that we can see the quality inside the natural world as it forms, rather than as […]
We should be more vigourous, says @MazzucatoM , in debating differences between value extraction and value creation, and between profits and rents. Lecture at Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford U., January 2019Read more ›
Social Systems Science graduate students in 1970s-1980s with #RussellAckoff, #EricTrist + #HasanOzbehkhan at U. Pennsylvania Wharton School were assigned the Penguin paperback #SystemsThinking reader edited by #FredEEmery, with updated editions evolving contents.
Resurfacing 1968 Buckley, “Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist: A Sourcebook” for interests in #SystemsThinking #SocioCybernetics #GeneralSystemsTheory #OrganizationScience . Republication in 2017 hardcopy may be more complete.
Proponents of #SystemsThinking often espouse holism to counter over-emphasis on reductionism. Reading some definitions from an encyclopedia positions one in the context of the other (François 2004).
Saying “it doesn’t matter” or “it matters” is a common expression in everyday English. For scholarly work, I want to “keep using that word“, while ensuring it means what I want it to mean. The Oxford English Dictionary (third edition, March 2001) has three entries for “matter”. The first two entries for a noun. The […]
It's been challenging to find sources that specifically define two-word phrases -- i.e. "systemic change", "systematic change", "systems change" -- as opposed to loosely inferring reductively from one-word definitions in recombination. MartinReynolds @OpenUniversity clarifies uses of the phrases, with a critical eye into motives for choosing a specific label, as well as associated risks and […]
The term "environmental" can be mixed up with "ecological", when the meanings are different. We can look at the encyclopedia definitions (François 2004), and then compare the two in terms of applied science (i.e. engineering with (#TimothyFHAllen @MarioGiampietro and #AmandaMLittle, 2003).
