To appreciate how systemicists worldwide collaborate, Gary S. Metcalf joined Systems Thinking Ontario for a conversation. Gary served as president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences 2007-2008, and of the International Federation for Sysrtems Research 2010-2016. From 2003 to 2018, he was a graduate instructor in Organizational Systems and Research on the faculty of Saybrook University.
The Systems Movement “may be characterized as a loose association of people from different disciplines of science, engineering, philosophy, and other areas, who share a common interest in ideas (concepts, principles, methods, etc.) that are applicable to all systems and that, consequently, transcend the boundaries between traditional disciplines.” (George Klir, Facets of Systems Science, 2001).
After the standard round of introductions, the conversation began with Gary speaking a little about his background, and how he came to the systems community after graduate studies in family therapy (in the web video, at about 22m42s in). Participants were invited to ask questions and make comments freely.
The video file are archived on the Internet Archive .
| Video | H.264 MP4 |
| January 11 (2h04m) |
[20210111_ST-ON_GarySMetcalf.m4v] (nHD 281kbps 366MB) [on the Internet Archive] |
For those who prefer digital audio on mobile devices, the audio was extracted as M4A from the video.
| Audio | |
| January 11 (2h04m) |
[20210111_ST-ON_GarySMetcalf.m4a] (113MB) |
Since this talk, Gary has added to his writing and editing scholarly non-fiction works, with a new direction in science fiction. In June 2021, he published A Dark Matter of Memory. Beyond academic audiences, social systems design might become more accessible to an broader audience of readers.
Gary continues with consulting work, out of Ashland, Kentucky.
