Las Vegas, NV; San Jose, CA; Alameda, CA; Palo Alto, CA; Vancouver, BC; Toronto, Ontario.
Opera Las Vegas Venetian. Encountered opera in St. Mark’s Square of the Venetian Hotel, Carnevale di Venezia. Arrived in time to hear the singing of Arrivederci. Since I’m not a fan of opera, the last few minutes was enough. (Las Vegas, NV) 20120503 1421Almaden chair sculptures. On walk outside IBM Almaden building with @jimspohrer, art installation of chairs with high backs and singing wires. Better to walk and talk on a warm spring day, than spend the hour in the office (San Jose, CA) 20120504 0957Oakland runway end. Marshes of Alameda at the northwest end of Oakland Airport, with Bay Bridge in the distance. Hotel room has view of jets way taking off, amidst waterfowl nesting below. Was impressed at nearby Victorian homes in Alameda, crossed a lot of bridges to reach hotel. (Alameda, CA) 20120505 0825SJSU fountain. Walked SJSU campus in anticipation of ISSS 2012 in July. Being there surfaces insights that viewing maps online doesn’t. Fountain at the intersection of Paseo de San Carlos and S. 7th St. is a landmark in the middle of campus (San Jose, California) 20120505 1543Palo Alto Farmers Market. Mammoth artichokes at California Avenue Farmer’s Market, with @warstrekkid nephew Kevin on an early Sunday morning. Practically everything seems organic, much sourced from Watsonville nearby. Troubles of the world seem so far away. (Palo Alto, California) 20120506 0913Seabus delay. Minor delay for Seabus southbound, as tugboat pulls crane past ferry dock. Not exactly the traffic congestion that I experience on the commute back home. (Vancouver, BC) 20120507 1216Seaplane commute. Some had a morning commute by seaplane from the Vancouver Coal Harbour Seaplane Base. I’ll be on the Seabus, later (Vancouver, BC) 20120517 0738Pine Hills Cemetery. Annual visit of the Low Kong Society to the Ing monument at Pine Hills Cemetery. Usual offering of scotch and burning hell money. I wonder what beverage might be spilled for a non-drinker. (Scarborough, ON) 20120520 1342Liquid Art Painted Van. Art by @kustaasaksi and @heliosdesignlab for #MolsonM_Art funding @Cdn_Art_Fdn installed on King St. E. parking lot. Theme extends to background mural. Story described in Strategy magazine. (Toronto) 20120523 1845Liquid Art Mural. Mural signed by @kustaasaksi as part of #MolsonM_Art funding @Cdn_Art_Fdn installation on King St. E. parking lot. Painted van was added after mural was complated. Story described in Strategy magazine. (Toronto) 20120523 1846
Airport Klezmer on Flickr. Lemon Bucket Orkestra group at baggage claim carrying tuba, guitar, clarinet, etc., starting playing klezmer exiting into arrivals hall at Pearson Airport Terminal 1. Not just one song, they played many. Audience included professional videographers (Toronto) 20120531 2115
Digging into philosophies underlying the systems sciences, pragmatism seems to have been a strong historical foundation for some research streams. In ongoing discussions, Gary Metcalf and I have been approaching pragmatism from two directions. Gary has been tracking from mid-1800s forward, listening to the audiobook The Metaphysical Club, with a history of figures living through […]
The ties between systems thinking and pragmatism are apparently strong, but the breadth in the philosophy of pragmatism can be confusing. Within the tradition, one of the threads is called nonrelativistic pragmatism, proposed by systems luminaries C. West Churchman with Russell L. Ackoff, descending from the work of philosopher Edgar A. Singer, Jr. A concise […]
A luminary in the systems movement, C. West Churchman, showed some respect for Chinese philosophy, with the I Ching (Yi Jing) in particular. Deborah Hammond was encouraged by West Churchman into joining and becoming a historian of the systems movement. In her 2003 book, Hammond wrote of her conversations with Churchman, back into his days […]
The 1969 publication of Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, edited by Fred E. Emery as a Penguin Modern Management paperback, can be regarded as a milestone. The articles date from the 1940s to the 1960s, when the first wave of systems thinking was on the rise. For the June session of Systems Thinking Ontario, we stepped […]
Within the Systems Thinking Ontario community, we were fortunate to have Nenad Rava step up to explain how the Sustainable Development Goals came to be, and relate them to systems change. This May session of Systems Thinking Ontario was a quick follow-on for the March edition on Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the SDGs. […]
The book Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the Sustainable Development Goals, published in 2002 by Routledge, was released as open access in 2023 by Taylor-Francis for readers who don’t have access to a university library. For the March edition of Systems Thinking Ontario, we were honoured to celebrate the release with editor-coauthors Kaitlin Kish […]
Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
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 ›
The selection of readings in the “Introduction” to Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2, Penguin (1981), edited by Fred E. Emery, reflects a turn from 1969 when a general systems theory was more fully entertained, towards an urgency towards changes in the world that were present in 1981. Systems thinking was again emphasized in contrast […]
In reviewing the original introduction for Systems Thinking: Selected Readings in the 1969 Penguin paperback, there’s a few threads that I only recognize, many years later. The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings. — begin paste — Introduction In the selection of papers for this […]
In a recording of the debate between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael C. Jackson on “Systems Concepts in Evaluation”, Patton referenced four concepts published in the “Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation” (2018) by the Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (SETIG) of the American Evaluation Society. The four concepts are: (i) […]
How might the quality of an action research initiative be evaluated? — begin paste — We have linked our five validity criteria (outcome, process, democratic, catalytic, and dialogic) to the goals of action research. Most traditions of action research agree on the following goals: (a) the generation of new knowledge, (b) the achievement of action-oriented […]
After 90 minutes on phone and online chat with WesternUnion, the existence of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland is denied, so I can’t send money from Canada. TicinoTurismo should be unhappy. The IT developers at Western Union should be dissatisfied that customer support agents aren’t sending them legitimate bug reports I initially tried the […]
