How might we deeply connect the PanAm Games to our communities to ensure social innovation and economic impact?

Leading with smartTalk, Pam Purves will guide this DwD workshop to produce guidance and insight for the upcoming PanAm Games through creative citizen engagement.  Our assignment is to identify ways in which various communities within the GTA can contribute to the overall short and long-term benefits of the Games.  The DwD workshop will address one or more of the following impact issues:

• Legacy value of facilities. No facilities are purpose built for the games – communities are being asked to submit proposals for ongoing uses of the built infrastructure.
• “Ignite” response – “Ignite” is their community engagement program (see below)
• Arts and culture alignment for diversification. We will demonstrate the cultural diversity of the GTA through the engagement of different arts and cultural groups
• Economic impact of the Games

 Pam will coordinate a report following this session for the Chairman of the PanAm Games, as a deliverable of the session.

ABOUT SMARTTALK

Participants will learn about smartTalk through participation in the workshop, a strategic dialogue method developed by Pam Purves.

smartTalk is a consultative method that has been designed to encourage collaboration, creative thinking and the co-creation of solutions or recommendations.  It is multi-disciplinary in structure.  It begins with opinion gathering and works through the negotiation of solutions and the design of a set of recommendations and action steps. Because it is multi-disciplinary, it exposes participants to a variety of points-of-view and values resulting in fresh thinking and lasting outcomes.

Register on Eventbrite.

WORKSHOP HOSTED BY

 Pam Purves,  Principal, PLA Strategic

Pam is a strategic marketing and communications consultant whose practice includes national and international clients in the public policy, health care, business and financial services sectors.

In 2000, she started PLA Strategic,Dersity of Guelph and is a fine art photographer.  She has exhibited her work in Toronto and Caledon, Canada, Nevis W.I., Asolo, Italy and Port Medway, Nova Scotia.

ABOUT IGNITE

The IGNITE program is a community partnership enabling individuals, organizations and communities to be associated with the Toronto 2015 PanAm Games, and hopes to encompass the projects and events inspired by the Games coming to the region. IGNITE aims to engage the region to connect together to build excitement around the Games, invoke pride within the region and leave a positive legacy.

Can rethinking challenges together break through our most compelling health design problems?

February’s DwD held an open session for health and design professionals from across sectors in the community. Paolo Korre, Design Consultant at Mount Sinai Hospital, and Peter Jones hosted about 30 people from a diverse range of roles and sectors attended (starting off with a visual mapping of name tags by place and health intention).  Most of us reported as being external to healthcare (bottom of the grid), but we were lucky enough to get 4 or so closer to the front lines of care and practice.

The engagement was typical DwD :

1) Open circle share and introduction
2) Nominal group technique: Generating one well-framed question (or wicked problem) in health of personal interest
3) Selection for first round Open Space (5 groups)
4) Further selection for larger Cafe sessions (4 groups)
5) Post and share Cafe sketches

+ Hanging around to talk with those who wanted to stay longer

What is the possibility for creating better practices and healthier communities through health and care design? What experience and wisdom might emerge if we had the time and place to share it with a community of committed listeners?

The  following three intentions (at least 1 and 2) were upheld by the end of the evening:

1. Bringing local participants together with opportunities for connection / collaboration
2. Presenting authentic issues of concern to our work and communities
3. Inventing possible avenues for action or engagement to follow

Of 30 or so initial wicked problems (or questions), one each proposed by each person, a first set of 5 were selected and engaged for a round:

1. How can healthcare tech innovation be reconciled with costs?
2. Why is healthcare so full of “problems?”
3. What is health and who cares?
4. How can we take ownership of our own health records?

A second round of Cafe sessions selected the most compelling themes from the first round of ideas. The final set of problems were taken on by four groups, with these responses sketched, posted (see the picture), and discussed in plenary.

James Caldwell (shown here engaged in the “Participaction” group) reviewed the workshop and discovered deeper insights and connections than we had time to develop at the close to the evening.

“Ideally each group was trying to create better practices that improved communication which would allow for better health. We presented real issues that hamper individuals and communities and tried to devise credible actions for health care engagement.”

The three that I will focus on are:
1. How do we redefine how to be radically inclusive?
2. If physical inactivity is the root of all health evil, why not ban it?
3. How do we create and maintain and own our own comprehensive health records?

“The result of any of these would mean that individuals become the drivers or agents of their own health. Ironically, the impact to the government’s financial system would be positive.”

