Beaches Jazz Festival, Toronto; Panamania Arts and Culture Celebration, Toronto; Battle for the North, Toronto; Clawson, Michigan; Washington, Iowa; Fairfield, Iowa; Port of Dubuque, Iowa; Oregon, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois; Warren, Michigan.
Woodbine Park Main Stage jazz: @ParcXTrio from Montreal @BeachesJazz playing intensely. Audience seeking shade on a bright summer day, a few chairs with canopies on a large field of grass. Park ringed by food trucks offering a variety of cuisines. (Woodbine Park Main Stage, Toronto) 20150718 Photo album at http://www.flickr.com/photos/daviding/sets/72157653719486144Taddle Creek Park. Ilan Sandler (2009) “The Vessel”, 4 kilometres (the length of Taddle Creek now buried under urban Toronto) of stainless steel rod bent into shape. Water flows into an underground cistern for reuse to irrigate the park. Installation was commemorated in June 2011, commissioned by the City of Toronto. (Taddle Creek Park, 40 Bedford Road, Toronto) 20150720Beaches Jazz Festival: Workshop by @occhipintimusic and @pilar_tw for @beachesjazz on “Turning Pop and World Roots Music into Jazz”. Intimate audience in church basement. Michael Occhipinti started with recordings of original pop songs (Broadway, Beatles), compared to jazz interpretations. Pilar joined for duos with selections from the Sicilian Jazz Project repertoire. (Mennonite New Life Centre, Queen Street East, Toronto) 20150721 Photo album at http://www.flickr.com/photos/daviding/sets/72157655775030139
Panamania: Outdoor stage @youareStars @NPStoronto @TO2015 Games #Panamania Arts and Culture Program, with Pat McGee on drums, Torquil Campbell vocals, Amy Millan vocals. Plaza filled with fans, girls singing along. (Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto) 20150722 Photo album at http://www.flickr.com/photos/daviding/sets/72157656240622815B-Boy competition: Battle for the North #BFTN2015 @TO2015 #Panamania Arts & Culture Program, The FAM as hometown favourite. Sold out community event, children in the front row, international judges will run workshops over next few days. (Young Centre for the Performing Arts, Distillery District, Toronto) 20150723Sushi in Clawson Michigan. Adam ordered 50 piece party platter for three of us, just before kitchen closed. Noble Fish is reputed to be the best sushi around Detroit, and we agree it was great. There’s a few tables and a sushi bar at the back of a Japanese grocery store, so a lot of clients prefer takeout. This is walking distance from Adam’s place. (Noble Fish, 14 Mile Road, Clawson, Michigan) 20150724
Vienna, Austria; Danube University Krems; Krems, Austria; University of Surrey; Guildford, UK; London, England; Toronto, Ontario.
Austrian Airlines Toronto to Vienna. Just realised that I’m breaking my personal rule to fly across oceans on a carrier with a Canadian flag. Direct flight for short trip trumped brand preference. Fortunately, the Austrians aren’t known as an aggressive culture. I expect to nap, and wake up in Vienna. (OS 72, still boarding at Pearson International Airport YYZ) 20150702Danube University Krems. Small university campus just one street by two blocks up hill from small town. Attending pattern language conference, PURPLSOC is third within a year. Would have meet practically all Christopher Alexander scholars by now, may focus down in future events with some interested in collaborating. Shortest lead time ever, 8 hours on plane, 3 hours on train, 1 hour to find campus, barely time for lunch, check-in and shower before first speaker started at 2:30 pm. (Danube University Krems, Austria) 20150703Wellenspiel, Krems. Conference dinner by the Danube River in Austria. Weather has been warm, around 30 degrees C and sunny. Mountain altitude, air is clean. Some familiar faces from prior pattern language conferences. (Krems, Austria) 20150704Closing ceremony at PURPLSOC. Network of yarn symbolises colleagues meet over a few short days of intense interaction. Tangle is tossed in parachute to create a knotty mess. First learned this at PLoP 2014 in Illinois. (Danube University Krems, Austria) 20150705S7 platform, Praterstern. Morning commute to airport from Vienna city centre hotel on suburban line S7. Started journey a little earlier than originally planned, discovering that I would be sitting nearly 30 minutes, as trains don’t run more frequently. Austrian efficiency means trains run on time, so the best surprise is no surprise. Flights to London Heathrow will be connecting, lowering airfare and adding miles. (Praterstern, Vienna, Austria) 20150706Glass overhead walkways. From Frank Whittle at south to Alan Turing at north, buildings connected to encourage random interactions between researchers walking and thinking. Design of campus with buildings below 4 stores an antithesis of skyscraper thinking. Statue of Turing on plaza a little further north may be overearnest recognition, as he was never part of this university, and would only come home to Guildford on weekends while a teenager at boarding school. (University of Surrey, Stag Hill campus, Guildford, UK) 20150707
