Toronto, Ontario; Santa Clara, California; Milpitas, California; San Jose, California; Oakland, California; Hayward, California; Mountain View, California; Palo Alto, California; San Francisco, California; Mountain View, California; Half Moon Bay, California, Pescadero, California; Santa Cruz, California; Tokyo, Japan
Toronto, Ontario; Santa Clara, California; Milpitas, California; San Jose, California; Oakland, California; Hayward, California; Mountain View, California; Palo Alto, California; San Francisco, California; Mountain View, California; Half Moon Bay, California, Pescadero, California; Santa Cruz, California; Tokyo, Japan
Woodgreen Church: Rear view of facade facing Queen Street shows steeple and stained glass windows as last to be demolished in lot from Booth Avenue to Logan Avenue. Our laneway that dead ends to the north is usually still open, with a hazard tape strung across the path periodically. (Woodgreen Church, Queen Street East, Riverside district, Toronto, Ontario) 20170307Fu Yao: Found Job’s tears, definitively marked as coix seeds, in bulk quantities at my local Chinese supermarket. It’s a gluten-free substitute for barley, packaged in small quantities labelled as “barley” or “pearl barley” as 薏仁 / 薏米 (yì rén / yì mí). Job’s tears are rounder than barley, and have a brown groove on one side. The bulk bin correct labelling was more reassuring. (Fu Yao, Gerrard Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20170307OCADU Richmond: Warmup @redesign @OCADU_SFI Understanding Systems & Systemic Design class. I lectured on “Service Systems Thinking: Reflecting on acts of representation” for 90 minutes, covering 4 of 5 sections to the full-time cohort. Same slides tomorrow for the part-time cohort, we’ll see if we cover more (or less). Slides at http://coevolving.com/commons/20170308_ocadu_service-systems-thinking, audio recording should be uploaded in a few weeks. (OCAD University, 205 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20170308OCADU Richmond: Intro by Jeremy Bowes @OCADU_SFI Understanding Systems & Systemic Design class. Sames slides as yesterday, part-time students challenged me for more clarity, took break for full brains after 75 minutes. Another 20 minutes to finish up 4th section, and then a few questions. Class would have benefited by stepping through some real-life use of the structured form for service-systems thinking, we’ll have to think about more workshop time in future presentations. (OCAD University, 205 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20170309AC759: Seat 17D on an Air Canada Airbus A319 is behind a jump seat, and doesn’t have a screen to watch movies. Since the flight arrives at SFO at 2:30 a.m. Toronto time, maybe this is a signal that I should sleep. (AC759, Toronto Pearson International Airport) 20170310Santa Clara Produce: Down-to-earth greengrocer, sampling local apples and pears by walking around offering slices off a knife. California produce, Lebanese packaged goods, Vietnamese baguettes. We chose flatbreads: lavash, and flour tortillas. AHI bought a whole jackfruit for an afternoon barbeque with a new Latin dance group, he’s sure to make an impression. Store ownership changed hands in fall 2016, renovations were noticed. (Santa Clara Produce, Scott Boulevard, Santa Clara, California) 20170311
Another eight days in Tokyo, for work plus sightseeing, also serving as a tour guide for Roy.
I’ve been in Tokyo for over a week every year since 2007, so I know the city sights well. This 2010 trip saw me serving as a tour guide for Roy (who came on the same plane as me from Toronto), as well the many of the other visiting researchers. On the first night, Sunday, the group convened at the usual hotel near Tamachi station. We randomly chose a pub, where we puzzled through a Japanese menu and ended up ordering a hotpot from a waiter who spoke no English.
Early Monday morning, we took the train over to the Tsukiji market. Coming by a different route than before, we encountered a temple where businessmen were making offerings.
In mid-morning, some of the tuna were still in recognizable forms, with fishmongers rapidly creating portions with saws and knives.
On this visit, I discovered the reason that some tuna are called yellowfin. These had a yellow fin smaller than a thumbnail.
We were lucky to see the Meiji Jingu (Shinto Shrine) by Harajuku station, with the coincidence of seeing a wedding procession in progress.
I’ve been to the Harajuku district on every trip to Tokyo, and somehow managed to arrive at the Meiji Jingu at times when the gates are closed. This time, Marianne and I found the gates to the garden open.
I guess that Saturday afternoon is a good bet for families to visit the gardens.
As we entered the gardens walking north, I enjoyed the view of the brook to the side.
The park honours the Emperor Meji who passed away in 1912, and is interred in Kyoto. The view of the long, tree-covered walk is impressive.
The Meiji period was seen as enlightened one, when the emperor enjoyed western food and took wine with it. Wineries in Bourgogne, France, consecrated these barrels in the emperor’s honour. Continue reading “2009/02/28 Meiji Jingu, Shinto Shrine, Tokyo“
We went to the observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building, and then walked through Shinjuku.
The view from observatories at the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building is recommended around sunset … and it’s free. This building is towards the west side of Tokyo, so looking out that window shows a few skyscrapers in the foreground, with shorter buildings fading into the horizon.
Looking north and east at dusk, the distance from the Shinjuku district to the harbour was too great to see any water.
The NTT InterCommunication Center and Art Gallery at the Tokyo Opera City complex are fun for kids of all ages.
After the art gallery focused on the last century, we took the subway over to Opera City. After riding a series of escalators up, we found the NTT InterCommunication Center. Beyond the usual WIMP — Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer — interface, there were much larger scale devices to interact with computers. Some displays were by computer science students, and there were even some from the HCI scientists at IBM Research. The guides didn’t permit photographs in the main galleries, but encouraged us to take pictures in the kids’ area. Diana and I took turns crossing the bridge, causing ripples in the projected “water” underneath.
On one of the large screen interactions had us bouncing bubbles up, before they hit the ground.
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 […]