All three issues have a few things in common:
1. They empower the individual
2. They lesson costs for the government
3. They improve the future health of the individual
4. They make for a more engaged society

“Of course any sane person would be asking why are we undertaking these initiatives today? Common sense would dictate that we would all be happier, healthier and more informed if we did. But I guess that’s why we call them “wicked problems”. Unfortunately too many groups that make too much money from individuals with health problems would lose, and I don’t think they will give up their control anytime soon.”

“I guess this is where designers can speak up and more effectively communicate to everyone why initiatives such as the three mentioned could help better our society. Designers could simplify the problem, the parameters, the solution and the message to a wider audience than the health industry or government could which would be seen as self-serving anyway.”

I agree with James that the 3 (actually all four) final problem areas are interconnected in the solutions. James is considering the outcomes, which show a virtuous cycle of healthy behavior (active lifestyles), inclusive public communication, and monitoring through electronic media. The fourth problem-solution (bottom of the board) was “creating community healing spaces.” I”m not sure this one was as well understood by the other groups, but it seems to me that James’ individual solution space is complemented by a public (or co-citizen-led) system of:

1. Reframing inclusive healthcare to focus on those that need it most (who are unlikely to take individual initiative)
2. Creating community centres as temporary (but connected) healing spaces,
3. Thereby providing many opportunities to get off one’s butt
4. Supported by personal health tracking in ever-decreasing cost and management, providing incentives to maintain a common health record.

Using the Group Pattern language card deck, pairs shared about the applicable meaning of selected cards for relevance to DwD practice. The sharing dialogue was sketched to reflect the meaning of its relationship to DwD:

Actions to Continue, Stop, or Start new filled the whiteboard after group reflection on actions and new directions for 2013.

We haven’t synthesized the design plan and next steps from the recommendations yet. The intention with sharing the artifacts here is to share with the whole community the ideas, interests and new directions supported by core DwD members.

Look for the following changes in 2013:

• Revamp the DwD brand and synch with its support network and communities (OCADU, KMDI, Overlap)
• Publish the pipeline of upcoming DwD sessions and collaborations – invite the entire DwD community to participate in creating and facilitating sessions
• Revise the website to enable bidirectional communication and posting
• Share on the website the individual work we do as a result of learning: Inspirations and facilitated engagements that draw from DwD practice
• DwD for Designers to create dialogue processes
• Invite non-designers to DwD, increase variety and diversity of participation
• Promote visual storytelling, metaphorical design, and embodied practices
• Spinoff DwDx (as TEDx) by supporting non-Toronto affiliates
• “What’s inspiring you lately?” section on website
• Create movement and dance-inspired DwD sessions

October’s DwD session was hosted by Antje Budde of the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studiesat the University of Toronto, affiliated with and inspired by the exhibition “SPLICE: At the Intersection of Art and Medicine” curated by KMDI Fellow and international artist Nina Czegledy.

In late August, OCADU’s Strategic Innovation Lab engaged 18 academics and thought leaders from around Ontario in an intensive one-day panel on Imagining Canada’s Future, to formulate a short list of distinct future challenges that SSHRC should address through future research programs. The panel research continues with an OCADU-led research team involving York, Ryerson, Windsor and UOIT in developing the findings and report.

Affording an opportunity for public knowledge mobilization, the question DwD with an open panel of innovators and students in the DwD and university communities.

The framing of the panel was centred around the question:

“As Southern Ontario faces the effects of global urbanization, what are the highest priority social and systemic challenges, now through 2030?”

To further develop a public inquiry into the same question, a community design workshop was held on this important foresight perspective.  What are the opportunities and possible outcomes for a design-led approach to social sciences challenges?  With over 20 creative and professional participants, the session rapidly engaged (and experimented with) variations of dialogic design methods for problem framing and collective sensemaking in the “open sandbox” of the DwD community:

• Framing of the Triggering Question
• Generating Challenges – Individual, Paired, and Round Robin
• Concurrent Clarification of Challenges
• Voting on Challenges
• Challenges Selection – Group Scenario Creation

A single visual map of the workshop goals, activities and scenarios was sketched in concert by Charlotte Young and regular Patricia Kambitsch.

To preserve time, only one well-defined challenge per participant was selected.

Four breakout groups composed scenarios from selected challenges, assembling both a set of related problems from challenges and the proposed solutions.

Scenarios were designed to highlight salience of relationships over a 20 year timeline, with guidance to show Milestones, Headlines, and Solutions.

The Open Equitable Diverse society showed the  transformation of government and citizen engagement, from top-down governance to bottom-up “poll” or pull governance. The concept of a Social GPS was proposed as an advanced global social network enabling this transition.

