Market Street:: On west side of St. Lawrence Market, @OldTownToronto lunchtime jazz duo @AndrewMarzotto guitar + @AndrewMcAnsh trumpet in loose gig. Shoppers walking by, trucks with backup alerts, and car noises on The Esplanade behind. The musicians weren’t responsive to my request for songs from this century, the old standards are more familiar. (Market Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20240903
Market Street:: Languid noontime pace with @gisun_music “Never Met” as summer weather returned after a cold spell. Still tourist buses at top of street for St. Lawrence Market @OldTownToronto , with shoppers enjoying lunch in the sun. Musical intermission as a short break on a busy day, biking cross town. (Market Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20240911
The Gooderham:: Birthday celebration dancing with family and friends. We didn’t know what to expect, the group retreated to privacy when the choreographer arrived. Performance ended with vegan cake. (The Gooderham, Cherry Street, Distillery District, Toronto, Ontario) 20240914
The Gooderham:: Winding down the evening with the lights down, just dancing for selves, not for performance. Birthday celebration did offer dinner and cake, yet setup for deejay with hiphop and breaking is unusual for most families. Met again some friends that we say at the big party before the move to NYC, a few years back. (The Gooderham, Cheery Street, Distillery District, Toronto, Ontario) 20240914
Market Street:: Lunchtime performance @oldtowntoronto @EmilyNSchultz singing The Sun, a tune inspired by the relationship with her sister. Singer-songwriter with inventive technique on hollow body electric guitar, plus added complexity with loop pedal. Monday seems to have more traffic on the street behind, with tourists still visiting the neighbourhood on a warm fall day. (Market Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20240917
Varley Art Gallery: Hanging in a circle, Meera Sethi (2018-2023) Outerwhere is 12 used coats with mixed media. The winter coat is essential for Northern climates, for both physical and metaphorical protection. Articles sewn in by hand include toys, flowers, plastics, fibre crafts. (Varley Art Gallery, Main Street, Unionville, Ontario) 20240922
Castello di Riomaggiore: Cloudy morning view east of vineyards cultivated since the 13th century. Castle was built in 1260, served as a cemetery in three 19th century. Slow ascent via steep roads and narrow pedestrian steps. Construction noise hammering somewhere in the village resounds everywhere. (Castello di Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre, Italy) 20240927
Riomaggiore Marina: In the valley of Rivus Maior, the river flowing into the sea was buried under the street. The original founders of the village built 3 to 4 storey houses against the cliffs. As the clouds gave ways to the sun, the wind brought waves to crash against the breakwater. (Riomaggiore Marina, Cinque Terre, Italy) 20240927
Mercato Orientale: First opened in 1899, the outdoor market on the east side of Genoa became covered. Sellers of fresh produce and local meats have stalls in the inner ring, with a semi-hidden outer ring of specialty products. Tastes of imported foods would seem to be against Italian tradition. (Mercato Orientale, Via XX Settembre, Genoa, Italy) 20240927
MOG Mercado Orientale Genoa: Modernization of the central core space in the larger product and meat market aims to attract trendy locals and foodie visitors. Acronym implying modernity reflects brightly-lit central area raised up a few steps from the traditional stalls of uncooked ingredients. At early dinnertime on a Thursday night, the restaurateurs were just opening up, and customers had not year arrived. (MOG Mercado Orientale Genoa, Via XX Settembre, Genoa, Italy). 20240927
Chiostro di Sant’Andrea: In the ruins of a monastery from the 12th century, the @BilbosaBand was doing a sound check 90 minutes before their live @teatrodelchiostro performance. Approaching the Porta Soprano walk, we heard drums and individual instruments in the 30-minutes setup. We were intrigued by the musicianship, but hanging out for an 8:30pm start wasn’t a good idea for Canadians trying to beat jet lag with early nights. (Chiostro di Sant’Andrea, St. Andrews Cloisters, Vico Dritto di Ponticello, Genoa Italy) 20240927
Dogali Funicular (Montegalletto Lift) from vertical to horizontal: Rode bus to upper station of the Dogali Funicular, the only lift in the world that switches from vertical to horizontal motion. Looking out the front door, counted about 20 florescent tubes on the way down, stopping with a pause to see motorized wheels on the track spinning. When the sister car arrived and started ascent, our car rolled south to the exit. (Dogali Funicular (Montegalletto Lift), Genoa, Italy) 20240928
Systems Processes Theory has been under development for many decades, led by Len Troncale, a past president of the International Society for the Ssytems Sciences. Many have found getting a grip on the science to be a demanding task, both in scope and in depth. Over many decades, Lynn Rasmussen was a collaborator, refining and […]
The Socio-Technical Systems (STS) perspective, dating back to the studies of Eric L. Trist and Fred E. Emery, was on the reading list of organizational behaviour classes in my undergraduate and master’s degree programs. It wasn’t until 15 years later, when I got involved with the systems sciences and David L. Hawk, that the Socio-Ecological […]
Civic Tech can be described as projects using technology “for the public good“. Civic Tech may be related to, but different from Gov Tech. For the May 2024 Systems Thinking Onrtario, we had two knowledgeable guests in conversation. Dorothy Eng, executive director of Code for Canada since 2021, related her professional journey from engineering to […]
On my May trip through the UK, I accepted an offer to lead an Expert-Led Session at the University of Hull. I had previously been a Research Fellow of the Centre for Systems Studies, but haven’t travelled to the Hull for some years. As we worked out the arrangements, I found out that the seminar […]
I’ve been checking on the breadth of some personal research on systems thinkers. (The list is incomplete, and may orient more towards systems scientists). Searching on Scopus gives an h-Index that counts scholarly references (with a boost, for the first person on the list who received a Nobel prize in chemistry). The list below is […]
Reading a theorist who espouses the dao (tao) in their systems work? Here’s a challenge: is the writer referring to daojia, or daojiao? Daojiao 道教 is religious daoism, gaining legitimacy only with the Tang dynasty (712-758 CE), after many centuries with the religion of Confucianism as dominant. Classical Chinese philosophy is hard to interpret even […]
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) […]