Toronto; Riverside Beats & Eats StreetFest; Waterloo, Ontario; Toronto Jazz Festival; Luminato Festival
Orient Express kiddie ride. Dragon head could be the most menacing part on carnival ride that is being set up for weekend in west end park. Garish display from street for roller coaster that may only get to 10 feet off the ground means teenagers unlikely to get thrills from steep rises and drops. (Christie Pits Park, Blood Street West, Toronto) 20150604Bicycle-powered music. Music by @Mirian_Kay and @petitsnouveaux amplified by cyclist on @TuneYourRide for @RiversideBIA Beats & Eats StreetFest. Sunny Saturday afternoon, relaxed pedestrians discovering short intersections off Queen Street East. (Munro Street, Toronto) 20150606Pedal your own smoothie. Almond milk + fruit @OmaChiropractic, blender 20 seconds on bike @RiversideBIA Fest. @CycleToronto kiosk next over if wheels go astray. Seat was a little high for short riders, so parents had to ride for kids. (Munro Street, Toronto) 20150606Glen Road bridge. Tranquil view south over Rosedale Valley to tunnel by Sherbourne TTC station east exit, tunnel under Bloor Street above, then Howard Street and the towers of St. Jamestown. Despite having been around Toronto for 40 years, still discovering nooks off the beaten path while bicycling around town. (Glen Road bridge, Toronto, Ontario) 20150608U Waterloo convocation. Picked up gown, found name in program, waiting in the bleachers for ceremonies in about an hour. Brothers and grandfather came to see Adam receive diploma for Masters degree in Applied Science in Systems Design Engineering. (University of Waterloo) 20150613@TorontoJazzFestival opener. Tara Davidson sax, @DanielRFortin bass, @ErnestoCervini drums @TorontoLibrary North York concourse for early evening set. Band has known each other more than a decade. Played a lot of new original songs, yet to be recorded, including “31 Days”, which is how long it took Tara to write it last year. (North York Central Library) 20150615Grooveyard @torontojazzfest. Toddlers @shopsdonmills dance with happy feet as jazz musicians play pop and R&B repertoire. Slight personnel substitution due to double booking with other events around town? Maybe the kids will appreciate more sessions jazz when they get a little older. Grooveyard gets the audience to sing along, while their other personas would not have words. (Shoppes at Don Mills) 20150618Choral jazz @BurdockTo: Isis Giraldo Voces project @torontojazzfest, unexpected a capella harmonies in a warm set with an excellent sound system. Performers from Montreal have a different sense of musicality, great that they can share this on tour. Opening for Emma Frank. (Burdock Music Hall, Toronto) 20150618Dreampop jazz @BurdockTO: Emma Frank @torontojazzfest stretches the genre with contemporary vocal phrasing and pacing. Isis Geraldo on keyboard, Simon Millerd on trumpet. Drums and string bass follow the Montreal style of musicality, pushing the rhythm forward. (Burdock Music Hall, Toronto) 20150618Fleet of PanAm @TO2015 cars: Two weeks before the games start, a lot in Toronto Portlands is where the new cars with PanAm stickers are parked. Staging area is near the West Donlands Athletes Village, remarkably close to downtown Toronto. The contribution of General Motors as a transportation sponsor is significant. (Cherry Street at Commissioners Road, Toronto) 20150620Looped cello @Luminato: @cris_derksen with electronics and live drummer on the Festival Garden Stage, as part of National Aboriginal Day. Pattern played into machine, layers built up, and then soloing on top. Audience sprawled out on astroturf enjoying the weather. (Pecaut Square, Luminato Festival, Toronto) 20150621Hoop dancing @Luminato: Nimkii Osawamick performing with @cris_derksen on the Festival Garden Stage. Wrapped up in multiple hoops with looped cello and drummer on National Aboriginal Day. (David Pecaut Square, Luminato Festival, Toronto) 20150621
Adam completed his master’s thesis in September, and then moved to the Detroit area in October to take a job. The timing put him into convocation with the spring 2015 group. From Toronto, we picked up his grandfather and drove towards Waterloo, while he came from the other direction. We converged in Waterloo for lunch at a local restaurant that serves northern-style Chinese dumplings.
