(image via Derek Beres)

[written for the Design with Dialogue blog]

Despite being held at 6pm in the middle of the workweek, the monthly Design with Dialogue meet-up, now in it’s fifth year, has established quite a steady following. March’s topic ‘What is the True Nature of Partnerships’ led by Mary Pickering of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund attracted 30 or so individuals eager to engage as both listeners and contributors in authentic dialogue. The session was rich with insights. Here are my top take-aways around contracts, money and forces.

CONTRACTS ARE USEFUL FOR THE PROCESS

Drawing up a letter of intent, contract, or, in the case of a romantic partnership, a prenuptial agreement, is helpful because it forces us to go through the motions of discussing what assets exist, what our strengths are and how we can be fair with each other. However, if the partnership gets to the point where this agreement needs to be used, it often means a deeper betrayal occurred at some point and this issue(s) needs to be resolved before the partnership can be resumed. This highlights the need to think about succession and exit planning (less so for romantic partnerships of course) during the early stages of the partnership and to be very up front about timelines and needs.

MONEY DOESN’T EQUAL SKIN IN THE GAME

Contributing money doesn’t equal a true 'buy-in' (i.e., partnership) because one's personal value of money is weighted by how much you have in your purse. Mary explains that one of the fundamentals of true partnerships is that all parties “have skin in the game”, ie. contribute and incur risk by agreeing to engage. However, with agreements where power is imbalanced, such as those between investor and entrepreneur or music label and musician, it can be difficult to decipher whether an offer to engage is a transaction or a partnership. The intention of the engagement and level of commitment is the difference between a transaction (purely a business exchange, short-term in nature, and often a one-time deal) and a partnership (founded on reciprocity, cooperation and mutual growth and often long-term). These semantics are important because they have very different implications when things don’t go according to plan (and they never do). Simply bringing money to the table does not guarantee commitment, so how can we better neutralize these imbalances? 

FORCES ARE WORKING AGAINST THE PARTNERSHIP 

Forming partnerships can be hard enough, and, once formed, there are also forces working to pull them apart. Personal responsibilities, job requirements and navigating hiccups across projects all compete for our mental-bandwidth; thus, limiting the attention we can give to nurturing partnerships. Much like an untended garden that becomes overrun with weeds over time, unmaintained partnerships can take you steps backwards by growing once small nuisances into much larger issues or causing strain to relationships. Partnerships, like living organisms, need ongoing TLC to thrive.

In the social innovation context, we are acutely aware that our complex systemic challenges (such as homelessness, income inequalities or climate change) cannot be solved in siloes. The growing need for cross-sector, cross-disciplinary collaboration to tackle these challenges amplifies the need for individuals skilled at managing and brokering partnerships. For more information about the process Mary described during the session, visit the Partnership Brokers Association website. If you’re interested in building these skills, there is an upcoming Partnership Brokering level 1 training in Toronto mid-April (disclosure: SiG is a promotional partner for this training - however, views expressed here are my own).

- Satsuko

Related posts: The Art Of Collaboration (highlights from Montreal's 2013 Art of Hosting training), Partnering To Tip Systems (overview of Constellation Governance and Collective Impact models)

(image via mackink)

[A version of this post also appeared on the Social Innovation Generation blog]

We removed our wet boots at the entrance to L’Espace La Fontaine on a typical snowy February morning in Montreal. Located in the middle of a park with a skate rental shop downstairs and a frozen lake nearby, the upstairs of the building had been transformed to host about 115 men and women to participate in The Art of Hosting – a three-day workshop exploring how to create spaces for meaningful conversations. In the wake of 2012 Quebec university student protests, the participants were eager to tackle social problems with fresh ideas.

Here are two highlights from the three-day workshop: connecting and harvesting

1.  Arriving, Connecting and Being Present

(image via thefancy)

Overheard at a meeting near you: “The sooner we get down to business, the sooner we can get back to work”. Our fast-paced lives push us to jump straight into serious discussion at meetings, cutting the fat (small talk) to get to the meat (business). But how do rushed interactions affect the quality of collaborations and relationships? Ignoring the crucial step of settling in and establishing connection among fellow meeting participants can result in lost attention (manifested in the form of checking emails and taping away on smartphones while others talk) and, over the longer-term, prevents deeper relationships and trust to form. In other words, not making time to connect makes effective collaboration very difficult and negates the whole point of coming together in the first place. Particularly in lab settings, where compressed timeframes are the norm and deep collaboration is necessary, building in time to connect is crucial.

