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Possible Practices: 32 Possible Books and One 5-year Creative Journey

Oliver Ding
CALL4
Published in
27 min readAug 1, 2024

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The 33rd Possible Book [4 parts, 121 articles, Total 1,739 min read, Total 460,835 words (about 922 single-spaced pages)]

I used a Twitter thread to update a list of my possible books. On June 16, 2024, I published the 32nd possible book: Activity as Formation of Concept.

  • 2019: 1 possible book
  • 2020: 2 possible books
  • 2021: 7 possible books
  • 2022: 8 possible books
  • 2023: 8 possible books
  • 2024: 6 possible books

2019

1. Curativity Theory: The Ecological Approach to General Curation Practice (March 16, 2019)

2020

2. After Affordance: The Ecological Approach to Human Action (July 19, 2020)

3. Activity U: How to Think and Act Like an Activity Theorist (Dec 8, 2020)

2021

4. Project-oriented Activity Theory: A 21st-Century version of Activity Theory for Making Impact Projects and Social Movements (Jan 24, 2021)

5. Platform for Development: The Ecology of Adult Development in the 21st Century (March 31, 2021)

6. The ECHO Way: Echozone and Boundary Knowledge Work (April 19, 2021)

7. Themes of Practice: The Information Architecture of Social Life (August 7, 2021)

8. Career Curation: Curativity Theory for Personal Innovation (July 17, 2021)

9. Diagram Blending: Building Diagram Networks (Dec 22, 2021)

10. Diagramming as Practice: An Integrated Framework for Studying Knowledge Diagrams (Dec 16, 2021)

2022

11. Ecological Practice Design: The Lifesystem Approach to Everyday Life Innovation (May 17, 2022)

12. Knowledge Discovery: Developing Tacit Knowledge with Thematic Space Canvas (May 19, 2022)

13. Life Discovery: The Life-as-Project Approach (July 1, 2022)

14. Project Engagement: Life, History, and Multiverse (August 2022)

15. Knowledge Curation: Turning Pieces into A Meaningful Whole (Oct 18, 2022)

16. Creative Life Curation: Turning Experiences into Meaningful Achievements (Nov 23, 2022)

17. Advanced Life Strategy: Anticipatory Activity System and Life Achievements (Dec 15, 2022)

18. Appropriating Activity Theory: A Journey of Knowledge Engagement (Dec 31, 2022)

2023

19. Perspectives on Product Engagement (v1.0) — March 2, 2023

20. Knowledge Engagement: Knowledge Center and Creative Life Theory — April 19, 2023

21. Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement — June 23, 2023

22. Mental Moves: The Attachance Approach to Ecological Creative Cognition — July 31, 2023

23. Creative Life Theory (v2.0): Building A Knowledge Enterprise — Oct 6, 2023

24. Grasping the Concept: The Territory of Concepts and Concept Dynamics — Nov 30, 2023

25. Social Moves: The Attachance Approach to Social Cognition — Dec 19, 2023

26. Mapping Developmental Projects: Life, Stories, and Thematic Spaces — Dec 31, 2023

2024

27. Meaning Discovery: Capture Significant Insights in Everyday Life — Jan 23, 2024

28. Situational Note-taking: A Collection of Case Studies — Jan 24, 2024

29. Creative Diagramming: The Fifth Way of Knowing and Early Discovery — Feb 10, 2024

30. Mapping Creative Dialogue: The ECHO Way and Creative Life (book, v1, 2024) — March 31, 2024

31. Center, Circle, and Genidentity (book, v1, 2024) — May 31, 2024

32. Activity as Formation of Concept (book, v1, 2024) — June 16, 2024

After publishing the 30th possible book on March 31, 2024, I realized there was a 5-year Creative Journey.

March 2019 to March 2024

This insight inspired me to run a Creative Life Curation project in April 2024. I used 30 possible books as raw materials to analyze the patterns behind my journey. One of the models is shown in the diagram below.

I also wrote a 100-side deck in Chinese to tell the whole story of the creative journey.

In May 2024, I shared the deck with some of my friends in China. One friend sent a list of questions to interview me. One of her questions is about Possible Books.

