An indoor start to the year, with the combination of cold weather and pandemic restrictions coincident with writing a journal article to deadline at the end of the month.
Toronto, Ontario
Pearson International Airport Terminal: Drop off for evening flight on Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, to meet with clients in celebration, travelling with one big suitcase. Departures area saw cars triple-parked, either for the last Sunday of the holiday season, or the first Sunday of the new year. He was at home while we were travelling for a week, now our third floor will be quite for a week. (Pearson International Airport Terminal 1, Toronto, Ontario) 20220102Toronto Chinese Archway: Diagaonally from Hubbard Park, the gate to East Chinatown is framed by lamp posts and overhead electrical wires. Landmark unveiled in 2009 is on the northwest side of the district, so I don’t normally see it when I come shopping in the area. Bright clear winter day correlates with cold temperature, Riverdale Library was open for service. (Toronto Chinese Archway, Hamilton Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20220108
Riverside neighbourhood: Natural sculpture in back yard, with well-anticipated snowfall of 35cm overnight for 8 hours. Mayor asked citizens to stay home so that ploughs could clear roads, while planned in-person school attendance was deferred into online learning becoming a snow day. Opportunity for outdoor exercise, shovelling in back and front of house for a few hours, levelling out snowbank tops to reduce the height of peaks. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20220117
Reduced exercise outside with a cold and snowy February, with excursions out of the house to warm places with family, friends and colleagues.
Toronto, Ontario
Heartland: Annual Superbowl party, a tradition running back decades to years when our children were toddlers. Some familiar faces, and we’re drawing in new friends every year. Arrived in time to watch the backyard barbeque operating in above-freezing temperatures. (Heartland, Mississauga, Ontario) 20190203Mozilla: Kickoff meeting for #P2P #DWeb Toronto, hosted by @dcwalk_, group comfortable in the couches @mocotoOH. Presentations on #FederatedWiki #FriefunkLeverkusen #Fediverse drew conversations on building smaller communities of interest, with privileges and responsibilities of conscious governance. (Peer-to-peer and Decentralized Web Toronto, Mozilla, Adelaide Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20190207Royal Myanmar: Dinner with @StallmanRM @FSF inviting the activists @CivicTechTO to gain some insight into discussions on privacy concerns @QuaysideToronto, We outlined but didn’t delve into the complexity of three levels of government involved in @WaterfrontTO. #RichardStallman enjoys diverse cuisines in the variety of cities he visits, with commutes to obscure locations a minor inconvenience. (Royal Myanmar, Horner Avenue, Etobicoke, Ontario) 20190208 CC-BY David Ing 2019Lalibela: Ethiopian lunch means eating without cutlery, and using fingers. Relaxed Saturday family gathering, relaxing and catching up on everyone’s work week. The grilled tibs are always memorable. Breaking up whole grilled fish with bare hands gives a caveman feel. (Lalibela, Danforth Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20190209Riverside neighbourhood: A single candle on a cake is sufficient. The family consumed third and then fourth servings of a wonderful homemade vegan banana cake, with frosting less sweet than commercial offerings. A little later, the house was quiet with everyone taking naps to recover from hectic work lives. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20190209OCADU sLab: Formal welcome #SystemsThinking Ontario @redesign. #PatternLanguage legacy via former 1970s-era Berkeley students of #ChristopherAlexander, deeper reading of 1967 Systems Generating Systems http://coevolving.com/commons/20190211-systems-changes-learning-alexander-legacy sparked thinking of attendees. (Systems Thinking Ontario, Strategic Innovation Lab, Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20190211The Rex: Displaced #DesignWithDialogue on What Matters led by @redesign turned into #DineWithDialogue with live jazz channelling attendees to listen more intently in small groups. University building was unexpectedly locked down completely for statutory holiday. We can handle the unexpected, moving one block north. (The Rex, Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20180218CSI Annex: Pitch night #AgentsOfChange @ClimateCSI @csiTO winners @BIOPolynet $10000, @spentgoods $6000, @app_feedback $4000, selected by judges based on 5-minutes presentations over finalists @FreeGeekToronto and @freshrents. Thirteen 90-second standup speeches were voted on by the audience of 300 attendees. Event attracted many non-CSI members, as a great way to generate interest. (Centre for Social Innovation Annex, Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20190222
SystemsThinkingTO: Frustrations in law firms @KarenSkinner @DavidFSkinner @GimbalCanada leading to lean improvement. Exercise in drawing a pig, first try is free form, second try following a long page of text specifications, third try following a sketch. Instead of words, easier to follow a map or modify a standard template. Not everything needs to be a specialized art. (Systems Thinking TO, Loyalty One, King Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20190225
As the book on Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0 was taking shape in March 2023, I was invited not only to serve as an editor, but also to contribute as an author. The edited volume is the final deliverable for the In4act project centered at the KTU School of Economics and Business in Kaunas, Lithuania […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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) […]