A propos of yesterday’s post on strategic planning, Cameron Norman has a nice post today on working with organizations as a consultant engaging in strategic design and helping contracted work land and be integrated within client organizations.
My buddy Tenneson is inviting a little weekly practice with his Wander Wednesday series. Today he asks What is a gift of slowing down for you? I’m about to join him on a call with a client in the next hour, so this little space here, a chance to read inspiring bits from my blogroll and take a moment to reflect on them without just scrolling by, that is the gift. In face since I’ve been blogging nearly daily again since June, I find that this practice has slowed down how I consume the great ideas that surround me and invited me to reflect on them. I’m not really writing for anyone other than me (but I hope if you drop in here you also find stuff that resonates with you). The gift of slowing down is the chance to try things on. Like I’m looking at some really nice shirts on the rack at the store, but unless I can see how they look on me I may never remember that I saw them. And the way my brain works, it’s not a slam dunk that anything I post here or reflect upon will stick, but by writing about things – by ACTUALLY engaging – I get to try them on.
Do things because they are just worth doing. Not everything nets you a return. Blogging is to social media what hiking is to commuting I think.
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The Ambassador Bridge is a crucial piece of international infrastructure connecting Canada to the US, between the cities of Windsor and Detroit. I had no idea it was a privately-owned bridge, nor did I understand the extent of to which this bridge has exacerbated misery in Detroit for decades. The emergent outcomes of this structure stemming from what it is, who owns it and what it means are incredible. 99% Invisible has a great episode on the bridge with a harrowing postscript. That’s my “today I learned…”
As things scale they become their own things, different from the parts that make them up, and exhibiting characteristics that are unpredictable given the way smaller scales work. This is the phenomena of emergence. When I was a kid, being a geography nerd, I learned about Bosnywash, the megalopolis that stretches from Boston to Washington. The only region like that in Canada is the Golden Horseshoe, perhaps including Ottawa and Montreal. Travelling in these spaces, one realizes that the mega city operates similar to the smaller cities, but at a huge scale, and without regional governance. Instead of subways there is a regional train network. Instead of markets there are hundreds of thousands of hectares of warehouses and distrubtion hubs. A new kind of city emerges, similar but different from its constituent parts. And those constituent parts are themselves emergent aggregations of the original villages and settlements that existed before. Doc Searles reflects on this phenomenon today in a post worth reading with some great links.
If you want to really go down the emergence rabbit hole, check this out. Here is a short paper on consciousness as an emergent property of life. Consciousness is not a guaranteed outcome of a living system but life is neseccary for consciousness. That paper is a response to this one: “Conscious artificial intelligence and biological naturalism”, which is seeking to understand the issues of consciousness in AI form an emergence perspective. Anil Seth argues for biological naturalism, which to me is a relief. But the story isn’t easy.
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Even though this is the season of crickets and blackberries and we have just had our first Pineapple Express of the ecological autumn, the summer heat is t done with us yet. Today gusty winds are chugging down the inlet and they are warm to the face. A hot day is in store and that should last the week.
Sometimes you just want to read a little story about a collective experience of cricket, parties, new love and navigating half way across the Midlands of England by train.
What does it take to thoughtfully read 30 books a month? 2025 Booker Prize judge Chris Power shares his thoughts: read whenever you can and keep notes.
I adore Patti Digh as a smart sassy writer. She blogs nearly every day and almost always has something to offer that makes me say “yes!” Her line “the shortest distance between two people is a story” is basically my entire work life summed up. Today she opens up about her depression and this line landed with me: “shame is not a motivator. It’s a silencer. It makes it harder to ask for help, not easier. It makes you think that telling the truth will only make people turn away.”
Ted Gioia on the difference between circles and lines, the ring shout, holding opposites and why the Tesla Cybertruck is a coffin on wheels.
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Today I learned about “kelping.” That’s when orcas or humpbacks tangle themselves up in kelp beds because it feels nice.
