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
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 […]
For the third of three workshops by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in October 2020, Kelly Okamura, Dan Eng and Joanne Dong led a Beacon Event for Global Change Days. This session was one in a series for global changemakers. Our expectation was that they would be hands-on practitioners, with relatively low familiarity with systems […]
For the second of three workshops by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in October 2020, we convened a session for the monthly Systems Thinking Ontario meeting. The focus of this workshop was a review of progress to date on methods by the scholarly team, informed by the adoption and use by the field team. The […]
For the first of three workshops by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in October 2020, Zaid Khan led a session for the Relating Systems Thinking and Design RSD9 Symposium. Our team had developed a set of reference slides for the three workshops, from which content that would most resonate with the audience could be selected. […]
Two Major Research Projects (MRPs) — they might be called master’s theses elsewhere — by Zaid Khan and David Akermanis reflect the Systemic Design agenda within the OCADU program on Strategic Foresight and Innovation (SFI). To graduate, all SFI students complete an MRP. With many subjects and techniques covered during SFI studies, only a […]
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 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 ›
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 […]
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).