Socially engaged ownership and new systems of urban design, resource management, equitable housing arrangements and neighbourhood communities was envisioned.

A combination of challenges in a problematic network was envisioned being addressed by a positive scenario involving social health, participatory engagement,education services and considering the renewal of the family as a unit of planning.

Two diverse society scenarios were developed. The Feeling Canadian scenario expressed the possible scenarios of a deeply values-centred view of a socially-designed approach to enhancing diversity and while managing urbanization pressures, considering the impacts of city governance, neighbourhood management, and the preservation of Canadian history. Mediators of good government, an educational mandate, and community engagement were proposed.

Another team constructed a classical 2×2 matrix defining four quadrants against the problems of food security and income inequality led to a timeline and solution focus on the quadrant of significant income inequality and managed local food sources. This may be seen as a “highly likely” scenario approach inspiring immediate social action to address probable effects, rather than farsighted solutions.

We started the workshop with a presentation of the dialogic design approach and an overview of the SSH-sponsored panel from the Imagining Canada’s Future project.

Peter Jones, DwD Community Convener and OCADU professor is guiding the workshop and the trial of experimental approaches (visual, technical) to complement the dialogic design method. The session was co-convened with the team of Strategic Foresight and Innovation graduate student Uma Maharaj and visual recording from Charlotte Young and Patricia Kambitsch.

A special innovation circle session was held with Maya Roy and the Newcomer Women’s Services Toronto.  Through turbulent economic times, Maya and staff leadership grew a team of committed members and made the organization a successful NGO for helping new families settle into Toronto. With impending budget cuts, they are faced with an immediate need to change their business model from a publicly supported service to a social entrepreneurial model.

York University’s Antony Upward presented the “Strongly Sustainable” Business Model Canvas (an innovation of the BMG canvas) the framework for group ideation and collaborative design. In large and small group sessions, the group explored innovation of business and revenue models, service provision, new relationships and communications channels.  As the first public unveiling of the research and design of the  “strongly sustainable” business model, we gained valuable and practical feedback on the applications of the new approach.

Generating one group’s model based on its “What If” starting point (orange label).

Sharing the group’s model with the whole and Antony collecting and aggregating the unique values of each in a common map.

This was the first public application of the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Canvas – and most of the participants were unfamiliar even with Alex Osterwalder’s original Business Model Canvas. Therefore, even with all having watched Alex’s videos and our handout materials, we found the session required a significant degree of education in the methods. The SSBM Canvas is not a tool that can be applied “out of the box” but requires context setting and some training in the concepts.

May Roy shared her experience with the process in terms of outcomes for Newcomers:

The use of the expanded canvas allowed NEW staff, volunteers and members plan though how the organization will continue to innovate in the next 3 years. We used the DWD session and day long strategy sessions to discuss, argue, debate and sometimes cry over the challenges and opportunities inherent in a time of economic restructuring.

Henry Wai of the Center for Nonviolent Communication conducted the March 2012 DwD with Patricia Kambitsch of Playthink .

THE WORKSHOP

The session engaged people in interpersonal interactions that revealed the principles of nonviolent communication (NVC). NVC is a technique for opening possibility in areas of life where individuals experience being stuck or frustrated. When provided with an empathic space, such as created in the workshop, an innate resourcefulness in the person is freed up for opening up possibility at work, home, or community.

Henry Wai’s hands-on workshop explored:

• How common thinking and habitual patterns limit our capacity for constructive possibility
• A simple and powerful approach to get to the heart of issues
• How this insight serves as the basis for creative action

The workshop held three seminar sessions with a total participation of about 40 people. Methods for exploring empathy and listening in communication included dyad and triad exercises and the NVC Feelings / Values cards.

Visual reflection by Patricia Kambitsch.

Grad students and even president Sara Diamond from OCAD University were involved with sponsorship from the Design Exchange.  Two major community events were held, located (ironically enough) in the deco-era original Toronto Stock Exchange used by the DX.

The goals of these sessions were to evolve a common framing and voice for (meaning “with”) the diffuse and diverse core members of the movement.

What we seem to be missing are the connections between similar events in other Occupy communities. Pay attention to the shift of medium here – Occupy is an emerging and embodied social medium for civil change. It is not like the Arab Spring or other social media narratives. This is embodied (situated in place) and broadcasted (livecast) and not tweeted and FB’d to organize.

People are working things out F2F – not online – its a classic McLuhan media transformation in the making.