You refer to these manuscripts as “Possible Books” rather than official publications. What is the reason behind this? Do you have plans to convert these manuscripts into official publications, or do you prefer to maintain this exploratory form? Alternatively, will you share them for free as e-books?

I use [Knowledge Projects] as the basic unit of my creative journey, focusing on [Connecting Theory and Practice], with [Knowledge Frameworks] as the primary output. These manuscripts are not my main output; they are creative containers that hold the outcomes of these knowledge projects and house these knowledge frameworks.

These manuscripts are not created with the aim of formal publication. Because they are over 250 pages long and are more formal and rigorous in content than [Notes], I refer to them as [Possible Books].

From the perspective of [Creative Life Theory], this is a unique [Genre] that is particularly useful for studying the [Early Discovery] of [Creative Life].

In June 2024, I talked about the 5-year creative journey with another friend. Our talk inspired me to make the 33rd possible book.

A Possible Book about Possible Books.

The term “Possible Book” is an example of the concept of “Possible Practice”.

So the new possible book is also about “Possible Practice”.

The Concept of Possible Practice

In 2020, I made a framework for “Possible Practice”. See the diagram below.

I consider actions at the individual level and practice at the collective level. The four types of actions correspond to four types of social practices.

  • Possible Practice — Possible Actions
  • Normal Practice — Normal Actions
  • Novel Practice — Creative actions
  • Ideal Practice — Exemplary Actions

Why do I place Possible Practice at the center of the framework?

I claim that possible practice is the origin of all types of practice. If we trace back to the historical development of any social practice, we can always find that their sources are possible actions. I also claim that affordance and imagination are two sources of possible actions.

The framework is based on the NICE Way which was introduced in The NICE Way and Creative Actions in 2020.

Moreover, I also used the term “Possible Practice” as the mission of the Ecological Practice approach.

Since 2001, a group of philosophers, sociologists, and scientists have rediscovered the practice perspective and used it as a lens to explore and examine the role of practices in human activity. Researchers called it The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. As Schatzki pointed out, “There is no unified practice approach”(2001, p.2). Davide Nicolini adopted a way of a toolkit to introduce the following six different ways of theorizing practice in his 2013 book Practice Theory, Work, & Organization:

  • Praxeology and the Work of Giddens and Bourdieu
  • Communities of Practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991)
  • Activity Theory / Cultural-historical activity theory (the Marxian/Vygotskian/Leont’evian tradition)
  • Ethnomethodology (Harold Garfinkel, 1954)
  • The Site of Social (contemporary developments of the Heideggerian/Wittgensteinian traditions, by Theodore R. Schatzki)
  • Conversation Analysis / Critical Discourse Analysis (the Foucauldian tradition)

Nicolini also pointed out, “Practice theories are fundamentally ontological projects in the sense that they attempt to provide a new vocabulary to describe the world and to populate the world with specific ‘units of analysis’; that is, practice. How these units are defined, however, is internal to each of the theories, and choosing one of them would thus amount to reducing the richness provided by the different approaches.” (2012, p.9)

I suggest “Possible Practice” as a new term that expands the scope of contemporary practice theories from “actual actions and existing practice” to “possible actions and possible practice”. I consider “Possible Practice” as the special unit of analysis for my approach “Ecological Practice”.

The Ecological Practice Approach is not an alternative to contemporary practice theories, but expands their scope and contains more theoretical concepts such as James J. Gibson’s Affordance.

The ecological practice approach claims that the source of all human actions is affordance and imagination. Affordance refers to material engagement while imagination refers to linguistic engagement. If we accept the ideas from cognitive linguistics which claim that the source of linguistic conceptual metaphor is embodied experience, we can reduce the linguistic engagement (imagination) to material engagement (affordance). We can learn more from philosophers of embodied cognitive science. They consider affordance as an essential concept for rethinking the mind from the perspective of embodied cognitive science.

In 2023, I developed Creative Life Theory and introduced several units of analysis. The term “Possible Practice” was associated with the unit of analysis “Creative Action”.

The Development of Concepts

From 2020 to 2023, I wrote a trilogy about Concept Development.