I experienced both sides of the coin during one of the exercises at the training. All of the training participants separated into groups of three to work on a respective group member’s, real-life work challenge. Due to some confusion, though, my group of three arrived a half an hour late to our designated table. We felt the time crunch (!) and began haphazardly proceeding through the exercise barely having taken off our jackets. That’s when we decided to stop and take a moment to properly ‘arrive’.  We each shared past experience relevant to the project, enabling us to build a shared understanding of our individual lenses and connect with one another. By the end of the exercise, we were laughing with one another and had come up with actionable items to help our group member, Marco, move forward with his project. Taking a moment to settle in and connect made the remaining half hour productive and fun, reminding me that it doesn't have to be one or the other.

Resources

• Here is an inspiring story of citizens coming together in Columbus Ohio that was shared at the training by Tuesday Ryan-Hart (this written version is by Margaret Wheatley)
• Non-violent communication (NVC), a practice of communicating with compassion, also emphasizes connecting and practicing empathy with one another prior to collaborating.

2. Visual Learning and Harvest

Incorporating illustrations and stories that anchor in emotions can make even dull meeting summaries and report-backs come to life. This is the premise behind the art of harvesting, a parallel practice to the art of hosting. What’s important about harvesting is: actively listening to the whole room, capturing the magic from conversation (quotes, stories, compelling points), synthesizing theses bits to pull out underlying messages and themes, and creating a meaningful record of the conversation that inspires action. Before attending the training, I understood harvesting to be synonymous with graphic recording (i.e. “capturing people's ideas and expressions—in words, images and color—as they are being spoken in the moment” World Café definition). With so many creative people at the training, my eyes were opened to many forms I had never considered including: poetry and spoken word, photography, singing, ukulele playing, and improvised dance. It was unexpected and refreshing to experience a report back in such creative ways. 

Some harvesting resources:

• Chris Corrigan wrote a great blog post on strategic harvesting
• Images pack more information than words: Interesting blog post about how Chinese characters convey information more quickly than English words
• Other books that advocate visual learning: The Back of the Napkin, Blah Blah Blah, Visual Meetings, Business Model Generation
• There is a growing community of graphic facilitators in Toronto and a meet-up led by Patricia Kambitch of Playthink

Memorable lines from the training:

• "what is set in stone and what is set in clay?" Tuesday Ryan-Hart referring to constraint and possibility
• "we grow in the direction of the questions we ask" - David Cooperrider (Appreciative Inquiry Guru)
• Organizational principals not as rules but rather as conversations we'd like to have ("how are we doing with transparency")
• "A person who cannot ask for help cannot be trusted" - Toke Moeller
• "Let's renew our vows with community" - AoH participant

(image via Khooll)

"What is the architecture of change?" asked Mark Kuznicki of The Moment, referring to what structural needs, supplies, labour, skills and other ingredients are needed to create systemic change. This was one of many big questions served up to SiG guest Bryan Boyer (Helsinki Design Lab) during a private session held at MaRS with a dozen or so social innovation ‘doers’. As part of my work with SiG, I got to be a fly on the wall as Bryan answered questions like this at engagements across the city. SiG hosted Bryan on a cross-Canada tour where he spoke at three public talks and met with government folks, funders, academics, designers, social entrepreneurs and social innovators to share his experiences and insights from work at Sitra and Helsinki Design Lab in Finland. The following is my attempt to unpack my top take-aways (around legibility, dark matter and scale) from his two days in Toronto as well as some great one-liners I was able to capture in my notebook.

1. Making The Work Legible (through deep reflection)

'Legibility’ caught my attention. The Helsinki Design Lab (HDL) team puts extra effort into making their work legible to a broad audience; i.e., accessible and digestible, so that it’s easy for people to identify and engage with HDL’s work. This starts by removing jargon and finding useful analogues to clearly communicate complicated subject matter.

“I wanted to write you a short letter but I didn’t have time so I wrote you a long one” - Mark Twain

Achieving legibility goes hand in hand with deep reflection. Making time for pondering and for discussion seems engrained in HDL’s culture. For example, Bryan mentioned that the team has ongoing conversations about what they do and how they do it, which often continue as they are leaving the office to catch the subway home. This reflective behaviour is further reinforced through self-imposed incentives, such as the team's commitment to blogging at the end of each week about what they've been up to. I was left reflecting on how to incorporate reflection and legibility into my life. Hopefully I have already begun; is this post legible!?

2. Running Into The Dark Matter (with an artifact)

Learning from trial and error has long been the entrepreneurs' edict; however, when trying to connect the dots of an abstract concept or hunch, it can feel like you’re left in the dark. Not knowing where to start can be paralyzing. Acknowledging and labelling the unknowns can be a helpful first step in itself. Dark matter, in the social innovation context, can be used to describe this realm of the unknown (e.g., unwritten rules, rituals, organizational culture, influence, incentives, policies, regulations) that exists within systems (e.g., organizations, neighbourhoods, fields of work). Thus, “running into the dark matter” refers to embracing the unknowns of a system and tinkering there within.

