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Pattern Manual for Service Systems Thinking

November 17, 2016
2 Comments

At the PUARL Conference 2016, a proposal was made on adapting pattern language for service systems thinking.  In 1967, Christopher Alexander published Pattern Manual at the founding of the Center for Environmental Structure, describing a pattern format for physical built environments.  While we can learn a lot from the nearly 50 years work originating at the CES, service systems have features beyond physicality that suggest reconsidering some of the foundations of pattern language.

An article for discussion was accepted into the proceedings for the PUARL conference.  The 20-minute presentation quickly covered the following topics:

  • 1. Pattern Manual 1967 + Service Systems
  • 2. Alexandrian example → services
  • 3. Methods clarified since 1973
  • 4. A new format:  amplifying, rephilosophizing, reinterpreting prior doxa
  • 5. Generating and legitimizing in communities

Slides have been added over the audio recording to produce a video presentation.

Audio [20161029_PUARL_Ing_PatternManualS2T.mp3]
(20MB, 20m19s)
[20161029_PUARL_Ing_PatternManualS2T_3db.mp3]
(volume boosted 3db, 20MB, 20m19s)
[20161029_PUARL_Ing_PatternManualS2T_6db.mp3]
(volume boosted 6db, 20MB, 20m19s)
Video HD (20m19s)
H.264 MP4 [1280×720 384Kbps m4v]
(70MB)		 [1280×720 5000Kbps m4v]
(76MB) [on archive.org]
WebM [1280×720 110Kbps webm]
(34MB)		 [1280×720 826Kbps webm]
(153MB)

For people who prefer visuals at their own pace, the slides are posted on the Coevolving Commons.  The video is available on Youtube.

Curriculum Making for Trito Learning

November 13, 2016
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Slides and audio of our joint talk at the RSD5 Symposium on the experiences and learning about leading systems thinking courses are now available.

Over five years, the Creative Sustainability program evolved from pilot into full practice with a series of courses.  In reflection, the course instructors better learned how to guide students through teaming, mindset, methods and theory.

The presentation is titled “Curriculum Making for Trito Learning: Wayfaring along a meshwork of systems thinking”.  With such a dense title for the Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium, our aim was to explain what those chosen words meant.

Audio [20161015_RSD5_Ing_Nousala_CurriculumMakingTrito.mp3]
(29MB, 29m44s)
[20161015_RSD5_Ing_Nousala_CurriculumMakingTrito_3db.mp3]
(volume boosted 3db, 29MB, 29m44s)
[20161015_RSD5_Ing_Nousala_CurriculumMakingTrito6db.mp3]
(volume boosted 6db, 29MB, 29m44s)
Video HD (29m44s)
H.264 MP4 [1280×720 384Kbps m4v]
(89MB)		 [1280×720 5000Kbps m4v]
(96MB) [on archive.org]
WebM [1280×720 279Kbps webm]
(89MB)		 [1280×720 384Kbps webm]
(197MB)

The streaming media adds the slides to the audio presentation.  In person, in Toronto, we had two instructors from the course speaking: David Ing and Susu Nousala.

Here’s the officially published abstract:

In winter 2016, the Systems Thinking 2 course in the Creative Sustainability (CS) program at Aalto University was led by one of the original curriculum developers from 2010. Over five years, the core CS curriculum had evolved, allowing the level of learning amongst student to advance to a higher level. While this winter 2016 cohort of students was challenged by the intensiveness of the course, satisfaction in the learning appeared to be high.

… Read more (in a new tab)

Some Future Paths for Design Professionals: DesignX and Systemic Design

November 9, 2016
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Design professionals were attracted at the RSD5 (Relating Systems Thinking and Design) Symposium to a preconference workshop on October 13 at OCADU in Toronto, with the following abstract:

Since 2014, an international collaborative of design leaders has been exploring ways in which methods can be augmented, transitioning from the heritage legacy focus on products and services towards a broad range of complex sociotechnical systems and contemporary societal problems issues. At last year’s RSD4 Symposium, DesignX founder Don Norman presented a keynote talk on the frontiers of design practice and necessity for advanced design education for highly complex sociotechnical problems. He identified the qualities of these systems as relevant to DesignX problems, and called for systemics, transdisciplinarity and the need for high-quality observations (or evidence) in design problems.   Initial directions found were proposed in the first DesignX workshop in October 2015, which have been published in the new design journal She Ji.  In October 2016, another DesignX workshop will be held at Tongji University in Shanghai, overlapping with the timing of the RSD5 Symposium.

We propose to sustain the relationships between RSD and DesignX with this RSD5 half-day workshop, to explore the relationships between systemic design, existing educational programs and the DesignX agenda. We invite RSD participants engaged in both of these contexts to join in a collaborative discussion aimed at further developing the design and education agendas in these discourse communities. We aim to capture experiences and insights from design leaders, educators and practitioners in Toronto, as input, validation and/or suggestions for further development of the DesignX direction.

