Tongji U. College of Design and Innovation: Photo day for Creative Systemic Research Platform, first as the whole team, and then with smaller groups for images that might be used in digital enhancement. Scheduled in a small overlap of travel schedules with people coming in and out of town. In a design school, there’s a professional photography studio, and multiple professional photographers, resources to which I’m unaccustomed. (Tongji University College of Design and Innovation, Fuxin Road, Yangpu, Shanghai, PR China) 20190402Tongji U. College of Design and Innovation: Ph.D. students for Quantitative Methods in Design course requested a reprise visit after formal classes ended last week, to discuss with Professor Yi Heng CHENG, who has been travelling. Having experienced the intensive 3-week course, with two full days of group work preparing for presentation, students said they learned a lot, and actually asked Professor Susu Nousala if the session be longer. The formal course is only one step on the journey for graduate studies, ongoing conversations with the faculty can continue for a lifetime. (Tongji University College of Design and Innovation, Fuxin Road, Yangpu district, Shanghai, PR China) 20190402 Rockbund Art Museum: Tobias Rehberger (2018) “Free Coffee Free Parking Freedom” installation from fifth floor @Rockbund, as part of “If You Don’t Use Your Eyes To See, You Will Use Them To Cry”. Signage embodies an information paradox, where availability without charge may encourage an unrestrained liberty to consume or get more. Our visit coincided with the museum opening for the day, so a rapid visit of 30 minutes with no crowds. (Rockbund Art Museum, Huqiu Rd, Huangpu Qu, Shanghai, PR China) 20190403PVG Terminal 2: Lineup with baggage x-ray is standard not only to enter airport terminal, but also railway station, and even municipal metro. Travel time from French Concession to PVG was 55 minutes with a reserved taxi driver. Another hour added for the building queue, checking in luggage, clearing exit border security, and hand luggage x-ray scan. After 23 days away, looking forward to a return to normalcy at home, after a 12-hour time zone change. (Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Terminal 2, PR China) 20190404Ngoc Yen: Dinner amongst systems sciences research colleagues, organized on 5 hours notice with JR passing through for onward flight tomorrow. Discussed current projects and plans for upcoming conferences, we’ll end up spending more time together outside of Toronto than at home. Unexpected quality Vietnamese food in a suburban industrial district. (Pho Ngoc Yen Restaurant, Kamato Road, Mississauga, Ontario) 20190409Westin Harbour Castle: Open source culture @RedHat says @realmikecardy includes (i) collaboration; (ii) transparency (both access and the ability to act); (iii) shared problems are solved faster; and (iv) working together creates standardization. Red Hat Day on Microservices, Containers, APIs and Integration extends long tradition towards open organizations, consistent with my research on http://openinnovationlearning.com/ (Westin Harbour Castle, Queen’s Quay, Toronto, Ontario) 20190411Woodbine Beach: Big red chair is double-sized, not so functional for relaxing when facing away from the bay. Bright, sunny day attracts pedestrians onto the boardwalk, but it’s still cold enough to wear full-finger gloves on the bicycle. (Woodbine Beach, Toronto, Ontario) 20190413Bill Boyle Artport Gallery: Chair, side table and lamp @HarbourfrontTO brought together as Oscar Kwong (2018-2019) Companions, in mundane functionality and rationality. Drawings on the wall suggest alternative interactions by human beings with the inanimate objects. Part of The View from Here exhibition. (Bill Boyle Artport Gallery, Harbourfront Centre, Queen’s Quay West, Toronto, Ontario) 20190419Bill Boyle Artport Gallery: Inside a glass case @HarbourfrontCentre, Auli Rautiainen (2018) Mutation Series is kiln-formed glass that doesn’t show the gloss or fluidity normally associated with the material. Part of the Nordic Glass exhibition, curators must be rotating the collection over time. (Bill Boyle Artport Gallery, Harbourfront Centre, Queens Quay West, Toronto, Ontario) 20190419Innis Town Hall: Marquis event with #LucySuchman on Apparatuses of Recognition @JHIevents @UofTInfoFaculty Situational awareness criticizing the core doctrine of command and control with (i) the training situation; (ii) remote control to separate the soldier from the combat; and (iii) autonomous weapon systems. Video replay at https://www.facebook.com/iSchoolToronto/videos/342667976597711/ . (Innis Town Hall, University of Toronto, St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20190422Toronto Red Hat Users Group: Understanding evolution of technology via #WojciechSerafin #RHUG #RedHat, with initial pledge to use the term Containers rather than the popular label of Docker. Appreciating implementations of the Open Container Initiative on Linux, with Buildah, Skopeo and Podman. A hint of the future with Quarkus as Kubernetes Native Java. Taking personal responsibility for continuing learning, the world changes. (Toronto Red Hat Users Group, Arctiq, Britain Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20190423Toronto Reference Library: Second day @changepaths @Challengfactory @fernlebo #TheTalentRevolution book launched @torontolibrary, where the authors often met. Five drivers shaping a revolution the world of work: (i) demographics of longevity, with baby boomers; (ii) career ownership, shift in power between employees and employers; (iii) freelance economy, gig mobility; (iv) platform environments, B2B and B2C; (v) AI and robotics, in potential freed up in human impact. Employers