“Practical information comes for free from doing things” - Bryan Boyer

An initial 'tinkering', as Bryan suggests, can be creating an artifact: something physical such as a publication or prototype that people can see, touch or connect with. Artifacts can be immensely helpful in structuring where in the dark matter to start prodding and directing ones efforts. For example, when starting Low2No’s Food dossier, HDL threw itself into the dark matter of Helsinki’s restaurant scene by creating a publication about Helsinki’s Street Food. Acknowledging that dark matter exists, and that artifacts can help us navigate the unknowns, helps with embracing uncertainty and the emergent nature of fields like social innovation. (phiew!)

3. The Right Scale To Get To The Next Scale

(image via girlhula)

While HDL is now known for their high-profile systemic change projects (ex. influencing changes to Finland's fire code via their Low2No program), they first built trust and evidence, by starting small. For example, to test the HDL inStudio model (a 5-day charrette-style workshop described in detail in 'Recipes for Systemic Change') with a real world issue, HDL asked Finnish Ministers for challenges that were currently on the backburner. A lower-level issue that emerged was around Finnish high school drop outs, since Finland's high school education system was already ranked among the top of OECD countries, with only 50 or so annual high school drop outs (compared to roughly 190K high school drop outs in Canada that same year). This challenge exempted the HDL team from some of the scrutiny associated with high profile issues. Hence, the liberties of a small-scale issue provided the experimental freedom needed to illustrate the potential of the inStudio model to build solutions to complex social challenges (view the solutions summary and video from the education studio here). The importance of starting at a small scale and building up relationships with stakeholders at an individual level is futher discussed in this compelling TedTalk by Enestro Sirolli. Rather than "go big or go home" we need to think in terms of what is "the right scale to get to the next scale".

"It's more meaningful to be incredibly successful at a small scale than mediocre at a bigger scale" - Bryan Boyer

If you missed Bryan's public talks while he was in Canada, you can view his MaRS talk here (the OCAD talk was also filmed and should become available soon, stay tuned!). As well, here is a blog post by my colleague Geraldine about his visit. I would love to hear your perspective and take-aways and invite you to share them in the comments section below.

Also, what other elements do you think are important in the architecture of change?

- Satsuko

Other memorable lines

• There is a scarcity of patience not of capital
• The right scale to get to the next scale
• Compose truth without scientific fact (to counter "truthiness")
• Issues in the no-mans land (referring to wicked problems)
• We don’t have enough data to know if our choices align with our values
• Cost of failure is cheaper than the cost of planning
• BETA suggest "we need your help in how to develop this"
• When a music note is wrong, move on and treat it as an interesting fact

Related posts: 3 Problems with Design Thinking (conversation with Bryan Boyer in Dec 2010), Two Brilliant Bits of Wisdom And One Big Question From ALIA 2012 (reflections from the ALIA Conference), and Social Innovation Musings (things I was thinking about at the time I started at SiG).

(image via Kozyndan)

[Previously published on the Social Innovation Generation blog, the original motivation behind this post was to highlight an upcoming Partnership Brokers training in Toronto that SiG is helping to promote. However, once I started writing, I was struck by the fundamental role partnerships play in social innovation, particularly when building solutions for systemic/complex challenges. The resulting post looks at partnering through a systems lens and highlights two models that encourage cross-sector/multi-stakeholder partnerships. This post was updated on Nov 16, 2012: new training dates for the Partnership Brokers training were added at the bottom of the post]

When developing solutions for complex systemic issues, social innovators know it is futile to operate in silos.

“We act like systems in creating large-scale problems but we act like individuals in trying to solve them” – Eric Trist, Social Scientist and Co-Founder of the Tavistock Institute

In a recent talk, Dan Hill of Helinski Design Lab explains that ‘wicked’ or complex problems are unclear and interdependent, with no client to take responsibility “except the entire human race”. We are very much all in this together, so what better way to take a whole-system approach and pull in wisdom from different perspectives/stakeholders than via partnerships.

Here are two progressive models for tri-sector / multi-stakeholder partnering…

1. Constellation model

(image via University of Virginia)

This model for complex organizational collaboration, developed by Toronto’s own Tonya (CSI) & Mark Surman (Mozilla), is an excellent tool for managing and collaborating across multi-organizational partnerships. The beauty of the model is that it allows multiple interested stakeholders to form a ‘working group’ of partners without having to create a separate umbrella organization. Not creating a separate entity allows the groups to 1) minimize infrastructure and administrative costs 2) avoid creating competition for their own respective organizations and 3) avoid confusing their clients/customers/user groups. It is a way to pool resources and skills, create a shared voice, coordinate strategy, jointly fundraise, and take an action focus towards a shared goal, all while preserving organizational autonomy. Thus, the model is ideal for long-term complex solution building.

