Toronto, Ontario; Portland, Oregon; Markham, Ontario
CSI 192: At Climate Ventures space @csiTO for afternoon meeting. Discussed programs, research, potential peer circle topics. Open to new ideas for the new cohort. I’m thinking that starting small may work better for emerging methods. (Centre for Social Innovation, 192 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20181004Harbourfront Centre: Finnish style in Mervi Haapakoski (2018) Untitled hot-sculpted glass and driftwood stands out in Nordic Glass displays. Reminds me that this is the first calendar year in more than a decade when I haven’t been in Helsinki. Exhibit reminisces on Orrefors, Iitala and Kosta Boda mid-20th century. Poignant that the glass artist originally at Taik moved to Canada, and recently to Cape Breton. (Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, Ontario) 20181005 Thanksgiving dinner: Opening home to extended family and friends, for a non-turkey menu. Main course of Chinese beef stew, plus vegan mushrooms with beancurd sticks (foo jook), gai lan (broccoli), fuzzy melon (dit gwa) soup, beet-carrot salad. Vegan pumpkin pie and coconut milk ice cream to accommodate dietary restrictions. Of all attendees, I was the one who liked turkey most, before I gave up meat. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20181007Old Vic: Thanksgiving Day @VicCollege_UofT with some graduate students of History and Philosophy for Science and Technology in the office, late afternoon. Front door to building was locked. Scooped nephew up to bike downtown for jazz and turkey dinner. (Victoria College, University of Toronto, Charles Street, Toronto, Ontario 20181008Design with Dialogue: Journeys to Systems Change session led by @redesign, sketched by @playthink@dwdTO. Prereading based on report on @si_exchange meeting at Wasan Island in June. (Lambert Lounge, OCADU, McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20181010Matty Eckler Rec Centre: Cast ballot in advance poll for municipal election. Second of four days, before official voting day in 11 days. Convinced I’m not going to change my mind, no line-up and three marks on a long sheet of paper took 2 minutes. (Matty Eckler Recreation Centre, Gerrard Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20181011University College: Not usual West Hall for @UCBookSale, as major renovation blocks the way to many rooms. Selected a few systems books that are hard to find. Slightly disconcerted to find an edition inscribed from one researcher to another, both whom I’ve known and are no longer with us. (Laidlaw Library, University College, University of Toronto, Ontario) 20181012HackLabTO: Remote @HackLabTO celebration of @longnow 50th anniversary of Whole Earth Catalog, @MrEricBoyd served homemade chocolate cake. Comparing August 1972 edition of The Last Whole Earth Catalog with the 1986 Ten Years of Coevolution Quarterly, with 2013 Cool Tools, and with 2006 World Changing. (HackLabTO, Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20181013Sony Centre: Internet of Drones camera hovering over model field #IBMInnovate, displayed on large screen. Catching up on evolving technologies, found a few familiar faces I haven’t seen in a while. (Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, Front Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20181018 Seeley Hall: Second day alumni book sale @Trinity_College busy at midday, line up to check out. Recognized some of the books from the five boxes donated earlier in the year. Picked up some volumes not readily available from the library, trying to not fill up our basement. (Seeley Hall, Trinity College, Hoskin Avenue, University of Toronto, Ontario) 20181019CSI 192: First Climate Ventures peer circle on Systems Thinking @csiTO. Sketching on flipchart sheet as a reference artifact to keep track of conversation on the complex versus the complicated. Informal meeting was scheduled on short notice, we’ll try to meet Monday afternoons every three weeks. (Centre for Social Innovation, 192 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20181022Portland International Airport: MAX light rail train to Portland city center from airport is a low-stress 30-minute ride through industrial parks and along freeway. Fare is economical, and staff is friendly. Major turning loop at Gateway NE 99th Transit Center has a theme park feel. (Portland International Airport, Portland, Oregon) 20181024PUARL – University of Oregon: Gamemaster @chrisimweb@PLoPcon leads participants in a chair-switching exercise. Most of the first full day has been focused in four parallel writing groups, thinking together in smaller circles. Conference is intimate and relaxed. (Portland Urban Architecture Research Lab, University or Oregon, NW Couch Street, Portland, Oregon) 20181024 PLoP 2018: Morning team-building exercise @PLoPCon of balancing a tennis ball with each only lending a fingertip, to move together without dropping, towards the door. in-person experiences with colleagues enable learning more than the purely rational review of pattern languages in writer’s circles later. (Pattern Languages of Programs, University of Oregon, Couch Street NW, Portland, Oregon). 