Helsinki; Finland; London, England; Dublin, Ireland; Toronto, Ontario; Fairfield, Iowa
Mei Lin: Lunch to catch up on news with Satu in advance of teaching class at Metropolia tomorrow. Students are mid-career professionals interested in practical international experiences, as tighter university budgets mean fewer lecturers from abroad. Industrial Management program will move from historic Bulevardi building out to Leppävaara campus in 2018. Chinese cuisine from Chongqing region included cumin lamb, unusual. (Mei Lin, Lönnrotinkatu, Helsinki, Finland) 20161201Juttutupa: Meetup with some 2nd year students from the Systems Thinking 2 February class, and a few more from the 1st year of the master’s program in Creative Sustainability. Glad to hear that knowledge they gained was useful in subsequent studies, as they then explain concepts to other group team members who didn’t take this session of the intensive course. This restaurant a quieter place to talk, until an excellent band started playing after 8 p.m.. (Juttutupa, Säästöpankinranta, Helsinki, Finland) 20161201Metropolia U., Bulevardi campus: Lectured in Industrial Management master’s program, collaborating on generative pattern language writing for an hour, after 90 minutes of lecture. Students are mostly working professionals with practical experience, so we jointly felt our way through using the format for service systems thinking. We’ve come a long way since the program was initiated in 2006. (Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Bulevardi, Helsinki, Finland) 20161202Kiasma: Brian Eno (1999) Memory Flowers is 16 speakers facing upwards on stems, playing ambient music. First shown in 2000 in a solo show, brought out of storage for Kiasma Collection Exhibition. Emmi and J.P. came in late afternoon for the first Friday of the month free admission, well-timed to avoid the 5 pm crush at the coat check. (Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Mannerheiminaukio, Helsinki, Finland) 20161202Vanha Kauppahalli: Buying salmon in the same way that Finns have since 1889 when the Old Market Hall opened. Also bought little fried vendace at the next stall, to be used in an appetizer. Saturday afternoon sees a lot of tourist visitors, many eating salmon soup facing out from the renovated stalls to become part of the scenery (Kalakauppa E. Eriksson, Vanha Kauppahalli, Eteläranta, Helsinki, Finland) 20161203Lapinlahdenkatu: Dinner with all Finnish ingredients (unless the salmon came from Norway). Discussed 2016 as a transitional year with lots of change, released now positively towards 2017. Missu the cat hid for most of the dinner, either not enjoying the streaming jazz, or suspicious that the catsitter would take him away. (Lapinlahdenkatu, Helsinki, Finland) 20161203Moomin Shop, Helsinki Airport T2: Looked at plush toy, saw “Design from Finland” but no country of manufacture. Phoned to wake up DY at 4 a.m. Toronto time to ask if 15cm 100% polyester figure was worth the money, she said no. Suggested Moomin shopping bags hanging outside, with tags saying Made in PRC, DY declined. On walk back to T1, noticed Moomin troll toys also available in the duty free shop. Not a motivated shopper today. (Moomin Store, Gates 26-27, Terminal 2, Helsinki Vantaa Airport) 20161205Niven’s: From online The Ecology of Systems Thinking group to meeting in person, PJ came for a coffee, talking while watching me eat a full English breakfast. Worked through jams of orange marmalade vanilla, raspberry rose, blood orange marmalade, pear. Discussed history of science within the systems thinking community and the variety of notable figures, up to current day theoreticians and practitioners. (Niven’s, King Cross Road, London, England) 20161206
Flower heads looking dishevelled on cold spring day with #RiverdaleArtWalk organized by #ArtistsNetwork. No rain, but many people were donning hats, toques, and gloves. Lots of baby strollers and dogs on leash. (Jimmie Simpson Park, Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20250531
Community event #ActorsSocial coinciding with Asian Heritage month, casual backroom stage with mirror revealing audience. Script by #PhyllisCameronUng originally written as a 48-hour challenge for 3 male actors. Story of brothers missing sister. (Society Clubhouse, College Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20250528
Cabbagetown Farmers Market on Tuesday afternoons. Easy stroll through local produce and food vendors. Spring temperatures see shoppers without jackets, and in shorts. (Riverdale Park West, Winchester Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20250527
Exploring the Chinese Canadian Archives at UToronto with #JuneChow and #MorrisLum. Permitted handling of maps, photos and brochures from geographer David Chuenyan Lai collection from U. Victoria, on Chinatowns across Canada, if hands were washed. Current research into Dragon Centre mall opened in Agincourt in 1984, now in decline with review for redevelopment. (Thomas Fisher […]
Second floor Sala Da Pranzo @Doors_OpenTO used to be main courtroom of Adelaide Street Courthouse (1853 - 1900). View from third floor Il Covo Degli Artisti, originally home for Arts and Letter Club (1910-1920). Jail cells in basement now wine cellar, and a women's washroom. (Terroni, Adelaide Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20240524
n shed at foot of Jarvis Street on harbour, stockpiles of raw sugar at @Doors_OpenTO . Ships from Honduras and Brasil sail up St. Lawrence River, unloading 7 tonnes at a time. Conveyors over and under transport material to other buildings, separating white crystals from molasses syrup. (Redpath Sugar Refinery Queens Quay East, Toronto, ontario) […]
