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 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 […]
One of the challenges with the development of pattern languages is the cross-appropriation of approaches of techniques from one domain (i.e. built physical environments) into others (e.g. software development, social change). The distinction between pattern language and form language is made by Nikos Salingaros. Design in architecture and urbanism is guided by two distinct complementary […]
The 1995 article by Spinosa, Flores & Dreyfus on “Disclosing New Worlds” was assigned reading preceding the fourth of four lectures for the Systemic Design course in the Master’s program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at OCAD University. In previous years, this topic was a detail practically undiscussed, as digging into social theory and the phenomenology […]
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 ›
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).
While many outside of the field of architecture like the #ChristopherAlexander #PatternLanguage approach, it's not so well accepted by his peers. A summary of criticisms by #MichaelJDawes and #MichaelJOstwald @UNSWBuiltEnv is helpful in appreciating when the use of pattern language might be appropriate or not appropriate.
Systems thinking should include not only thinking about the system, but also its environment. Using the term "field" as the system of interest plus its influences leaves a lot of the world uncovered. From the multiple definitions in the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics , there is variety of ways of understanding "field".