There is an interesting fact behind the trilogy: the narrative sequence of the trilogy is different from the real historical sequence of my projects. This is a good example of Double Trajectories of Concept Development:

  • The Developmental Trajectory of “PRACTICE”
  • The Developmental Trajectory of “THEORY”

At the Developmental Trajectory of “PRACTICE”, I see all learned knowledge as heuristic tools for running several knowledge projects.

There are many knowledge projects behind these three books, I’d like to divide them into three phases.

  • Phase 1: Appropriating Activity Theory (2020–2022)
  • Phase 2: Running Knowlege Centers (2022–2023)
  • Phase 3: Evolving Concept System (2023–2024)

I learned the notion of “Activity as Formation of Concept” in Phase 1 and applied it to Phase 2. In Phase 3, I expanded my ideas from a Single Concept to a Concept System.

At the Developmental Trajectory of “THEORY”, I see all real actions of running knowledge projects as data to test different theoretical approaches and knowledge frameworks.

These three possible books represent the outcome of my thoughts at the “THEORY” level.

This is a fantastic journey!

How did I apply these ideas to my practices such as the concept of “Possible Practices”?

Several Examples of “Possible Practice”

The concept of “Possible Practice” is a general abstract concept. If we want to grasp it in real life, we need to move to its members such as a particular possible practice.

In the past several years, I worked on the following particular possible practices:

  • Possible Theme
  • Possible Book
  • Possible Persona
  • Possible Discipline
  • Possible Support

In 2023, I established TALE (Thematic Analysis Learn Engagement) as a knowledge engagement to host the Thematic Engagement project. A major practice of TALE is Developing Possible Themes.

From March 2019 to March 2024, I wrote and edited 30 Possible Books.

I also wrote several articles about “Possible Persona”, “Possible Discipline”, and “Possible Support”.

Now it is time to edit a new possible book to put these ideas together!

A New Possible Book

The above picture was designed for a possible book about the Ecological Practice Approach. Now it finds its real content!

The new possible book is divided into four parts:

  • Part 1: Possible Practices
  • Part 2: Possible Themes
  • Part 3: Possible Books
  • Part 4: Possible Support

Part 1 (Possible Practices) collects articles about the concept of “Possible Practices”. It is the introduction of the idea.

Part 2 (Possible Themes) focuses on particular possible practices, especially the idea of Possible Themes. It also collects articles about “Possible Persona” and “Possible Discipline”.

Part 3 (Possible Books) featured 30 possible books I wrote and edited in the past several years.

Part 4 (Possible Support) highlights several articles that describe others’ help to the creative journey.

Some numbers about the possible book:

  • 4 parts
  • 121 articles
  • Total 1,739 min read
  • Total 460,835 words (about 922 single-spaced pages)

Part 1: Possible Practices

Part 2: Possible Themes

The Possible Themes are products of the Symbolic Objectification movement.

Part 3: Possible Books

  • 2019: 1 possible book
  • 2020: 2 possible books
  • 2021: 7 possible books
  • 2022: 8 possible books
  • 2023: 8 possible books
  • 2024: 6 possible books

1. Curativity Theory: The Ecological Approach to General Curation Practice (2019)

I have worked in the curation field for over ten years. I was the Chief Information Architect of BagTheWeb.com, an early content curation tool (We launched the site in 2010). This experience inspired me to make a long-term commitment to the Curation theme. After having 10 years of various curation-related practical work experience and theory learning, I coined a term called Curativity and developed Curativity Theory which became a book.

The book Curativity: The Ecological Approach to General Curation Practice was written in Chinese from Oct 2018 to March 2019. It is a 615-page Google Doc file.

Highlights

2. After Affordance: The Ecological Approach to Human Action (2020)

After March 2019, I continuously worked on revising Curativity and developing the Ecological Practice Approach as a new project. In May 2020, I wrote another book titled After Affordance: The Ecological Approach to Human Action in which I proposed several new theoretical ideas for expanding ecological psychology to the modern digital environment.

After Affordance is a 371-page file. It was written in Chinese. The primary theoretical concepts are Attachance and Infoniche.

Highlights

3. Activity U: How to Think and Act Like an Activity Theorist (2020)

This book is a collection of my articles about Activity Theory. It was the outcome of the Activity U project, a large knowledge curation project.