(image via CSI)

2. Collective Impact

“Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated impact of individual organizations.” – John Kania & Mark Kramer (Collective Impact, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2011)

Constellations and Collective Impact are effective methods of managing and navigating multi-stakeholder/partner collaborations. However, they require a deep commitment from partners in terms of time, energy and financial resources. While there are other nuances between the two models, what stands out is that one uses an umbrella or ‘backbone’ organization while the other avoids one. Also, both methods behave like issue-agnostic labs.

(image via pinterest)

[Adapted for Think Thrice. Originally written for and published on the Social innovation Generation blog]

My first three weeks at SiG have flown by. As the newest member of SiG National’s team, I’ve had to hit the ground sprinting. I joined the SiG team to help create momentum for social innovation in Canada, with a particular focus on creating (and implementing) a strategy to support the existing Lab ecosystem across the country. You may be asking: what exactly is a Lab? There are a lot of definitions floating around. In the social innovation space, a Lab is a powerful tool used to develop holistic solutions to complex social problems (particularly those problems that have become resistant to traditional solutions). To help make all of this more clear, SiG constantly updates and develops new resources viewable on the SiG National and SiG@Waterloo website.

As a quick peak inside my brain, here are a couple of current musings around Labs and social innovation that have piqued my interest.

Language matters. We often don’t realize small distinctions, like the difference between the word ‘prototype’ (the first iteration of many, still emergent) and ‘pilot’ (has the connotation of more permanence). The ability to translate across different cultures, industries, demographics, socio-economic backgrounds …etc. is an invaluable skill when cross-collaborating. So how can we get better at it? And, how do we get better at using our ears and mouth proportionately (2:1 ears:mouth)?

Blurred Divides. In social entrepreneurship and social enterprise we often talk about getting to a point where there is no distinction of the ‘social’; where all entrepreneurs and enterprises have the triple bottom line in mind. What if we push this thinking further to the sectors: private, public and social? What if all three sectors embodied the strengths of the others insofar that the lines, there too, become blurred. What do we need to do now to enable and accelerate this movement?

Face to face. It is hard to find time for in person collaboration but magic happens when everyone is in the same room (inspiration and feeding off one another’s energy). As well, stronger offline relationships build trust and confidence in one another. How can we make the most out of in person meetings and get better at enabling this magic?

Leveling the playing field. There is a lot of buzz about the democratization of knowledge (access to education and acknowledgement of various schools of thought), innovation/funding (no longer only the loudest and the most connected startups find investors), etc. But does all of this democratization really dissolve power, seniority and/or hierarchy? Particularly in the context of Labs, how can we create safe/neutral ‘containers’ void of egos and power struggles to enable innovation to flourish?

In the wise words of organizational scientist William Starbuck, “the best way to understand a complex system is by interfering with it”. SiG is doing just that. I look forward to exploring these and other ideas around social innovation as we push the boundaries of this movement.

- Satsuko

For more on the topics discussed above, check out these resources:

• Re. Language: interesting talk by Linda Rottenberg (CEO of Endeavor Global) at the 99% Conference about how not having a word for ‘entrepreneur’ in Portuguese affected the number of startups and ventures in Brazil
• Re. Blurred divides: Tri-Sector Forum is a new platform aiming to help prepare leaders to make the transition between sectors and build solutions from multiple perspectives.
• Re. Face to Face: great book about how to hold more effective and efficient meetings. How To Make Meetings Work! by Michael Doyle
• Re. Leveling the playing field: great book exploring real examples from his work developing solution to complex issues, Power and Love by Adam Kahane

(Image via Diem Chau)

[Note: updated photo and new resource added as of Aug 6, 2012]

What a week! As a first time ALIA Summer Institute participant, beginner meditator and member of the ALIA media/video crew, I 'filled my boots' at the 5-day Leadership Conference cum Mindfulness Retreat. The radically different perspective on Leadership at ALIA (in contrast to that of the business world) was particularly interesting. I left with two big take-aways, slow down and create containers, and one big question about the future of community.

Question: Can Varying Scales Of Community Co-Exist?

