Toronto, Ontario
Tollkeepers Park: Canoe unexpectedly found in park in Humewood neighbourhood, part of the #Butterflyway @DavidSuzukiFDN project installed in 2017, natural habitats for bees and butterflies. Park has cottage from the 1850s, in use when roads had tolls for travellers on horseback or on wagons. Grass is following the unkempt trend, as city services are limited during social isolation. (Tollkeeper’s Park, Bathurst Street at Davenport Road, Toronto, Ontario) 20200505The Silver Mill: Strangely shaped 3-storey former wooden-crib grain elevator from 1906, beside a former flour/grist mill on dead end road just north of railway tracks in east end of the city. Building was used as a transdisciplinary arts centre, with municipal art organization vacating the premises in 2018. Signage now minimized, redevelopment into a new high rise complex that will connect to the Danforth Go Train terminal was in council in 2019. (The Silver Mill, 10 Dawes Road, East York, Toronto, Ontario) 20200512Riverdale Farm: One of three sheep in the pen, all in need of shearing. Hair wet from recent rainstorm, temperature rising to spring normals from the record low frost warnings the past evenings. Starting route northbound on Lower Don River Trail and found unpaved sections with big puddles. Opted to push the bike up one set of stairs, ride west downhill, and then push up again into the park. (Riverdale Farm, Winchester Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20200515Ashbridges Bay East Breakwater: Rocky berm shore onto Lake Ontario put in place to control sediment from the west, maintained by regional conservation authority. The park is on lands historically a marsh. Saw a couple lounging by the point, amongst the many cyclists and pedestrians enjoying spring temperatures. Still too cool for beachwear, with strong winds from the east. (Ashbridges Bay East Breakwater, Lakeshore Boulevard East, Toronto, Ontario) 20200520Riverside neighbourhood: Restored cover on backyard gazebo, spring is turning into summer. Trimmed with accent lights for atmosphere after dark. Potential for social visits with physical distancing, if guests come via the laneway. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 201200523
Kadampa Meditation Centre: Bicycling along residential streets in Little Italy, wasn’t expecting to find a temple for Modern Buddhism. Gilded panels on facade reflecting glare with the late afternoon son. About 90 years ago, this was a Ukranian church before the congregation moved, the use in intervening years isn’t readily apparent. (Kadampa Meditation Centre, Crawford Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20200530
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 […]
