Coventry, UK; Stratford upon Avon, UK; Toronto, Ontario; Las Vegas, NV.
Lady Godiva statue at Broadgate Coventry . 1949 work by Sir William Reid Dick at central Coventry in early evening. Few pedestrians, nice weather, but few attractions other than bars with karaoke (Coventry) 20140601Fountains at U. Warwick. Visiting @ireneclng at Intl Institute for Product and Service Innovation, students on bus unlikely to know building, so asked for math department next door. 30 minutes from Coventry (U Warwick) 20140602Stratford upon Avon canal basin on Flickr. Tour boats moored on a late Monday afternoon, as Stratford upon Avon visitors reorient towards the RSC theatre just beyond. Scenic route towards Heathrow for flight home tomorrow. (Stratford upon Avon) 20140602Stone Distillery equipment from 1863. Historic alcohol production facility, Badger Distillation Control Panel beside a Distilling Column now with stairs wrapped around it. Factory converted to offices. (Distillery District, Toronto) 20140606Cardboard Beach, David Pecault Square. nstallation by Los Carpinteros for Luminato Festival has visitors reclining on the shade. Corrugated cardboard is a good material for an event that runs one week. (Toronto) 20140609TTC track construction. Lining up streetcar rails on Queen Street just west of Leslie Street. Cause of traffic rerouting, but there isn’t much pavement right now. (Toronto) 20140612Underpass from Don River bike path. New tunnel from the Don River bike path westbound into Corktown Commons. A new way to get downtown without climbing a bridge over the river (Toronto) 20140614Watershed map of Toronto on Flickr. Sheet metal installation orienting five Toronto rivers, by Ferrucio Sardella. At the Evergreen Brick Works, on the banks of Mud Creek, off the Lower Don River. (Toronto) 20140614Stone bench at The Waterfront School. Quiet late afternoon by Harbourfront, classes will still be on for a few weeks. CN Tower and Canada Malting silos in background (Toronto) 20140617OCADU Great Hall ceiling lights. On summer, the second floor common space at 100 McCaul St. is dark and empty, but the style of the design school shows through in the non-rectilinear arrangement of ceiling lights (Toronto) 20140619Elephant Rock turnout, Valley of Fire State Park. Red sandstone formations in 100+ degree F heat. Entered state park from east side, honour payment in envelope, but then checked at west gate exit (Nevada) 20140627Opera at St. Marks Square. Inside the Venetian Hotel, singing after dish, but outside, sun doesn’t set for another 2.5 hours. American tourists prefer canals that don’t stink, in Las Vegas 20140628
Viva Vision, Fremont Street. Light show with music by Heart. Son and nephew didn’t know primal artist only Guitar Hero version. We have better sound in our basement. (Fremont Street, Las Vegas)
Chicago, IL; Toronto, Ontario; Fairfield, IA; Des Moines, IA; Deadwood, SD; London, UK; Oxford, UK.
Jetway B24 at the end of the OHare universe. Arrival on commuter plan from Cedar Rapids, to discover gate at very end of airport, by fences with access road into terminals just on the other side. Fortunately, connection scheduled of 2 hours, and flight to Toronto leaves from Gate B14. (Chicago) 20140501Pine Hills Cemetery. Family and friends gathered to honour the life of Violet Ing. Lots of stories about the past and memories. (Scarborough, Ontario) 20140505PanAm Athletes Village under construction. Canary District, Cherry Street by Front Street, with unfinished apartments in the background. Roads are blocked to traffic while streetcar tracks are being put in, but construction workers at the end of day don’t pay much attention to a cyclist (Toronto) 20140507Corktown Commons playground ready for children. Aqua colored soft playground surfaces in quiet playground on a cool late Thursday afternoon. Road construction and unfinished apartment buildings mean families not yet nearby. View north to Adelaide overpass. (Toronto) 20140508Monday night family dinner out. Seating for 6, ordered for 8. Way too much good, leftovers predictable. (Markham) 20140512Alfresco dining in Iowa. Heartland tradition of thick burgers from local beef on Fridays, Curbside Grill by Chef Curtis by the Hy-Vee supermarket, over by the gas bar. Cooked to order slightly pink might not meet big city bylaws. Retreated to cafe for warmth in unexpectedly chilly May. (Fairfield, IA) 20140516Intercept for breakfast. Early morning, then two hours drive west in Iowa to meet in person, after months of teleconferences. Last minute plans on meetings in South Dakota over breakfast. (Des Moines) 20140519Deadwood History and Information Center. Learned that during the Gold Rush, Deadwood had the largest Chinatown outside of San Francisco. Historian said last building demolished some decades ago, leading to formation of historical society. (Deadwood, SD) 20140522Queue for platform 9-3/4. Everyone wants to join Harry Potter at Hogwarts at permanent installation at King’s Cross station. Renovations at station now all done. (London, England) 20140525Lounge at Egrove Park. Residence for executive education at Said Business School at Oxford U. is quite tranquil when not in session. Bedrooms are architecturally interesting, but luggage up and down stairs annoying. (Oxford) 20140529
Radcliffe Observatory, Green Templeton College on Flickr. Dinner for Oxford Futures Forum on oldest continually operating meteorological station on Britain. Chef reputed to get superior ratings after each course than professors (Oxford) 20140530
Toronto, Ontario; Denver, CO; Berkeley, CA.