Are we losing touch with our sense of community? During his opening keynote, Peter Block pointed out that "we are always saying we need more money, better leaders, improved services, and more expertise; as consumers, we are always waiting for the next best thing". He explained that this ‘need for more’ is having detrimental effects on our personal relationships and our local communities. This is because we hire help rather than make time to get know our neighbours and, in the end, to support each other. (This point is further made in a recent McLean's article about how we are 'outsourcing' our lives)

“Today, it is easier to reach out to the entire world then to communicate with your own neighbourhood” – Candy Chang, Artist, Designer, and Urban Planner

But is this a problem? Isn't this just a sign that we are socially evolving and transforming? On one hand, this changing social structure (aided by technology) is giving birth to larger citywide, national and global communities. On a citywide scale, we are seeing this manifested in innovations like Tyze, an online platform and social network for elderly care-giving support, and Time Banking, a skill-sharing medium that uses Time as a currency to promote volunteerism (Trade School, a recent kickstarter project I backed, is an excellent example of the Time Banking principle used to provide alternative education to the masses). On a national and global scale, the collaborative consumption movement, which is described as "the rapid explosion in traditional sharing, bartering, renting, gifting, and swapping reinvented through network technologies” has been a boon to modern society by creating micro-entrepreneurs and a marketplace for new services. On the other hand, loss of local community can be dangerous because individuals tend to group with others who think and act like themselves; yet, diversity of interests and the complex web of a community is what has traditionally created the balance to hold each other accountable. “Like-mindedness is the end of democracy” said Peter Block. It’s in the differences that learning really happens and the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. 

While the loss of local community is a legitimate concern, the question becomes whether different scales of community are mutually exclusive. A similar comparison of this question of scale could be between local shops (bookstore, craft fair) and online shops (amazon, etsy). So far, it seems that these two forms of shopping each have a distinct role and can co-exist. Is this the case for Community? Can we achieve a balance or must we choose only one form?

Take Away 1: Slow Down

(Image via Delivering Happiness)

Each day, the conference opened and closed with a meditation session. At first, I didn’t quite get the whole meditation thing. It wasn't until a fellow attendee explained the value of meditation using the metaphor of an iphone (thanks Ko-Ichiro!). He explained that when many unused apps are open on an iphone, the operating system is slower and can sometimes cause glitches or crashes. The phone runs much smoother when unused apps are closed. Meditation (i.e. being still and concentrating on breath) is a way to close unused apps (or thoughts) that are clouding the mind. Doing so allows us to reach mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially when faced with challenging situations. This clarity better enables us to bite into the problems around us. The idea of slowing down was a major conference theme and was particularly profound for me, having just finished a gruelling two-year graduate business program in which my mind was at a constant tug of war between urgent and important. In the b.school setting, endlessly cramming more into your schedule is the norm (as are panic attacks and stress induced anxiety). I can see now that slowing down is extremely important to our overall health and ability to perform (i.e., our work-life balance). A good friend recently showed me this website that also makes the point about taking a moment to yourself in a quietplace (it's great, check it out!). In any case, I appreciated slowing down in this way over the week and am making more of an effort to slow down on a regular basis.

Take Away 2: Create A Container

(Image via CCCA)

Essentially, creating a container is about intentionally creating an environment where desired outcomes can flourish. In the context of ALIA, it referred to empowering people and levelling the playing field to encourage social innovation.

"Creating the right container - the right heat, light and water - for change will go a lot further than micro-managing the details" - Michael Chender, Founding Chair of the ALIA Institute

This concept of the container is at the crux of the field termed the Art of Hosting (AoH), a collection of methodologies that invites and enables participation, self-organization and meaningful conversations. Often, communication breaks down due to our tendencies to: 1) not have the right conversations, 2) ask the wrong questions or 3) tip toe around issues. AoH offers a toolkit, which includes Circle, Open Space and World Cafe, where hosts create safety within a figurative 'container' by spending time to carefully craft appropriate inclusive language around contentious or sensitive topics. Having facilitated an unConference and previously participated in other AoH methods, I eagerly joined a group at dinner to continue the conversation about personal success stories and lessons learned. Interestingly, practitioners have found that the amount of time spent crafting the right questions is directly proportionate to the depth of the conversations and overall success of the session. This language around 'creating a container' stood out for me as a holistic and progressive way of thinking about what is needed to ensure a successful meeting of minds.

(NOTE: I'm in the midst of organizing a 3-day Art of Hosting foundations training session in the fall to be held in either Montreal or Toronto... stay tuned!)

Can different scales of community co-exist? What are the implications of our new global communities? 

- Satsuko

Hungry for more? Below are some excellent books/links on the topics mentioned above. Enjoy! 

