Pathfinder

life-centred design | indigenous worldview | systems/complexity thinking | local futures

What I do

I’m a facilitator, a designer, and a practitioner of thinking in systems/complexity. My current research focuses on life-centred design and indigenous/ecological worldview. I believe in localized, grass-roots approaches to wicked problems.

Work

I help organizations and communities weed out the noise and the clutter from information overload and get to the heart of the matter with complexity/systems thinking and visual explanations.

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Presentations

I speak regularly at industry conferences about strategic design, business architecture, and complexity/systems thinking. I also deliver webinars and corporate training upon request.

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Blogs

Research, observations, and reflections from in-the-trenches experience as well as discussions with peers across the globe. Views are mine and don’t represent those of my clients.

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My Story

My name is Joanne. I’m a facilitator, a designer, and a pathfinder. I used to be a solution creator until I understood that “today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions” and realized that solutions to complex problems were often hidden in plain sight within our communities and ourselves. My role expanded and shifted to engaging with communities to unlock ‘hidden’ solutions to wicked problems plaguing our societies and ourselves.

That’s what motivated me to start the Systems Innovation (Si) Toronto Hub (Si Toronto Hub), a community of practitioners doing systems innovation through new, decentralized ways of organizing and approaches. The hub aims to unlock the huge unrealized potentials of systems thinking and complexity science and apply the ideas and methods toward wicked challenges.

The hub is at the beginning of a long journey. Connect with me and join me at the hub, and explore together how we may collaborate and uncover those hidden solutions.

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My Blogs

Thinking Simpler and Yet Deeper!

Most of us don’t think simple enough today. In other words, we don’t understand much of what we do in a deep and connected way. We think in a broad-brush…
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Of Complex Systems and Birds

What do a flock of birds, the brain, the immune system, the internet and the board game Go have in common? What about intelligence, love, or suffering? How is a…
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