2014 TIC Retirees meeting. 31st Annual Meeting of the Toronto IBM Club Retirees. The group is an activity of the Toronto IBM Club, not a separate organization. Making a shift from snail mail distribution to email and Facebook group as complements to phone, recognizing that some members are over 90 years old. (Scarborough) 20140401 0930St. Andrews Cemetery, Scarborough, Ontario. Gravestones around the Muir family, who emigated to Canada in 1833. Congregation established by Scots driven out of England in 1818, original church built in 1819 as Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Scarborough is now part of Metropolitan Toronto, but in the years after the American Revolution, would have been in the wilds of Upper Canada (Scarborough, Ontario) 20140401 1340At Jazz Bistro, Dave Restivo with Marc Jordan. (Toronto) 20140411 2132At Jazz Bistro, Marc Jordan, Kevan McKenzie, Russ Boswell, Mark Lalama (Toronto) 20110411 2132Mountain Pleasant Cemetery annual family ritual. Mountain Pleasant Cemetery annual family ritual Candles and incense early this year at gravesite, with sister visiting Toronto, to convene father, aunt and families. Planted flowers, but water not yet turned on by cemetery, as temperatures dipping below zero at night. (Toronto) 20140420Push back at Denver Airport, view from the lounge (Denver, Colorado) 20140424Reading 1967 “Pattern Manual” by Christopher Alexander et al. The 21 page manual is preceded by a 6 page description of the incorporation of the Center for Environmental Structure, of which the first 2 pages and title page are missing in this copy (Berkeley, California) 20140426
Violet Ing (- April 30, 2014) Spouse of Kent Ing, mother of Jeanne, David and Ben, grandmother to Lisa, Nicole, Kevin, Adam, Eric, Noah, Ryan, Madeleine and Owen. (photo taken in Toronto in November 2004) Visitation to honour Violet Ing, Sunday, May 4, 2014, 4-8 p.m. See https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cn6kins6gojfbuuvou43feh2jhs?authkey=CL7VnvTwity_ZQ . Funeral for Violet Ing, Monday, May 5, 10 a.m. with pre-funeral visitation at 9 a.m. Please join the family for lunch at a Chinese restaurant TBD. See https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/crvvlelp391piv3ijk2gu325k18?authkey=CPPaganZl_XW1wE. Pine Hills Cemetery is at 625 Birchmount Rd, Toronto, ON M1K 1R1. For directions, routing is available from Google Maps. The cemetery provides a memorial page that will be available online until June 14.
OCAD SFI lecture. Lecture by @redesign on Systemic Design: Social Systems for OCADU Master’s Program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation. Hearing rich content familiar to experienced systems thinkers, a lot for novices to absorb. Followed with a lecture on service systems, design thinking and systems thinking, just to familiarize students with the domain (205 Richmond Street, room 7310) 20140314 0948
DY Pearson T1 Departures. Diana starting on AC flight 11 hours eastbound where weather should improve by 20 degrees Celsius. Sister KSY intercepting on route, to fly together. Sister SKY should meet at arrival. Reversal of roles, as DY usually drops us at airport. (Pearson international Airport Terminal 1 Departures, Toronto) 20140202 1436Toronto Pearson Bamboo City. Small scale skyscrapers as #BambooCity at Pearson Terminal 1 near Priority Checkin, sponsored by HSBC. Is the big barricade around the installation to deter children? (Toronto) 20140217 1001
Lee’s Tofu, Gardena, CA. Casual meal of Korean soon tofu stew, 2 with dumplings, 2 with seafood. Adam, David, Joanne and Brian last together when the youngest was 8 years old. (Gardena, California) 20140127 1953
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 […]
