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Abstract:

 

The 1998 ISSS Atlanta meeting, led by G.A. Swanson, is cited by David Ing as the single best educational experience of his life.  The meeting featured Russell Ackoff, James Grier Miller, Anatol Rapoport, Eugene Odum, Howard Odum, Len Troncale, Robert Flood, Michael C. Jackson and Timothy F.H. Allen.  David contributed text digests of that meeting to the website, and gradually deepened his involvement with the society as webmaster and then vice-president roles.

 

As president for the 2012 ISSS San Jose meeting, the theme was set as "Service Systems, Natural Systems".  These ideas evolved to be published in the 2013 special issue of Systems Research & Behavioral Science as "Rethinking Systems Thinking: Learning and coevolving with the world".  From 2014 to 2018, David took a detour into appreciating the legacy of 1970s Berkeley, with the inquiring systems of C. West Churchman, wicked problems of Horst Rittel, and pattern language of Christopher Alexander.

 

Since 2019, David has been working locally in Toronto with a group focused on Systems Changes Learning.  This is an espoused journey of 10 years, focused on rethinking systems thinking.  The core group has recently converged on the central ideas of rhythmic shifts, contextural dyadic thinking and propensity.  The philosophical foundations include the ecological anthropology of Tim Ingold, the philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine described by Keekok Lee, and the efficacy in disposition outlined by Francois Jullien.

 

Biography:

 

David Ing is a past president (2011-2012) of the ISSS.  In a 28-year career at IBM, he was assigned to roles including management consulting, market development, industry solutions and headquarters planning.  In 2017-2018, he released "Open Innovation Learning:  Theory-building on open sourcing while private sourcing" as an open access publication.  A longtime resident of Toronto, Canada, he is a cofounder of Systems Thinking Ontario, with a legacy of 100 monthly meetings.  In recent years, David has been active mostly with OCAD University, the Centre for Social Innovation, and the Creative Systemic Research Platform Institute.