WORK BENCH

One of my work spaces

There are many overlapping projects and ideas that underpin my work and exploration. Mostly, they compliment and challenge each other. Here are some of the projects that I am working on these days through writing, presenting, and network building.

Ingenuity Arts
I recently presented ideas based on the Ingenuity Arts book project at the Adelphi University School of Business as part of their Social Entrepreneurship, Systems Thinking, and Complexity international conference. Further refinement and development of the set of ingenuity arts needed to grow in our resilience and adaptive responses to change has come out of the presentation and discussion.


Social Networks and Innovation
In November we convened a meeting of key leaders in Ottawa to discuss the state of the civic core in Canada. The diverse mix of people included senior policy people, thought leaders, charitable sector leaders, non-profit and business leaders. There is significant opportunity to develop more resilient and responsive structures and approaches that can bolster the existing work for increasing future demand. Ideas around network science, economic geography, social capital, social enterprise and new institutions are all at play.


Here is a link to the University of Waterloo Network Science Reading Group that I'm part of. I'll also be taking a Network Science Reading Course in 2012 at UWaterloo with an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science faculty member.


Cities
In an effort to contribute useful ideas to city building within Hamilton, I have drafted a working paper the connects complexity theory, social network mapping, and emerging ideas on urban renewal. The goal is to try and bring a number of complimentary areas of research and practice together as a contribution to intelligent growth.


I'm working toward a Ph.D. at the University of Waterloo, School of Planning. In general terms, I'm working out how to connect network science, complexity theory and social mapping in order to understand the social fabric of cities more clearly. I'll post more here as the themes develop. 


Papers in development:


Interrogative Planning: Questions to Orient Both Theory and Practice using Christopher Alexander's ideas about integration, change, science and design to develop a more robust approach to planning theory and practice.


LeBreton Flats Ottawa: Redevelopment Plan was a group project for our PLAN 703 Planning Professional Practice class. It was an interesting project and included a 3x5 foot poster.


Critical Assessments of the City as a System (partial data only at this point) using changing variables and their interactions over time to determine how close a city is to its critical state.


Serres
From a more philosophical vantage point, work continues on a manuscript that explores the work of Michel Serres as a corrective to the cultural reductionism that is all too common. Syracuse is putting on a conference in April 2011 where this paper may have a fit.


Philosophy of Language
A lengthy manuscript on the relationship of words and objects arising from much earlier MA work is a constant background project that illustrates how complexity functions within human language systems - philosophy asks how language maps onto the world and it seems complexity has been waiting there all along. This is now complete.