Mississauga, Ontario; Toronto, Ontario
Heartland neighbourhood: Annual Superbowl ritual featuring hamburgers grilled outside, cold but not blizzard conditions this year. Broke vegan regime as indulgence with family. Larger attendance of millennials this year, some boomer regulars cancelled last minute due to colds. (Heartland neighbourhood, Mississauaga, Ontario) 20200202Celebration of Life: Leaving long message at memorial for a friend who passed away in October. DY was a few years ahead of Mary at the same primary and high schools in Vancouver, and only got to know her through PY in Toronto. Honoured by her relatives flying into for the occasion, and coworkers relating stories of adventurous career in documentaries and journalism. (90 Broadview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20200208Riverside neighbourhood: Sparkler means no candles to blow out. Departing from usual cake to accommodate preferences, donuts are less sweet, and the banana bread is even less. Packaging says plant-based, gluten-free, peanut-free, nut-free, dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free and sesame-free, leaving us wondering what ingredients could potentially still be on the list. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20200211Factory Theatre: Coming down from tiered set for bows, #ftLadySunrise @FactoryToronto update by @magicalmudge to 2005 Vancouver sees societal similarities to #CaoYu original 1936 Chinese-language play set in Shanghai. Shallow, dislikeable female characters made even less sympathetic as competitive amongst themselves, with no men cast in the production. Quite a contrast to the conventional portrayal of Asian women as passive and graceful. (Factory Theatre, Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20200218Riverside neighbourhood: Professional delivery of a new refrigerator, and old one hauled away, at home. Deliveryman had tape measure to check entry, asked for a hammer, and then removed door to accommodate width. We had cleared hallway, EKI and I took a few extra moments to finishing emptying contents, mostly onto our back deck in a Canadian winter day before freezing. Evokes memories of myself doing refrigerator deliveries for Kent Tv in Gravenhurst, in the 1970s. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20200219Woodbine Beach: Art installation of recycled sailcloth stuffed with straw #NoodleFeed @iheartblob attracts children @winterstations on a clear, bright day above the freezing point. Some took off their boots, others jumped with them on. First bicycling day in a while, wind felt heavy travelling east and then back west. (Woodbine Beach, Toronto, Ontario) 20200223SystemsThinkingTO: Relaunch of #SystemsThinking TO @acojoaca @CatarinavM_TO meetup, guiding conversation through #GarethMorgan #ImagesOfOrganization handout http://coevolving.com/commons/20200225-stto-imagesoforganization towards reframing metaphors. Fishbowl for 15-minutes, then breakout into small groups, ending with debriefings. Participant reported enjoying opportunity for dialogue, collectively making sense of ideas. Closed out session with plans for next monthly meeting, format will evolve with experience. (SystemsThinkingTO, Loyalty One, King Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20200225 photo by CatvM
Very Fine Seafood Cuisine: Sister coming to town reserved time for family dinner. Ten courses with Peking duck, multiple fish dishes, and vegan selections. Joking about fusion tendencies, cranberries with duck, roasted potatoes with beef, lobster deep fried. Other local family out of town, otherwise we would have needed two banquet tables. (Very Fine Seafood Cuisine, Milliken Boulevard, Scarborough, Ontario) 20200229
With the distinction made between pattern language and form language, a broader vision of the "life" sought by Christopher Alexander has led me through General Systems Theory into R-theory.
The fourth of four lectures for the Systemic Design course at OCADU SFI focused on (a) situated practice + history-making (reframing disclosing new worlds), and on (b) commitments and the language-action perspective (applying conversations for action).
The third of four lectures for the Systemic Design course at OCADU covered value(s), the science of service systems, and the socio-technical systems perspective.
A lecture on ecological systems for the OCADU SFI master's program opened up opportunities to discuss wei and wuwei, and get beyond an anthropocentric perspective the Canadian beaver in its habitat.
The second session of the Systemic Design course in the OCADU SFI master's program was an opportunity to share the current state of knowledge on Systems Change, in light of recent interest in Systems Change and Theory of Change.
A workshop with David L. Hawk at the CANSEE meeting in May 2019 led to an invitation to publish an article, "Ecology and Economy: Systems Changes Ahead?" in WEI Magazine.
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".
