This article from CleanTechnica is a great example showing that unlimited growth cannot continue indefinitely. There are no known cases of perpetual unlimited growth anywhere in the universe. What’s makes us think we can do better?
I think of design as an activity that seeks balance between efficiency and effectiveness. So understanding effectiveness and efficiency, and being able to recognize efficiency and effectiveness in systems, is a fundamental skill in design. In this post, I will describe a situation from my own life of hyper-efficiency in the Ontario health care system. … Continue reading An imbalance in the Ontario health care system
London’s Heathrow Airport – suffering only a few centimetres of snowfall – is largely shut down. Thousands of stranded passengers may end up spending Christmas in one of the least Christmas-y places there is. Dozens of other airports are carrying huge backlogs because of the cascade effect. The rippling of delays and cancellations is wreaking … Continue reading Snow, airlines, and balance
One colleague put me on to a very simple yet very crisp and practical distinction between coordination, cooperation, and collaboration. More than a year later, another academic suggested three levels of organizational behaviour: hierarchical, clan-based, and market based. It struck me that these are essentially the same.
High efficiency comes at a price we probably don’t want to pay – low effectiveness. I should have noticed this years ago, when I first learnt the laws of thermodynamics. For those of you not inclined to scary math, the laws of thermodynamics – thanks to C.P. Snow – are really quite easy: You can’t … Continue reading The down-side of high efficiency
Banning hand-held phones while driving is a lemon of an idea. The Ontario Liberal government has introduced new legislation to ban the use of hand-held devices to talk, e-mail or send text messages while driving. Hands-free devices are not covered by the proposed legislation. Ontario wouldn’t be the first jurisdiction to try this kind of … Continue reading Ontario’s proposed (and flawed) cell phone law
Filippo A. Salustri 