Helsinki, Finland; Kingston upon Hull, UK.
Helsinki Airport Design Camp. Forest-themed chairs, tables and benches, in the “Design Camp” of Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. A showcase of Finnish design, where passengers can “camp out” to relax and spend time before the flight. An example of typical tongue-in-cheek humour in Finland. (Helsinki Vantaa Terminal 1) 20121117 1130Jasmine Osmanthus Blooming Tea. Luxury tea break in the office at the business school. Since I haven’t had an assigned office in about 20 years, I had forgotten that people can personalize their spaces for creature comforts. Jasmine-Osmanthus blooming tea picked up by Jennifer on her last visit to China. For this grade of tea, she says it’s not really cheaper there, than imported here. Similar images in video at youtu.be/nAUz-lSuZL8 (U. Hull, UK) 20121119 1148
Robert Koenig, “Odyssey”. Forty male and female characters carved out of lime trees from the Carpinthian Mountains on southeast Poland. Part of the Polish Season organized by the University of Hull Faculty of Arts and Social Science, placed on a plaza in the central campus. Unfortunate barricade around the installation, presumably to deter damaged, but the fences are distracting. (U. Hull, UK) 20121119 140459
Toronto, Ontario.
Canadian Studies essay prize for Eric Ing. Eric Ing receives the 2012 Canadian Studies essay prize from Emily Gilbert (Director, Canadian Studies program) and Julie Mehta (Professor, Diasporic Asian Canadian Literature), at University College, University of Toronto 20121003 1649Sarah Polley and Eric Ing, U. of Toronto. Sarah Polley, the Barker Fairley Distinguished Visitor in the Canadian Studies program at University College, University of Toronto, observed as Eric Ing was awarded the 2012 Canadian Studies Essay Prize 20121003 1714Turkey and Wine at Canadian Thanksgiving. Traditional fowl with 1997 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon. Turkey spatchcocked in the Julia Child style. Wine cork broke in neck of bottle, so slow decanting into pitcher through coffee filter and sieve. Only immediate family this year, reducing stress after recently life changes. Shared pictures of China on computer, video documentaries recently on television (Toronto) 20121007 1620
David Bosanquet Garden fountain. Unexpected bubbling fountain on a rainy fall day, as I exited the John Graham Library through the west door to the Munk Centre for International Studies. The David Bosanquet Garden was dedicated in 2004. Massey College in the background, with the Robarts Library beyond. (1 Devonshire Place, University of Toronto). 20121031 1603
Routing back from the ISSS 2011 meeting in Hull, Diana, Adam, Thuy and I stopped over for a few days in London. From King’s Cross, we rode the underground to go to the hotel in Earl’s Court. I might have checked the map more closely, as the West Kensington or West Brompton stations would have have been closer. Our luggage is on wheels, but we had a long walk.
Our sightseeing started around Pimlico, where we unexpectedly found a summer show of graduate works at the Chelsea College of Art and Design. The installation by Minji Lee was one of the more intriguing.
We budgeted a few hours to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum. The venue is mammoth, so we tried to be selective, wending our ways through the mazes of hall.
Millenium Park entry, Peterborough, Ontario. Placid waterfall falling onto granite, at the entry to park on Water Street, in Peterborough, Ontario. Follows the fluid theme of the Trent-Severn Waterway locks nearby. (Peterborough, Ontario) 20120828 0907
Since Tokyo is so many time zones from home, I arrive a few days and go sightseeing to beat jet lag. On my fifth visit to Japan, I was the first of our meeting to arrive, with the group gradually gaining mass. I checked into the usual hotel, in an high rise tower overlooking the tracks by Tamachi station.
On a mission from DY, my first destination was Harajuku. I went looking for crafting supplies at the Daiso (100 yen) store.
The products aren’t made in Japan, but the variety is wider than in other branches internationally.
A few blocks further east, the Design Festa Gallery changes its installations rapidly, with emerging artists showing their work for nominal costs.
The variety of work includes paintings, photographs and sculpture by mostly Japanese artists.
One of my longer trips to Finland was for 14 days in favourable fall weather. I was scheduled to teach a class in the Creativity Sustainability program. Immediately before and after that teaching, there was an opportunity to pick up some credits for my graduate studies. While this visit was busy with work, I also made some time for sightseeing, with the guidance of friends (and friends of friends).
My usual Aalto University campus (i.e. for engineering) is at Otaniemi in Espoo, on the west side of Helsinki. The class that I was teaching was at the school of arts and design (i.e. Taik), at Arabia Centre within Helsinki city limits on the east side.
The redeveloped factory facilities fit the feel for a design school. While about half of the Creative Sustainability students had undergraduate training in design, the other half were drawn from other studies from across the university.
As usual, the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art was nearby my apartment, so I went over to catch a showing. With warm fall temperatures, there were skaters on the plaza.
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 […]