20181025PLoP 2018: Afternoon energizing dance led by @MaryLynnManns@PLoPCon to wake up attendees expending mental energy. Catering of snacks has been excellent, so opportunities to physically burn calories are welcomes. (Pattern Languages of Programs, University of Oregon, Couch Street NW, Portland, Oregon) 20181025PLoP 2018: Focus group @PLoPCon on A Pattern Language Canvas for Real Time Innovation led by Wolfgang Stark from U. Duisburg-Essen. Seeking feedback on pattern language in cards in beta, translated into English from German. (Pattern Languages of Programs, University of Oregon, NW Couch Street, Portland, Oregon) 20181025PLoP 2018: Traditional closing ceremony @PLoPCon, tossing ball of yarn to connect to other attendees remembered in the meeting. After the threads have fully unravelled, the web is tossed in the parachute. (Pattern Languages of Programs conference, University of Oregon, NW Couch Street, Portland, Oregon) 20181026PUARL 2018: Plenary @wardcunningham, Yodan Rofe and @michaelwmehaffy on “A Pattern Language for Rapid Urbanization: Launching a Digital Pattern Language Repository”. After taking turns at podium, received questions from the audience. (Portland Urban Architecture Research Lab International Conference, NW Couch Street, Portland, Oregon) 20181026PUARL 2018: Fishbowl panel on The Future of Pattern Language moderated by Wolfgang Stark, initially with Hajo Neis, Yohan Rode, Susan Ingham and Richard Sickinger. (Portland Urban Architecture Research Lab International Conference, NW Couch Street, Portland, Oregon) 20181027Suwannaphum Thai: Dinner meeting with @takashiiba, Wolfgang Stark and Richard Sickinger to discuss Purplsoc 2019, one year away. We’re all attending PUARL, that alternates pattern language meetings in years and continents. None of us getting to see much of the town, with the day packed with plenaries and workshops. (Suwannaphum Thai, SW Pine Street, Portland, Oregon) 20181027PUARL 2018: Closing fishbowl review of conference, starting with the youngest at the meeting. Generally positive response, some disappointment at small crossover to PUARL from PLoP attendees. Finishing up near 5pm on a Sunday afternoon, those departing for earlier flights were forgiven. (Portland Urban Architecture Research Lab International Conference, NW Couch Street, Portland, Oregon) 20181028 Pioneer Courthouse Square: Signpost citing distances includes some destinations en route home via air flights. Rainy Sunday dusk walk from U. Oregon on the north, into the city center at south revealed wide streets with light traffic and few pedestrians. (Pioneer Courtyard Square, SW 6th Avenue, Portland, Oregon) 20181028YVR: Direct shuttle buses from U.S. arrivals immigration to domestic Canadian gates removes prior anxieties of racing across the YVR terminal, and having to go through x-ray security a second time. A human guide giving directions is welcomed, but an exterior route outside the terminal could be chilly in winter. This expediting suggests the terminal layout might not have been as well done as originally thought. (Vancouver International Airport, British Columbia) 20181029CASCON: Qubits #casconquantum by @jessicapointing explained with two-sided donuts that flip. Applications of exponential complexity that are computationally hard in binary von Neumann architecture may be tractably linear with quantum computing. Today’s quantum hardware is still at the state where vacuum tubes were in the 1950s, we might expect coevolving knowledge development in coming decades. (CASCON, 28th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering, Hilton Suites, Markham) 20181030 CASCON: iCity workshop #cascon with Jesse Coleman @TO_Transport + Judy Farvolden @UofTTRI, with @CodeZebra moderating. Analytics and visualization in progress with the King Street Transit Pilot, towards end of collecting data to enable evidence-based decision-making at City Hall. (CASCON, 28th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering, Hilton Suites, Markham) 20181031