Over at the PAC, Adam had already registered ahead for his black academic gown.
We were early enough to be at the front of the line into the gymnasium where the ceremonies would be held.
Diana and I opted for a more strategic stage right position for photography. This separated us from our sons and their grandfather, who chose the bleachers on the other side.
When the procession started, people stood up to get a view.
The procession came down the middle of the gym. Adam’s group was to be seated towards the front.
Toronto, Ontario; Scarborough, Ontario; Markham, Ontario.
Beach Skateboard Park. Spring has really arrived in Toronto, but people not yet wearing shorts. Transition from winter wear to light top clothes seems practically overnight. (Ashbridges Bay, Toronto) 20150502Bike helmet selection. When safety equipment all looks about the same, is made with similar materials, and ranges in price from $22 to over $200, the conscientious shopper takes quite a while to decide. The last bike helmet may be a decade old, so the perhaps thriftiness isn’t the most important attribute. (Mountain Equipment Coop, King Street West, Toronto) 20150507Yonge and Grenville Streets. Two storey storefronts demolished, foundations for @YCcondos 66 floor glass tower in progress. Intensification of downtown core, a few blocks north of Ryerson University and Yonge-Dundas Square. I don’t remember this construction project starting, the warm weather means bicycling more frequently. (462 Yonge Street, Toronto) 20150509Silver City Fairview. No lineup at suburban Tuesday matinee of Avengers movie in its second week. Stadium seating in non-3D room, a better way to enjoy a Hollywood blockbuster. (Cineplex Silver City Cinema, Fairview Mall, North York, Ontario) 20150512Table of ten. Chinese dinner on a weekday night with aunt, cousin, sister, father. Only one son attending, so our branch not dominating the table. Lobster, Peking duck, lots of Cantonese dishes, all consumed. (Perfect Chinese Restaurant, Scarborough, Ontario) 20150513
Toronto, Ontario; Detroit, Michigan; Iowa City, Iowa; Fairfield, Iowa; Muscatine, Iowa; Port Huron, Michigan
English River lake freighter. Great Lakes water seem clear of ice, with small bulk carrier moored by Lafarge terminal in the Polson slip of the Toronto PortLands. In early spring, the vegetation doesn’t obscure visibility, over the fence from the Chinese supermarket. (Cherry Street, Toronto) 20150406Toronto IBM Club Retirees. Update on IBM Canada R&D Centre by @AllenLalonde, meeting the challenges of big data with collaborative innovation centres across universities, industry and government. CARET, SOSIP, CHIA, Ocean Networks Canada. Among retirees, seeing a few familiar faces. (St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Scarborough, Ontario) 20150407Design with Dialogue, April 2015. Special session for SSHRC question, six parallel streams, video capture and live sketching. Pulled together on short notice by SFI masters students. (Lambert Lounge, OCAD U) 20150408DBC Trio. Early Thursday set of @LuisDenizSax Rich Brown @ErnestoCervini in @RexHotelToronto relaxed and casual. No festival crowds, just another workday on a city where the arts thrive. (The Rex, Toronto) 20150416Detroit Greektown. Saturday night busy in popular nightlife district downtown. Most of family visiting #1 son in Michigan. Last time I was here could have been in the 1970s, when the Greek presence was stronger. (Detroit Greektown, Michigan) 20150418MOCAD. Normal Shift by Coco Bruner at Art X Detroit , 10.5×15 foot Baltic Birch Plywood floor, invites viewers to walk on it at their own risk. Kresge Arts Foundation sponsors show in Midtown. (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit) 20150419DIA. Alexander Calder 1970 La jeune filles et sa suites, on the lawn outside the Detroit Institute of the Arts, towers over local visitors. Family touring on a Sunday afternoon. (Detroit, Michigan) 20150419
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 […]
Rhythm and pitch are primordial to language. Susan Rogers, after a career becoming Prince's recording engineer, turned to complete a PhD in psychology focused on music cognition and psychoacoustics.Read more ›
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 ›
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 […]
