Toronto, Ontario; Gravenhurst, Ontario; Denver, Colorado; Boulder, Colorado; Moline, Illinois; Coralville, Iowa
Fort York: Installation of Bruno Billio (2016) Tri-Mirror Sculpture @FortYork, view eastward into quiet downtown on Canada Day. Families and tourists wandering around historic site late afternoon, watch pipe and drum corps with soldiers marching. Rain earlier in the day left the air clean. (Fort York, Garrison Creek, Toronto, Ontario) 20160701Mill Street Beer Hall: Expected @ESLTrio @MillStBeerHall @TorontoJazzFest, found quartet with the addition of keyboard. Venue full of patrons, but much of audience convened for football game, raising cheers as goals scored. Otherwise, relaxed gig with set list modified for the mood? (Mill Street Beer Hall, Distillery District, Toronto, Ontario) 20160702Nathan Phillips Square: Under concert tent @JoeJacksonMusic piano Graham Maby bass @TorontoJazzFest @NPSToronto could be the last musicians still touring and recording from days before we had kids. Have seen them many times, once near stage within spitting distance. This time, DY and I opted for stools on the plaza, outside the reserved seats. On the cover song for the day, DY recognized Knowing Me Knowing You by the second line, I didn’t know until the chorus, as I’m not an ABBA fan. (Toronto Jazz Festival, Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto, Ontario) 20160702Canadian National Exhibition grounds: Shrine Peace Memorial presented in 1930 to Canada by Shriners, with 1958 surrounding fountain and gardens created by Toronto Parks Department. Faces Lake Shore Boulevard, southeast of the Bandshell and southwest of the Better Living Centre. I’ve been going to the CNE since the 1960s, and this fountain was never on the route between sights. The Shell Tower is in the background. CNE is active only in the last 2 weeks of August. (Shrine Peace Memorial, Canadian National Exhibition grounds, Toronto, Ontario) 20160707McGill Granby Parkette: Tent over @WeAreCairo @DowntownYonge via @CMincubator, but no shelter for audience. Performance cut short after 15 minutes for rain, organizers cautious of water around electrified instruments. Sun came out 30 minutes. Band is writing, not touring, this summer, said next show could be in August. (McGill Granby Parkette, Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20160709Toronto Sculpture Garden: An Te Liu (2015) Animal Vegetable (I) on top of Vegetable Mineral (I), part of six bronze castings in the Sold State installation. First installed with Nuit Blanche 2015 last fall. Waterfall on east wall cooling on a warm summer day. (Toronto Sculpture Garden, King Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20160711Glorious Chinese Cuisine: Early dim sum, food consumed slowly when I’m the youngest one at the table. Extended family convening on weekday, sister visiting town gives reason for everyone to get together. Our sons have their own lives. (Glorious Chinese Cuisine, Kennedy and Denison Centre, Markham, Ontario) 20160713
Beyond city-building as urban planning is the idea of a Music City. This sees development of cultural life across a wide variety of arts, alongside economic benefits brought to the region. At the 119th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario in March 2024, socio-cultural designer Adam Hogan and musician-designer Ziyan Hossain joined moderator Zaid Khan in conversation. […]
Having reached year 6 of an espoused 10-year journey, the Systems Changes Learning Circle is (again) convening monthly Dialogues on Social Innovation at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto. Starting up in 2019, the Circle was convening regularly in the Climate Ventures space at 192 Spadina Avenue. The pandemic interrupted in-person meetings, and the […]
EQ Lab runs Dialogic Drinks, “the kind of philosophical discussion you have in a coffee shop or bar”, twice per week. Wtih this group interested loosely in questions on leadership, I was invited to host an online session on March 12 (evening in Hong Kong and Singapore, really early in Toronto) and on March 14-15 […]
At the 118th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario in February 2024, behavioral scientist Cameron D. Norman and design strategist Tara Campbell were invitied for a conversation guided by Zaid Khan. The panelists are both alumni of the Strategic Foresight and Innovation program at OCADU. Some time ago, they had conducted a research project on evaluation […]
An article on “sciencing and philosophizing”, coauthored by Gary S. Metcalf and myself, has been published in the Journal of the International Society for the Systems Sciences, following the ISSS 2023 Kruger Park conference in South Africa, last July. There’s a version cacned on the Coevolving Commons. This article started in a series of conversations […]
For the January 2024 Systems Thinking Ontario session, educational game designer Scott DeJong and innovation designer Geoff Evamy Hill joined a conversation moderated by Zaid Khan. Mutual interests in the new field of educational design and games were at the core of the discussion. This was an opportunity for systems thinkers to expand their knowledge on […]
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 ›
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 ›
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 […]
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 […]
