Long winter season with teaching and conferences, some breaks for nightclub, outdoor for rally and beach sculptures.
Toronto, Ontario
Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building: Assisting in 3-hour Soft Systems Methodology exercise with students sketching at whiteboards in Designing for Future Systems course at York University. Followed an hour lecturing on the traditions in systems thinking, and the research our team has been doing since 2019. Long transit connection from Riverside neighbourhood to University Heights, remembering that third son commuted for four years before the subway was completed. (Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building, The Pond Road, York University, Toronto, Ontario) 20250304
The Goldfarb Gallery: Airbrush on crepe de chine suspended from ceiling, #MaryamTaghavi (2023) Horizon Series, Michigan 2, 3, 4, 5 hang, still so motion is introduced by observers. Artist draws from traditions in Islamic calligraphy and Persian architecture. Gallery takes advantage of large space available on suburban campus between two buildings housing the School of the Arts, Media, Performance, and Design), a luxury compared to universities downtown. (The Goldfarb Gallery, Accolade East Building, York University, Toronto, Ontario) 20250304
Full House Chinese Cuisine: Mango cream cake after dim sum to celebrate birthday that officially appears on immigration papers. Actual age on lunar calendar may place father a year older. Followed lunch with four rounds of mahjong, back at the retirement home. (Full House Chinese Cuisine, Finch Avenue East, Scarborough, Ontario) 20250309
Mahjong Bar: Couples night out to catch first DJ set. Not our usual scene. We each tried one of the recommended mocktails. (Mahjong Bar, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20250313
Mahjong Bar: Premiere DJ set by @TheloniusPoon. Musically trained, now twisting knobs. Busy Thursday night, crowd celebrating friend’s birthday. (Mahjong Bar, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20250313 #TheloniusPoon
OCADU Graduate Programs: Guest lecture by @zaid___khan relating continuing learning of #SystemsThinking since graduating @OCADU_SFI , in class led by @xformbydesign . Single-minded takeway is TIME FIRST, SPACE SECOND. Slide deck titled Thinking with Time: A Brief Introduction to #SystemsChangesLearning (OCADU Graduate Programs, Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20250319Pape Village: Family dinner including god-uncles who have seen our sons grow up from infancy. Cross-cultural experience, comparing journeys in travels to Asia. Invitation was extended twice, due to inconvenient minor illnesses conflicting with plans. (Pape Village, Broadview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20250320Nathan Phillips Square: Address by @MayorOliviaChow at #ElbowsUp Canada rally celebrating Canada’s strength, unity, and resilience, in response to U.S. president commenting on a 51st state. The term Elbows Up came from the hockey tactic of Gordie Howe protecting himself. Thousands of attendees with children and pets came out as the temperature dropped to near-freezing. (Nathan Phillips Square, Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20250322
Woodbine Beach: Cloudy, windy day to view Solair (2025) installation designed by Toronto Metropolitan University Department of Architectural Science @dastorontomet . Laser cutting, 3D printing, CNC @tmudaslabs . Arrived towards dusk, but no bright sunlight to get a reflection effect. (Woodbine Beach, Lake Shore Boulevard East, Toronto, Ontario) 20250325
Woodbine Beach: Geometric #WinterStations#JesseBeus (2025) Parade, celebrates self-acceptance of distinctiveness. Named Boxy (red), Slippy (orange), Sunny (yellow), Jadey) green, Shady (blue), and Big Purp (purpole). Extra support of the last shape may have resulted from shifting sands? (Woodbine Beach, Lake Shore Boulevard East, Toronto, Ontario) 20250325Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre: Parallel workshop on Why Not Wait? What is the Pace of Your Change? by #DanEng + #EvgenyaNee at Toronto #ChangeDays. Exercised first half of #SystemsChanges framework in 90 minutes. Small group discussions were rich, some participants will complete the approach in subsequent meetings. (Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, Sakura Way, Toronto, Ontario) 20250329
Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre: At Toronto #ChangeDays, small clusters were formed after a gallery walk viewing a variety of figures drawn on flip charts, self-selecting an affinity group. Incomplete petal form attracted #EvgenyaNee, #FrankRossDiMatteo, #AeenAlavi + #DavidIng, and we sketched additional shapes and lines reflecting our thoughts. On second day, all participants reviewed the progress, and left post-notes with their impressions. (Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, Sakura Way, Toronto, Ontario) 20250330
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 […]
The 125th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario coincided with the closing day for the RSD13-RSDX online program. As a regular systems convening group, we’ve had monthly meetings since January 2013. Zaid Khan moderated a discussion including me (David Ing), Tim Lloyd, Allenna Leonard, and Kelly Okamura. We recollected starting as a spinoff from Design with […]
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 ›
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 […]
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 […]