On Friday May 23rd 2025, the Ceol Kids band played the top 25 tunes selected by donations. https://www.leespalace.com/event/ceol-kids-fundraiser Ceol Kids is a diverse group of musicians who came together for a surprise party a few years ago. The plan was to take 30 random songs from the ipod of the guest of honour, and perform […]
On Friday May 23rd 2025, the Ceol Kids band played the top 25 tunes selected by donations. https://www.leespalace.com/event/ceol-kids-fundraiser Ceol Kids is a diverse group of musicians who came together for a surprise party a few years ago. The plan was to take 30 random songs from the ipod of the guest of honour, and perform […]
On Friday May 23rd 2025, the Ceol Kids band played the top 25 tunes selected by donations. https://www.leespalace.com/event/ceol-kids-fundraiser Ceol Kids is a diverse group of musicians who came together for a surprise party a few years ago. The plan was to take 30 random songs from the ipod of the guest of honour, and perform […]
On Friday May 23rd 2025, the Ceol Kids band played the top 25 tunes selected by donations. https://www.leespalace.com/event/ceol-kids-fundraiser Ceol Kids is a diverse group of musicians who came together for a surprise party a few years ago. The plan was to take 30 random songs from the ipod of the guest of honour, and perform […]
At the post-meeting dinner after the February Systems Thinking Ontario session, Anna Chekhman mentioned that she was teaching a third-year course on Designing Future Systems at York University. I offered to give a lecture, and we set a date for a few weeks later. The CSRP Institute 2024 Banathy Conversation validated that the Systems Changes […]
Two years after submitting an academic manuscript and responding to double-blind reviews, “Rethinking work, with the pandemic disruption” has now been published in the International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior (IJOTB) as earlycite. The article has a DOI (Document Object Identifier), and should be streamed with an official volume and issue number soon. The […]
The 128th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario was convened in person. The classroom was filled with current students, alumni, our regular participants, and a few curious newcomers. Moderated by Zaid Khan, the conversation was sparked by Stephen Davies and myself (David Ing) on the evolving styles in learning systems thinking. Stephen has been leading SFIN-6011 […]
The “Understanding Systems” SFIN-6011 course is a requirement in the master’s program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at OCADU. For winter 2025, the class is now led by Stephen Davies, breaking the incremental evolving of content since 2008. While still on faculty at OCADU, the original course designer Peter H. Jones is now a Distinguished […]
In the 1970s, five ways of knowing were established by C. West Churchman in The Design of Inquiring Systtems. In the 1990s, his student Ian Mitroff carried on the tradition and extended that work in The Unbounded Mind. Now in the 2020s, the technology of Generative AI opens up opportunties to query or request responses […]
For readers with an interest deeper than the 15-minute presentation given in August, the Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Socio-Technical Perspectives in Information Systems (STPIS 2024) have now been formally publishied. The invited paper on “Reifying Socio-Technical and Socio-Ecological Perspectives for Systems Changes: From rearranging objects to repacing rhythms” was reviewed by the […]
Rhythm and pitch are primordial to language. Susan Rogers, after a career becoming Prince's recording engineer, turned to complete a PhD in psychology focused on music cognition and psychoacoustics.Read more ›
David L. Hawk (American management theorist, architect, and systems scientist) has been hosting a weekly television show broadcast on Bold Brave Tv from the New York area on Wednesdays 6pm ET, remotely from his home in Iowa. Live, callers can join…Read more ›
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 ›
Timothy F.H. Allen, president of International Society for the Systems Sciences 2008-2009, passed away peacefully in his home, surrounded by his family, on May 1, 2025. With his work on ecosystem ecology, I learned more about living systems than anyone else in the systems community. After his retirement, he was proud of putting together a […]
In 2024, WordPress Studio was released, making installation on a local computer simpler. The instructions were modified from MacOS to Ubuntu Linux, by Daniel Kossmann, “How to install WordPress Studio in Ubuntu Linux” | Jun 15, 2024 at https://www.danielkossmann.com/how-to-install-wordpress-studio-ubuntu-linux/ I already had NVM installed, but in Terminal, with the result “command not found”. In the […]
The appreciation of change is different in Western philosophy than in classical Chinese philosophy. JeeLoo Lin published a concise contrast on differences. Let me parse the Introduction to the journal article, that is so clearly written. The Chinese theory of time is built into a language that is tenseless. The Yijing (Book of Changes) there […]
In trying to place the World Hypotheses work of Stephen C. Pepper (with multiple root metaphors), Nicholas Rescher provides a helpful positioning. — begin paste — Philosophical perspectivism maintains that substantive philosophical positions can be maintained only from a “perspective” of some sort. But what sort? Clearly different sorts of perspectives can be conceived of, […]
Finding proper words to express system(s) change(s) can be a challenge. One alternative could be diachrony. The Oxford English dictionary provides two definitions for diachronic, the first one most generally related to time. (The second is linguistic method) diachronic ADJECTIVE Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic (adj.), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3691792233. For completeness, prochronic relates “to […]