… Read more (in a new tab)

My failed relationship with Windows (10)

June 26, 2016
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Dear Microsoft: After a 4-year separation with Windows 7, the constructive divorce that you’ve set for Windows 10 on July 29, 2016 will come into force.  I’ve just spent 30 hours trying to make things work.  I know that Lenovo says that the Windows 10 upgrade should work, but we’re spending so little time together that I don’t have energy to keep fighting.

We never really got married.  There was a time that I was spending up to 12 hours per day with you.  Our relationship has a long history:

  • 1. Courtship (1992-1996)
  • 2. Shotgun wedding (1996-2008)
  • 3. Open relationship (2008-2012)
  • 4. Separation (2012-2016)
  • 5. Divorce (2016)

Over the past few days, the messages you’ve been giving me have been more than frustrating.

On the Thinkpad X200, you told me “We couldn’t install Windows 10”,  and “0xC1900101 – 0x20017 The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during BOOT operation” five times over 24 hours.

We couldn’t install Windows 10. 0xC1900101 – 0x20017 The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during BOOT operation.

The BIOS is up to date and antivirus was removed.  I tried with both the automated installation and Media Creation Tool on USB, both with and without the online updates.  There were also long “Checking for update” delays, where I had to intervene.

Maybe upgrading on older Core 2 Duo Penryn computer isn’t worthwhile.  I then turned my newer computer, a Core i7 Ivy Bridge.

Trying on the Thinkpad X230 Tablet, you told me “Something happened”.  “Sorry, we have having trouble determining if your PC can run Windows 10”.  … Read more (in a new tab)

Systems Coevolving: Sciences, Service, Smarter, Cognitive

May 29, 2016
0 Comments

Video and audio recordings of my lecture for the Urban Systems course at Aalto University in February have now been produced.  While I was in Finland teaching in another department, I was asked to lecture on Smarter Cities.

Here’s the abstract that was sent in advance:

The popularization of the Smarter Cities movement coincided with IBM’s campaign originating from 2009. The Smarter Cities ideas was an outgrowth from the Smarter Planet initiatives, which had emerged from the IBM Global Innovation Outlooks beginning in 2004.

This speaker was a consultant at IBM involved in Smarter Cities engagements, while simultanously conducing research into Service Systems Science.

The evolution of ideas both outside and inside IBM are reviewed, through a history of (i) systems sciences; (ii) service science, management, engineering and design (SSMED), (iii) service systems science; and (iv) smarter planet and smarter cities. Looking forward, the prospects for the (v) cognitive era and a (vi) service systems thinking is outlined.

Audio [20160210_Aalto_UrbanSystems_Ing_SystemsCoevolving.mp3]
(79MB, 1h22m24s)
[20160210_Aalto_UrbanSystems_Ing_SystemsCoevolving_plus3db.mp3]
(volume boosted 3db, 79MB, 1h22m24s)
Video HD (1h22m09s)
H.264 MP4 [1280×720 417Kbps m4v]
(270MB)		 [1280×720 3779Kbps m4v]
(2.3GB) [on archive.org]
WebM [1280×720 316Kbps webm]
(270MB)		 [1280×720 3604Kbps m4v]
(2.4GB)

As a quicker reference, the slides may be useful if fast-forwarding to a specific section is desired.

presentation slides for Systems Coevolving: Sciences, Service, Smarter, Cognitive

Eight infographics from “Systems Thinking 2” (2016)

March 9, 2016
1 Comment

Concluding 3 intensive weeks of content immersion, eight student groups created infographics of the ideas that resonated with them from the “Systems Thinking 2” class in the Creative Sustainability program at Aalto University.  Each group had been given 3 weeks in advance to prepare content to lead a learning discussion, staking a position on a list of references.  As students participated in the intensive sessions, the broader contexts reshaped those positions into a broader appreciation of the breadth of systems thinking. The initial positions and concluding syntheses were:

  • 1. Appreciative systems, futures → Into the Future with Systems Thinking
  • 2. Boundary, inquiry, perspectives → Systems thinking — synthesis
  • 3. Learning categories, postnormal science, ignorance → Systems Thinking from learning and knowledge making perspective
  • 4. Dialogue, engagement, intervention → Systems thinking from a dialogue perspective
  • 5. Ecosystems, collapse, resilience → What is the purpose of understanding the differentiation between complexity and complicatedness in systems thinking
  • 6. Coevolution, turbulence, anticipatory systems → Anticipatory systems, turbulence and coevolution
  • 7. Living systems, viable systems, metabolism → How to make STEW (Systems Thinking Endless Wisdom)
  • 8. Social-ecological systems, regime shifts → Systems? No problem!

The ending infographics represent a synthesis of the content from the course, each group having traced a different path. To rebalance team sizes, a few individuals migrated to a different group.  Some anchored more on the content they had led, while others chose to strengthen linkages to other ideas.

Into the Future with Systems Thinking

1. Appreciative systems, futures → Into the Future with Systems Thinking

Group 1 read through a cluster of references on appreciative systems and futures and a map of the basic ideas to produce a presentation slide set.

… Read more (in a new tab)

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