Highlights

4. Project-oriented Activity Theory (2021)

A major development of Activity Theory during the past decade is Andy Blunden’s account “An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity”.

To develop the notion of “Project as a unit of Activity” as a theoretical foundation of the new interdisciplinary theory of Activity, Blunden adopts Hegel’s logic and Vygotsky’s theory about “Unit of Analysis” and “Concept” as theoretical resources. The process is documented in four books: An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity (2010), Concepts: A Critical Approach (2012), Collaborative Projects: An Interdisciplinary Study (2014), and Hegel for Social Movements (2019).

This possible book introduces Andy Blunden’s ideas and develops several frameworks such as Developmental Project Model and Cultural Projection Analysis.

Highlights

5. Platform for Development: The Ecology of Adult Development in the 21st Century (2021)

This book is considered a sub-project of the Platform Ecology project.

Highlights

6. The ECHO Way: Echozone and Boundary Knowledge Work (2021)

From August 2020 to March 2021, I wrote three books in English. This was an amazing experience! In April 2021, I joined an online program and shared my reflection about the HERO U framework and the above works. Eventually, I wrote a new book called THE ECHO WAY in Chinese in April 2021. It is a 312-page draft.

Highlights

7. Themes of Practice: The Information Architecture of Social Life (2021)

The concept of “Themes of Practice” is a core idea of Curativity Theory. From June 2021 to August 2021, I applied the concept to study career development and developed a new framework to expand the concept. The work on Career Themes focuses on the “Practice” part of “Themes of Practice.” This experience inspired me to review the historical development of the idea of “Themes of Practice”.

In August 2021, I collected all my writings about Themes of Practice in past years and edited a Table of Contents for a possible book. To my surprise, I have written over 440 pages about the idea of “Themes of Practice” in Chinese.

The possible book contains a theoretical concept, a practical framework, a method of analysis, a set of sub-concepts, and several empirical studies.

Highlights

8. Career Curation: Curativity Theory for Personal Innovation (2021)

On July 4, 2021, I finished a 64-page thesis titled The Epistemology of Domain which offers a brand new theory about Domain. On July 5, 2021, I sent an email to a friend with my draft. At the end of the email, I used the following three keywords to summarize my three major theoretical creations.

  • Opportunity: The Ecological Practice Approach
  • Objective: Project-oriented Activity Theory
  • Outcome: The Epistemology of Domain

Later, I used the Tripartness diagram to re-organize these ideas. I also adopted the pair of concepts “Lifeway/Lifeform” to the diagram. Finally, I made a new framework for discussing career development.

This led to a new book! I added the new diagram to the Career Curation board and started writing! I have written 106 pages for the first draft in Chinese. However, I stopped the project on July 17, 2021.

Highlights

9. Diagram Blending: Building Diagram Networks (2021)

On Dec 16, 2021, I closed the D as Diagramming project (Phase 1) with the Diagramming as Practice framework. The project is both a research project and an experimental project.

As an experimental project, I worked on three ideas:

  • Introduced a set of Meta-diagrams I designed with real examples.
  • Focused on turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge with diagrams
  • To discover the relationship between diagrams and canvas, I turned my diagrams into the canvas as experiments.

Since the notion of Meta-diagrams is new, I had to coin some new terms to name emergent ideas during the process. Eventually, I realized that I should edit a new book to curate these new ideas together.

In 2018, I wrote a 108-page thesis titled Diagram Explained. I developed a framework for understanding multiple layers of diagrams and wrote a list of topics about diagramming. The thesis considers two groups of ideas. The first group is “meta-diagram, diagram, and diagram system” and the second group is “diagramming as an activity of knowing, theorizing, and reflecting”.

The possible book documents my work on Meta-diagrams and related practice.

Highlights

10. Diagramming as Practice: An Integrated Framework for Studying Knowledge Diagrams (2021)

From August 2021 to Dec 2021, I worked on the D as Diagramming project (phase 1). In order to close the project, I developed an integrated framework for studying knowledge diagrams.

I also edited a new book for this framework. While Diagram Blending focuses on meta-diagrams and related practices, Diagramming as Practice aims to offer a curated framework for studying knowledge diagrams.