RE. Community

• Report on Community and Engagement by Vancouver Foundation
• Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block
• Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam

RE. Art of Hosting

• The Circle Way: A Leader in Every Chair by Christina Baldwin
• The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter by Brown, Isaacs, et al.
• Open Space Technology: A User's Guide by Harrison Owen AND Open Space Technology: A User's NON-Guide (PDF)

(Image via Pinterest)

On my flight back to Toronto today, I read Al Etmanski's (see below for more about Al) collection of essays "Where are you skating to in 2012?" and was completely blown away/inspired. The title comes from Wayne Gretzky's famous hockey quote "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been" and the essays are written by thought leaders in social innovation discussing their passions, curiosities and explorations for 2012 and beyond. It is a must read for innovators and change makers navigating the tumultuous future economic/societal landscape.

For a peak into the collection, below is the essay written by Paul Born, President and co-founder of The Tamarack Institute, which made me want to cheer after reading. Enjoy!

When the ice is good, it is easier to skate than to walk. Similarly when relationships are positive it is always better to walk with others. I have this growing sense that things are going to gets a lot worse. This comes from a guy whose wife introduces him as the eternal optimist, always seeing the cup overflowing (though she quickly adds this gets annoying some days).

So why does this optimist think things are going to get a lot worse? The systems we have come to rely on no longer serve us well, they are broken. The environment is a mess, the economy is unstable to the point of being wonky, and people are angry and scared all over the place and rising up against both justice (conservative and fundamentalist movements) and injustice.

I used to think “these troubles” have always been with us and for sure we will get through them. I still believe we will get through them though I am convinced this is not trouble as normal. Things are going to get worse before they get better and no amount of innovation or brilliance will save us from the pain worse is going to cause.

So what are the things this optimist feeling pessimistic is going to skate toward in the next year to get ready to absorb the pain?

One: I am going to look for a neighborhood where people know each other and are doing things together and that engage in acts of caring and co reliance. I am going to help this neighborhood be more than they already are by inspiring a project they can work on together that will help someone other than themselves. I want to experience collective altruism with them. I may even move there.

Two: I am going to help cities realize that by ending poverty they are promoting security. Less poverty means less reason for jails and hospitals.

Three: I am going to walk with those who desire new forms of leadership. I want to visit places that embrace leaderfulness. Places where lots of leadership can co exist and where people are learning to walk together and pull in the same direction.

Four: I am going to party more, laugh harder, reach out to those who are lonely and embrace (hug) the goodness all around me because I believe that when times get bad you practice the good stuff a lot, with gusto.

and… I am going to slow down so I can see the good ice and then I am going skate there often. I am going to slow down so I can meet good people, build relationships and walk and listen and talk. 

The full collection is viewable here. Al Eltmanksi is the President and co-founder of Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network (PLAN), which is part of the Social Innovation Generation (SiG) partnership. Also, check out Al's blog here (it's great!).

- Satsuko

(Image via HDL)

[I was recently asked to write a review of the MaRS report 'Labs: Designing The Future'. Below is an adapted version for Think Thrice as part of an ongoing series on the lab landscape]

In Canada, how do we maximize the disruptive potential of the ‘innovation lab’ to solve our most pressing problems? In creating a strategy to address this critical question, most important will be to 1) design a lab to fit the Canadian context, 2) get the right people in the room, and 3) steward solutions through implementation.

1. Design a lab to fit the Canadian context

While adapting existing lab models, we must remember that our context is very different from archetypes mentioned in ‘Labs: Designing the Future’ in terms of funding, government support and citizen demographics. Canada’s cultural and religious diversity is often an obvious difference yet other equally, if not more important, variables are public sector buy-in and sustainable funding sources.  For example, Denmark’s MindLab is located inside government offices and is jointly funded by three Danish ministries. Similarly, Finland’s Sitra operates using the returns from endowment capital and reports directly to Finnish Parliament. These strong and integrated government partnerships not only provide consistent sustainable funding sources, but also garner access, legitimacy and support for the labs. This aides greatly in implementing their proposed solutions. In Canada, a similar partnership with the state may not be possible (at least at first; however, according to a senior policy advisor at the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Innovation, this ministry is in talks with the MaRS Solution Lab regarding a collaboration). Thus, accruing funding that can sustain activities and enable flexibility as we learn are key factors in ensuring the maximum impact and longevity of innovation labs.