have been slow to respond to the changes. (Toronto Reference Library, Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20190424SystemsThinkingTO: Productivity challenge says #BrianWatson @ConestogaC with low GDP per capita growth and part time employment percentage increasing. High rate of youth unemployment in the midst of a national labour shortage. Compared a race of four individuals on a relay, compared with a systems approach of a rugby team responding to obstructions by passing the ball to win. (Systems Thinking TO, Loyalty One, King Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20190425 Royal Ontario Museum: Dinosaur @ROMtoronto called Zuul (face like the monster from 1984 Ghostbusters film), species Destroyer of Shins (crurivastator) with a sledgehammer-like tail. Bony armour, four horns on the skull, preserved skin. Discovered in northern Montana, in badlands near the Alberta border. Galleries are good venue for walking and talking with a friend, closing out a busy week. (Royal Ontario Museum, Queen’s Park, Toronto, Ontario) 20190426George Brown College Waterfront Campus: From 7th floor @GBCollege, statue facing away from Toronto Harbour Eastern Channel. Full Saturday Google GDG Cloud Toronto meetup, with hands-on lab to earn GCP Essential badge. (George Brown College Waterfront Campus, Dockside Drive, Toronto, Ontario) 20190427Lowkong Society: Spring festival dinner for the family clan featuring dancers and singers with the food. Waited until courses 6 and 7 for dishes within vegan constraints, others at the table were nearly full by then. (Dim Sum King, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20190428
Douglas Austrom and Carolyn Ordowich shared some reflections developed jointly with Bert Painter (Vancouver, BC) on some draft humanistic principles, the three Tavistock perspectives, and a meta-methodology with Systems Thinking Ontario. Proponents of Socio-Technical Systems design refer back to the 1960s-1980s research of Fred Emery and Eric Trist of the Tavistock Institute. Calls to reinvent […]
Doug Schuler joined the monthly Systems Thinking Ontario meeting for a conversation about the potential for patterns and pattern languages to help address wicked problems on a large scale, via technology, loose coordination, and social commitments. Doug was exposed to the original A Pattern Language in the mid-1970s. It aimed to generate towns and buildings […]
Literacy has been proposed as an understanding of a small number of pervasive principles appropriate to making informed personal and societal decisions. Systems literacy includes an understanding of systems that influence you, and your influence on systems. Peter Tuddenham has been leading an initiative on Systems Literacy across a variety of systems organizations, particularly with […]
The Creative Systemic Research Platform (CSRP) Institute, led by Susu Nousala and Jelena Sucic, is distinctive in approaching systemic design from a bottom-up, longitudinal perspective. The co-presidents were able to join us in conversation at a Systems Thinking Ontario session, remotely from Finland and Switzerland, at a significant time disadvantage. Many approaches to systemic design […]
To appreciate how systemicists worldwide collaborate, Gary S. Metcalf joined Systems Thinking Ontario for a conversation. Gary served as president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences 2007-2008, and of the International Federation for Sysrtems Research 2010-2016. From 2003 to 2018, he was a graduate instructor in Organizational Systems and Research on the faculty […]
While the term “theory of change” is often used by funders expecting an outcome of systems change for their investment, is there really a theory there? The November 2020 Systems Thinking Ontario session was an opportunity for Peter H. Jones (OCADU) and Ryan J. A. Murphy (Memorial U. of Newfoundland) to extend talks that they […]
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 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 […]
While Ackoff’s definitions of goals, objectives and ideals have been republished (and rewritten) multiple times, the 1972 definitions were derived from his original dissertation work. Accordingly, in addition to the human-readable definitions, some mathematical notation is introduced. — begin paste — OUTCOMES 2.30. End (an immediate intended outcome) of a subject A in a particular […]
The fifth way of knowing, as described by West Churchman, is a Singerian inquiring system. (This fifth way of knowing is more colloquially called Unbounded Systems Thinking in Mitroff and Linstone (1993)). The book On Purposeful Systems (Ackoff and Emery, 1972) was derived by Ackoff’s dissertation that was controversially coauthored with West Churchman. Purpose can […]
Understanding Process-Function Ecology by Ashwani Vasishth leads to luminaries in the systems sciences, including C. West Churchman, Eugene P. Odum and Timothy F.H. Allen.
As an irony, the 2020 book, The Innovation Delusion by #LeeVinsel @STS_News + #AndrewLRussell @RussellProf shouldn’t be seen as an innovation, but an encouragement to join @The_Maintainers where an ongoing thought network can continue. The subtitle “How Our Obsession with the New has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most” recognizes actual innovation, as distinct from […]
An online social network reproduces content partially based on algorithms, and partially based on the judgements made by human beings. Either may be viewed as positive or negative. > The trade-offs came into focus this month [November 2020], when Facebook engineers and data scientists posted the results of a series of experiments called “P(Bad for […]
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