Orcas are more than just a charismatic mega fauna on our coast line. They are a population, and for First Nations, they are kin. For the people that live close to them, including researchers, the whales are chosen family. This week, I76 died. Here is the account of his death from OrcaLab. It contains these beautiful words:
At this moment the day shifted. Jared Towers had come out specifically in response to the previous day’s concerns about I76, the oldest son of I4. He was extremely thin and having difficulties. Jared found him on the Vancouver Island side of the Strait opposite to the entrance to Blackney Pass. The rest of his small family were further away. The day was grey, the ocean only slightly agitated. As several dolphins surrounded and overwhelmed I76, his mother came flying across to him. Jared said he had never seen a Northern Resident move so fast and that she was clearly upset. From that time on his family remained close to his side with the dolphins surrounding the entire family who were more or less stationary. This continued until just before 3pm when I76 took his last breath and sank out of sight into the depths. His family lingered near his last position, then began to call..
Ernest Alfred happened to be here and he and a few of us went out into Johnstone Strait. There next to the mountains of Vancouver Island, near to a few dolphins who still seemingly hovered over where I76’s had his last moments and not far from his family now slowly weaving their way east, Ernest sang in Kwakwala reminding us to shed our tears before nightfall, morning would bring another ceremony fitting with the time of day and a chance to say good-bye.
Read the subsequent posts to see how the humans and whales who knew I76 mourned his passing.
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What is going on? My friend Alison shared this story on Mastodon with this intro “Fake news features about things that didn’t happen in places that don’t exist written by people who don’t exist is pretty much what we expect from AI journalism.” Read on about the elusive Margaux Blanchard.”
Dave Pollard shares a thoughtful post on the intelligence of crowds, in which he explores both the wisdom and the incoherence of large groups of people and asks good questions about the characteristics of a crowd that contribute to it’s thoughtfulness in acting. It makes me think of the “intelligence” of crowds, as in the emergent property that creates a set of constraints that directs action in certain ways. This seem to co-arise with the emergence of the quality of a a collection of people that makes it a “group” or a “mob” or an “assembly.” There is intention behind those words – we want a team and not a gang – and it’s worth asking the question how do we create coherence that guides the emergence of the form and intelligence we want froths group, without the pitfalls of too much coherence so that what alos emerges is a cult. This is something I’mexploring in the container book I’mchipping away at.
Back in 2018 a Whitecaps Academy grad and former WFC2 player, Patrick Metcalfe joined TSS Rovers for the season. He appeared in 10 games as a defensive midfielder and helped us on to winning our first piece of silverware as a club, the Juan de Fuca Plate. Following that season he signed a professional contract with the Vancouver Whitecaps where he made 20 appearances in 2020 and 2021. The Whitecaps cut him after 2022 and he went to Norway where he found a job with Staebek and helped them get promoted to the Eliteserien. He was cut again at the end of that year and signed on with Fredrikstadt, who were in the second division. Again he helped a club to promotion and after a great 2023, the club did well in their first season in the top flight and won the Norwegian Cup, meaning they qualified for European play in the Conference League. Patrick played 70 matches over those two seasons and had his contract renewed in March just before the season started. Today he started for Fredrikstad against English FA Cup winners Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park and played the whole match in a defensive masterclass that held the Premier League team to a 1-0 win in the first leg of their two-leg qualification tie.
Patty’s is one of those players, like our former defender Joel Waterman – who just got transferred to Chicago Fire in MLS – who make their own way in the world of professional football. They travel to find a place they are wanted, where they can make a contribution. They know their talent alone is not enough to keep them in the professional game, and so they work hard, stay true to themselves, and give as much as they can wherever the end up. In as much as it’s great to have the flamboyant heroes of the pro game for younger players to look up to, I’m always lifting up the likes of Metcalfe and Waterman and Tynan and Friesen and Haynes, all players who have stopped in with out little club, the TSS Rovers, and seen it as the step they needed on their own journey. When they come through us though, they pick us up as well, so that even 7 years later a small group of people in Vancouver are watching a far flung European tie and can’t take their eyes of the number 11 from the Norwegian underdog.