2. Get the right people in the room

(Image via HDL on Flickr)

Maximizing the potential of innovation labs requires involving the right people in the process. This is particularly important in the recruitment and selection of funders, participants, and the audience for revealing the solutions. Since funders will often want to dictate the lab topic, it’s important to understand and clarify their motives and ensure they are aligned with the values of the lab. Conjointly, since lab targets may change course and experience periphery discoveries, much like a scientific laboratory, funders should be aided to understand this dynamic and consent sufficient flexibility around the expected outcomes. In doing so, both the funder and the lab’s solutions gain credibility and legitimacy. Lab participants are essential ingredients to maximizing its potential, since they will be generating and conceptualizing the solutions. Labs often have few participants (Finland’s HDL say eight people is the ideal number, two of which must be designers), thus diversity and representativeness is key. Maximizing the diversity in terms of age, cultural background, mother tongue, professional expertise, personal experiences, sex, religion, etc. is immensely important. Hyper-diversity will enable more holistic systemic solutions because the team will generate solutions from multiple stakeholder perspectives. The audience for the solutions become the critical influencers in tipping systems and bringing solutions to life. These individuals will ideally be champions for the cause with the power to have the solutions implemented.

3. Steward solutions through implementation

Developing solutions to pressing problems is only one part of the equation; often the real challenge is in the execution (discussed further in my post on the trouble with design thinking). ‘Innovation labs’ have the potential to create brilliant solutions. However, if these solutions are followed by an inflexible execution plan, the disruptive potential of the lab is lost. Implementing a solution successfully requires adapting to the ever-changing nature of complex systems. Working closely with implementation partners and creating metrics to track progress will minimize the gap between the ‘plans’ and what actually gets ‘built’. Stewarding defined by flexible funders, diverse and open-minded participants and an enabled audience along with a model open to improvisation are key components to achieving the full potential of innovation labs.

As innovation labs proliferate across Canada, we must carefully assess which elements to borrow and which to create. Much like the solutions it creates, the lab should grow, adapt and evolve.

What else can we learn from existing lab models around the world? How else can we ensure that solutions on the drawing board catalyze whole systems change in real life? I would love to hear your thoughts!

- Satsuko

For more on planning/developing innovation lab, check out these resources:

• Powering Collaborative Policy Innovations: Can Innovation Labs really help? by Christian Bason (MindLab) and Helle Vibeke Carstensen (Danish Ministry of Taxation)
• Recipes For Systemic Change by Helsinki Design Lab
• The Charrette Handbook by National Charrette Institute

Related posts: How to Catalyze Innovation in the Ontario Public Service (take-aways from the 2012 OPS Creativity + Innovation Week), 3 Problems with Design Thinking (conversation with Bryan Boyer of HDL), Top 3 Co-Production Aha Moments (learnings from working at MindLab)

(Image via KnockKnock)

This Monday kicked off 'Creativity + Innovation Week 2012', an event organized for Ontario public servants to explore how to catalyze innovative thinking and leadership within the provincial government. As Facilitator of day-one's unConference, I heard about frustrations, challenges and opportunities for change straight from public servants. Below are my three take-aways for catalyzing innovation in the Ontario Public Service (OPS).

1. Encourage Cross-Pollination

As we know, government silos hamper effective governance in a number of ways including lost synergies, inaccessibility to information, and redundant efforts. As David Ransom, Social Business Consultant at IBM pointed out, “if we run into an expert and ask them about their expertise, they are happy to share. The problem is the ability to run into them and then to ask the right questions.” So, how can we break out of silos to encourage cross-pollination of ideas? Many point to social media as an increasingly powerful tool to connect and communicate with one another; however, attendees expressed that Twitter access is blocked from their government blackberries and there is currently no social media strategy or guidance document in place in the OPS (note: activity on the event hashtag #CIWOPS indicates that public servants are finding ways around such barriers). Ransom went on to say, "It's not whether I sit at a desk for 8hrs a day, it’s about the quality of work I produce". Embracing new ways to communicate/collaborate and encouraging bridging of expertise across ministries would allow public servants to use their working hours more effectively and to identify the potential for innovation at the overlaps.

2. Let Innovators Innovate

(Image via Piccsy)

The OPS must foster a culture of innovation and creativity to attract and retain Innovators. During the opening panel discussion, Anthony Williams (Co-Author of Wikinomics) lit up the room with his provocative comment “If you want to attract creative talent, you have to provide them with innovative and exciting work and the freedom of action to pursue and accomplish innovative things”. In other words, Innovators need to be provided with an equally innovative work environment and the flexibility to run with creative ideas. Unfortunately, this isn't the current reality for many in the OPS. While public servants are asked to think in bold, creative, out-the box ways, many government environments are monotonous, repetitive and heavily bureaucratic. There is a disconnect between what is being asked of public servants and the tools/environment provided to achieve these objectives. While champions for public innovation exist, they are becoming run down and, thus, finding their way out of government. How can we avoid this brain drain? This leads us to #3… 

3. Create A Burning Platform

(Image via RVCA)