Highlights

11. Ecological Practice Design: The Lifesystem Approach to Everyday Life Innovation (2022)

I started developing the Ecological Practice Approach in 2019 and the Lifesystem framework was born in Oct 2020.

My passion behind the approach is developing a theoretical framework in order to use it to reflect on my over 20 years of work experience in various fields such as curation, design, strategy, learning, etc.

Though the Ecological Practice Approach and the Lifesystem framework were not developed for discussing Design, they could be applied to the field of Design, especially everyday life innovation.

The possible book focuses on the Lifesystem Approach and expands from its core framework to more theoretical concepts and operational frameworks. It collects my articles about the Ecological Practice Practice, the Lifesytem framework, and related frameworks.

Highlights

12. Knowledge Discovery: Developing Tacit Knowledge with Thematic Space Canvas (2022)

In the spring of 2022, I worked on the Slow Cognition project to explore the historical-cognitive approach and the long-term development of thoughts.

The primary project in the journey was the Thematic Space project. Originally, I used the term “Thematic Space” to name an item for the Knowledge Curation model and canvas. Later, I developed a canvas for the concept of “Thematic Space”. This led to a series of canvases and a series of activities.

  • Knowledge Discovery Activity and Canvas
  • Concept Discovery Activity and Canvas
  • Life Discovery Activity and Canvas
  • Opportunity Discovery Activity and Canvas
  • Thematic Spirit
  • Significant Insights Analysis

To close the Slow Cognitive Project (phase I), I collected a set of articles and edited a Table of Contents for a possible book.

Highlights

13. Life Discovery: The Life-as-Project Approach (2022)

A collection about the Life-as-Project project.

Highlights

14. Project Engagement: Life, History, and Multiverse

On July 20, 2022, I started writing an introduction to the Project Engagement approach (v2.0) in Chinese. The thesis was finished on July 30, 2022. The 116-page file highlights three keywords: Significance, Complexity, and Genidentity.

Highlights

15. Knowledge Curation: Turning Pieces into A Meaningful Whole (2022)

The mission behind the Knowledge Curation project (phase 1) is Connecting Theory and Practice. The Theory-Practice Gap is an important issue in a wide range of disciplines.

From 2020 to 2022, I developed a set of tools and ran several sub-projects. This book closed the project and featured these tools.

Highlights

16. Creative Life Curation: Turning Experiences into Meaningful Achievements (2022)

From the perspective of Curativity Center, the Creative Life Curation project is part of the journey of building the knowledge enterprise of Curativity Theory.

From Oct 2022 to Dec 2022, I worked on the Creative Life Curation project.

The Creative Life Curation project is about turning Individual Life Experiences into Collective Culture. It refers to both personal innovation and cultural innovation.

The notion of “Creative Life Curation” refers to turning Life Experiences into Developmental Resources, and Meaningful Achievement. I consider “Creative Life Curation” as a specific life strategy for knowledge creators.

Highlights

17. Advanced Life Strategy: Anticipatory Activity System and Life Achievements (2022)

My primary interest is located in the intersection between Knowledge, Creativity, and Adult Development. I roughly use Creative Life to name this focus. It’s clear that I don’t want to develop a general framework about adult development for everyone. I only consider Knowledge Workers and Creators as my target audience.

The Life Strategy Project aims to develop a systematic approach to life strategy for knowledge creators.

Highlights

18. Appropriating Activity Theory

From Oct 2022 to Dec 2022, I reflected on the journey of engaging with Activity Theory from 2020 to 2022 and wrote several long articles.

Initially, my purpose was to develop some methods and frameworks for the Creative Life project. Later, I realized that I could collect these articles together and curate them into a new meaningful whole.

What’s the new meaningful whole?

It represents a journey of “Person-Theme” engagement. While I am the person, the theme refers to Activity Theory and related knowledge enterprise.

Highlights

19. Perspectives on Product Engagement (v1.0, 2023)

This book is a test of connecting THEORY and PRACTICE. For the “Product Engagement” project, there are three major theoretical approaches:

  • The Ecological Practice Approach (inspired by Ecological Psychology)
  • The Project Engagement Approach (inspired by Activity Theory)
  • Ferdinand de Saussure’s Structural Linguistics

Highlights

20. Knowledge Engagement: Knowledge Center and Creative Life Theory (v1.0, 2023)

From Jan 2023 to April 2023, I read Ping-keung Lui’s book Gaze, Actions, and the Social World and wrote 15 notes. Total 228 pages.