Highland Farms: Ontario-grown Flemish Beauty pears in abundance, later in October than I expected. Local grocery chain is an autumn destination for a Proustian memory of the tree at my grandfather’s house in the 1960s, at the southeast corner of Beverley Street and Cecil Street. I picked pears of this variety in the late 1970s when I was an undergraduate student at UToronto, but the City removed the tree in the early 1980s. (Highland Farms, Ellesmere Road, Scarborough, Ontario) 20181031
For espoused systems thinkers who are predisposed towards towards finding an equilibrium (or maybe one amongst multiple equilibria), a discussion about entropy can raise discomfort. In the systems sciences, the second law of thermodynamics — as an entropic process — is often cited by the learned as a universal law applicable across physics, chemistry, biology […]
In the 4th year of an espoused 10-year journey, the Systems Changes Learning Circle reached a major milestone. With Code for Canada, the team conducted its first educational workshop based on the contextural action learning approach currently under review for publication. The client was the Canadian Digital Service . The presentation outlining the basic ideas and […]
Many might sequence systems thinking as (i) systems theory preceding (ii) systems practice. This is not always the case. There are situations where (i) systems practice has preceded (ii) systems theory, or the two advance in a tight learning loop. Jack Ring once pointed out that applied science (engineering) precedes science, because human beings often […]
System thinking, coming from roots in mainstream Western philosophy, tends to orient towards (i) thinking in space, before (ii) thinking in time. Structure is an arrangement in space. Process is an arrangement in time. A critical systems perspective leads us to think about inclusion within boundaries. Does this lead us to overlook boundaries in time? […]
The Systems Changes Learning Circle, formed in January 1999, has since been meeting at least once every 3 weeks. In many respects, the core group has exhibited great patience in our mutual learning towards an agenda of Rethinking Systems Thinking, from talks given in 2012, and published in 2013. In anticipation of a journal article […]
In the 1980s, ecological economics seemed to be mostly economists extending their work towards environmental and resource concerns. In the 2020s, ecological economics is seeing a new generation first schooled in other disciplines such as environmental studies or one of the social sciences, then coming into economics. Programs that encourage the new perspective include the […]
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 ›
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 ›
In this review of a philosophical work written in Chinese, a comparison is made between Chinese philosophy centering on the body, in comparison to Western philosopy centered on the mind. (I found a reference to this book, tracing back from Keekok Lee (2017) Chapter 9, footnote 8.
The translation from English "systems thinking" to French "la pensée systémique" misses meaning. "Approche systémique" has lineage to "Conférences Macy", "General System Theory (Bertalanffy)" and "Gregory Bateson"
When one chooses a guiding philosophy of life -- and the modern world has chosen humanism -- one becomes responsible for all the consequences that flow from that choice. (David W. Ehrenfeld, 1981)
“Rethinking Systems Thinking” (2013) is cited by #DaniloBrozović (U. Skövde), #MarcoTregua (U. Napoli Federico II): The level of complexity in current service ecosystems is rising, not least due to technology (Barile et al., 2020), with the effect of such increased complexity of service ecosystems being perceived as ‘simple’. On the other hand, some systems researchers […]
Jullien views propensity in Chinese philosophy, as a counterpart to causality in Western philosophy. Some unpacking of his writing in digests may be helpful. Jullien, François. 1995. The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Zone Books. Introduction How can we conceive of the dynamic in terms of the static, in […]
In his system of system concepts, Russell Ackoff made the distinction between reformation and transformation in many of his lectures. Here are two written sources. From Redesigining Society (2003) … Systemic Transformation A system is transformed, as contrasted with reformed, when its structure or functions are changed fundamentally. Such changes are discontinuous and qualitative, quantum […]