For a culture of innovation to flourish, we need public leaders to facilitate and create opportunities for innovation. Job security, fear of citizen backlash, bureaucracy, and silos all feed status quo thinking. Current incentive structures encourage upper management in the public sector to keep things stable rather than push things forward (management not leadership). There is no burning platform necessitating a paradigm shift to make innovation the norm. So, what can be done? If there is no sense of urgency, create some~ one group at the unConference had the ingenious idea of creating a whistle-blowing program for upper management that blocked innovation. Also important is for governments to become more tolerant of risk with regards to social innovation (view it as learning and progress) and more focused on the long term. In the startup community, failing at a venture earns you your stripes as it shows that you've tried something and have gained wisdom for next time. Bringing this thinking into government will require public leaders and citizens to work together in creating a more conducive public innovation landscape. 

"If you can't reduce the work and you can't increase the staff, you have to change the way you work" - Finlay Buchanan & Klari Kalkman, Ontario Ministry of Transportation 

Putting On My Business Hat 

Reflecting on my background, it was interesting to compare the difference in attitude towards innovation between business and government. Corporate Executives may be interested in implementing innovations in a company but employees may resist due to concerns that a new technology or new way of doing things would jeopardize their job or render their skills obsolete (bottom-up resistance). Meanwhile, civil servants are pleading for innovations but experience barriers to change at a management or systems level (top-down resistance). In the ongoing journey to create a more nimble and adaptive governance system, it is encouraging that we seem to be moving from ‘unknown need’ to ‘perceived need’ to ‘desire to change’.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities for change in the public sector?

For more on the topic, check out the links & hashtags below and those in Inspiration.

- Satsuko

(Image via The Danish Design Centre)

[Also published on the Rebel Academy blog on April 2, 2012 | The links and recent projects at the end of this post were updated Nov 8th, 2012]

“Design Thinking” has overtaken “Sustainability” to become the latest business buzz word; however, there are flaws in the way it is being adapted to corporate settings. In a conversation with Bryan Boyer, Architect and Strategic Design Lead at Sitra & Helsinki Design Lab, I gained a designer’s perspective. Below are the three reasons why we need to re-think Design Thinking.

1) Thinking is important, but the biggest challenge is the actual “doing”

Design Thinking can create holistic, innovative, out-of-the-box solutions; however, if a brilliant solution is followed by an inflexible execution plan to roll it out, we miss the whole point of thinking like a designer. Bryan points out that one of the key parts of being a designer is to steward something from the first sketches to the final implementation because “there is a big gap in the plans that you draw and what actually gets built”. Making a solution work requires tweaking and changes as-you-go to account for the unexpected and unpredictable realities of everyday life.

2) Design Thinking is inherently short term

The current literature and conversation around Design Thinking focuses on the short-term. For example, when we look at standard consulting projects by the big players (for ex. BCG, Bain or McKinsey), their mandate generally includes 1) analysis, 2) recommendations, and 3) a report outlining the implementation plan. In other words, sticking around longer term to smooth out the kinks and make sure it all works and is implemented correctly is seldom part of the contract. Why not?  There are a lot of reasons. Some point to the financial incentives (the low-cost/high-yield nature of focusing on the planning phase) or the desire to associate with success (implementation is often blamed for failed projects). On the other hand, sometimes it’s not possible to stay on a project long-term due to confidentiality or security conflicts (for ex. with certain public sector projects). At any rate, Design Thinking is only the beginning and must move past the short-term to reach its full potential.

3) Design Thinking is over-hyped and ignores the complexity of the design process.

“If design is like a magical seed that you can drop into the board room and after a couple of days workshop suddenly the executive suite is transformed into a design facility, that pretty significantly under values what designers bring" – Bryan Boyer

Understanding and respecting the design process is necessary before we can attempt to gain from its insights.

So what does this all mean? Design Thinking is a powerful and useful tool but it is only one part of the equation. Ideas are a dime a dozen, it is what you do with them. Plans are important but the real legwork is in the re-jigging and adjusting of ideas/solutions to make them fit with the real world.

Bryan is working to help the public sector create it’s own design capacity and advocates for placing designers within teams inside the ministries and municipalities, which his team is bringing to life via Sitra’s Design Exchange initiative. Other initiatives Bryan started with Sitra include Brickstarter (see what WIRED had to say about it) and Open Kitchen (hear Finnish celebrity chef Antto Melasiemi explain the concept in this video). One of the main questions his team at Sitra and Helsinki Design Lab attempts to answer is: how do we help the public sector cope with the challenges it faces more effectively? To learn more about what Bryan is working on these days, visit his personal blog and the HDL blog.

- Satsuko