The outcome is amazing! I reflected on the following three projects while replaying Lui’s theory development journey.

  • The Knowledge Engagement Project
  • The Creative Life Framework
  • The Theme of “Value Circle”

I also developed several new frameworks which form the Creative Life Theory (v2.0).

Highlights

21. Thematic Exploration: The Early Discovery of Knowledge Engagement (book, v1, 2023)

A possible book about thematic creativity and thematic curativity.

I consider Strategic Thematic Exploration and Conceptual Elaboration as two phases of EARLY DISCOVERY of the journey of knowledge Engagement. I use “Strategic Thematic Exploration” to frame a creative space for exploring the strategic intent with the thematic analysis methods, especially for knowledge engagement.

Highlights

22. Mental Moves: The Attachance Approach to Ecological Creative Cognition (v1, 2023)

I coined the term Attachance by combining Attach and Chance in 2018 to discuss some ideas related to Affordance, a core idea of Ecological Psychology.

In 2022, the development of Attachance was tied to the development of Thematic Space. As mentioned above, Thematic Spaces refer to a specific type of container: cognitive container.

Attachance Theory is about the ecological meaning and value of detaching acts and attaching acts. In other words, we pay attention to the process of moving between containers.

Highlights

23. Creative Life Theory: Building A Knowledge Enterprise (v2, 2023)

Creative Life Theory is a large knowledge enterprise that includes multiple units of analysis, a series of frameworks, and a set of tools.

In 2023, I worked on the Creative Life Theory (v2) which aims to develop a meta-framework to support the above multiple units of analysis. I also used the meta-framework to guide the Knowledge Engagement project.

The “Building A Knowledge Enterprise” activity is a sub-project of the Knowledge Engagement project. From May 2022 to Sept 2023, I worked on developing the concept of “Knowledge Center” which is a core idea of the “Building A Knowledge Enterprise” activity.

Highlights

24. Grasping the Concept: The Territory of Concepts and Concept Dynamics (v1, 2023)

The phrase “Grasping the Concept” was inspired by Andy Blunden who is the author of Concepts: A Critical Approach. In Nov 2020, we had a short thematic conversation about concepts via Gmail. He used “… grasped with two different concepts…” to review two different views of Activity Theory.

This book summarizes several projects about concepts and themes.

There is no single theory or framework for these ideas. What you will see is a dynamic network of knowledge frameworks. In order words, this is an evolving concept system.

Highlights

25. Social Moves: The Attachance Approach to Social Cognition

If we put “Mental Moves” and “Social Moves” together, we see a new unit of analysis of Social Cognition. While “Social Moves” are about Social Actions, “Mental Moves” are about related Mental Activities.

Social Cognition = Social Moves (Mental Moves)

Both “Mental Moves” and “Social Moves” shared the concept of “Thematic Space” and the concept of “Attachance”.

The possible book introduces an integrated ecological approach to social cognition. It was formed by two sub-frameworks: the Ecological Formism framework and the Ecological Actualism framework.

Highlights

26. Mapping Developmental Projects: Life, Stories, and Thematic Spaces (v1, 2023)

From 2020 to 2023, I worked on a series of knowledge projects about the concept of “Project” and related ideas, especially the concept of “Developmental Projects”.

I also developed a series of diagrams to represent and understand the concept of “Development Projects”. I also used the “Diagram Blending” technique to connect the Developmental Project Model and other knowledge frameworks.

In the past several years, I also wrote a set of articles to reflect my knowledge projects. Some articles were written as case studies of the Developmental Project Model, while others were written as normal life reflections.

This possible book collects my articles about the concept of Project, the Developmental Project Model, and my project-based life reflections.

Highlights

27. Meaning Discovery: Capture Significant Insights in Everyday Life (v1, 2024)

The possible book follows Knowledge Discovery: Developing Tacit Knowledge with Thematic Space Canvas (May 2022) and Life Discovery: The Life-as-Project Approach (July 2022). Together, they form a trilogy.

The trilogy sees “Knowledge Discovery”, “Life Discovery”, and “Meaning Discovery” as three special types of Second-order Activity.

  • Knowledge Discovery Activity
  • Life Discovery Activity
  • Meaning Discovery Activity

The concept of Second-order Activity is a core concept of the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework which is inspired by Anticipatory Systems Theory, Activity Theory, and other theoretical resources.

I used the Meaning Discovery Model (v1) as the primary framework to curate this book.

Highlights

28. Situational Note-taking (book, v1, 2024)

A Collection of Case Studies. This is a supplemental collection of the possible book Meaning Discovery: Capture Significant Insights in Everyday Life.

Highlights

29. Creative Diagramming: The Fifth Way of Knowing and Early Discovery (v1, 2024)

I don’t work on the direction of Visualization. I use diagrams to develop concept systems and create knowledge frameworks. I considered Creative Diagrmming as a Way of Knowing.

In this book, you can see many details of my journey of knowledge engagement.

Highlights

30. Mapping Creative Dialogue: The ECHO Way and Creative Life (v1, 2024)

From 2022 to 2023, I worked on developing the Creative Life Curation project and the Knowledge Engagement project. The outcome is a new theoretical approach to knowledge creators’ life course: Creative Life Theory.

In the past several years, I developed a set of concepts, diagrams, knowledge frameworks, and metaphors to discuss a family of topics such as boundary innovation, opposite themes, thematic conversation, creative dialogue, etc.

In March 2024, I realized that “Creative Dialogue” is a significant aspect of Creative Life. So I decided to add “Creative Dialogue” as a new Unit of Analysis to Creative Life Theory and edit a new possible book.

Highlights

31. Center, Circle, and Genidentity (book, v1, 2024)

On August 7, 2023, I started the “Value Circle” knowledge project which aims to achieve the following two goals:

  • Abstract level: reflect on my journey of “Building A Network of Knowledge Centers” from 2022 to 2023
  • Concrete level: write a possible book about the journey

On May 31, 2024, I edited a possible book titled Center, Circle, and Genidentity and used it to close the “Value Circle” knowledge project.

Highlights

32. Activity as Formation of Concept (book, v1, 2024)

Engaging with Andy Blunden’s Approach to Activity Theory

In 2021, I introduced Andy Blunden’s notion of “Activity as Formation of Concept” in a book (draft) titled Project-oriented Activity Theory. Later, I used the notion of “Activity as Formation of Concept” to develop several knowledge frameworks. For example, I developed the Platform Innovation as Concept-fit framework and introduced it in the book Platform for Development in 2021.

Highlights

Part 4: Possible Supports

The term “Possible Support” is related to the theoretical concept of “Supportance”.

In order to discuss potential supportive action possibilities between a person and other people and social environments in general, I coined the term Supportance and developed it as a theoretical concept for the Ecological Practice approach.

The concept of Supportance refers to potential supportive action possibilities offered by a social environment. It is inspired by Ecological psychologist James J. Gibson’s concept of Affordance which refers to potential action possibilities offered by environments. Both two concepts are potential action possibilities. However, the concept of Affordance can be applied to both animals and humans and Gibson uses it to talk about visual perception.

I also used “Supportive Collaboration” to discuss the interaction between knowledge centers.

In my 5-year journey, many people gave me feedback and other kinds of help. Sometimes, their support was not intended. Moreover, from the perspective of Supportance, ‘support’ means not only intended support but also unintended support.

  • Intended support: Person A intends to give some support to person B.
  • Unintended support: Person A doesn’t intend to give some support to person B, but person B actualizes some supportances which are offered by Person A.

Both intended support and unintended support require Perception and Capability from Person B, however, unintended support doesn’t require Intentionality from Person A. The same logic can be applied to the level of institutionalized actions.

We can use the term “Possible Support” to describe the same situation.

This part collects several articles about the term and some related stories from my 5-year journey.

Highlights

Possible
Possible Futures
Possible Worlds
Creative Life

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Oliver Ding
CALL4

927 Followers
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Founder of CALL(Creative Action Learning Lab), information architect, knowledge curator.

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