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| marine_colab:lab_approach_essay [2017-03-29 10:43] – nik | marine_colab:lab_approach_essay [2017-03-29 10:59] – [Acknowledgements] nik |
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| ===What are the key aspects of the lab approach?=== | ===What are the key aspects of the lab approach?=== |
| Co-creation and peer learning are the cornerstones of the lab-approach. The lab approach encourages participants to question, extend and borrow methods from each others' practices. Sometimes they constructively challenge assumptions, other times they find unexpected synergies between disparate approaches and ideas. The more diverse the participants' backgrounds, the more they can learn from each other. In a multistakeholder group, every person is an expert in some areas, and a novice in many others. One person's weakness is likely someone else's strength. When combined, they can complement and support each other. A participatory process - such the lab approach - connects individuals' diverse skills and personalities into a whole that can ideally become more then the sum of its parts. In a systems change lab no individual expertise can ever fully cover the breadth of subject matter. Realising just how interdependent we are (as individuals, collectives and societies) can be a humbling experience. Yet interdependence also brings about a sense of agency and responsibility - "what I do matters; my actions influence all other actions". The lab process acknowledges individual contributions and engages each participant as a team member contributing to the group's collective intelligence. | Co-creation and peer learning are the cornerstones of the lab-approach. The lab approach encourages participants to question, extend and borrow methods from each others' practices. Sometimes they constructively challenge assumptions, other times they find unexpected synergies between disparate approaches and ideas. The more diverse the participants' backgrounds, the more they can learn from each other. In a multistakeholder group, every person is an expert in some areas, and a novice in many others. One person's weakness is likely someone else's strength. When combined, they can complement and support each other. A participatory process - such the lab approach - connects individuals' diverse skills and personalities into a whole that can ideally become more then the sum of its parts. In a systems change lab no individual expertise can ever fully cover the breadth of subject matter. Realising just how interdependent we are (as individuals, collectives and societies) can be a humbling experience. Yet interdependence also brings about a sense of agency and responsibility - "what I do matters; my actions influence all other actions". The lab process acknowledges individual contributions and engages each participant as a team member contributing to the group's collective intelligence. |
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| Participatory processes appreciate the importance of aligning personal and collective development, intellectual and experiential learning. Successful participatory processes include a multiplicity of formats that speak to a range of faculties - some participants excel verbally, others visually; some have a penchant for analysis, others for synthesis; some prefer introverted activities while others thrive in extroversion. Furthermore, the participants' faculties and preferences aren't a fixed constant. They depend on a range of internal and external influences, from things as visceral as back-pain to the a group being affected by shocking news. No process designer can ever plan for every contingency. So, how can participatory processes that work with the heterogeneity of aptitudes, experiences and personalities be designed? It is more akin to planting and tending a garden than building a highway. Process design is about finding a delicate balance between cultivating and letting grow, between guiding and stewarding. | Participatory processes appreciate the importance of aligning personal and collective development, intellectual and experiential learning. Successful participatory processes include a multiplicity of formats that speak to a range of faculties - some participants excel verbally, others visually; some have a penchant for analysis, others for synthesis; some prefer introverted activities while others thrive in extroversion. Furthermore, the participants' faculties and preferences aren't a fixed constant. They depend on a range of internal and external influences, from things as visceral as back-pain to the a group being affected by shocking news. No process designer can ever plan for every contingency. So, how can participatory processes that work with the heterogeneity of aptitudes, experiences and personalities be designed? It is more akin to planting and tending a garden than building a highway. Process design is about finding a delicate balance between cultivating and letting grow, between guiding and stewarding. |
| <blockquote>Liminal space […] was tricksterish and, like Raven stealing fire from the gods, I learnt one of the secrets of the universe: up close, the laws of possibility are not fixed. They can be risked, experimented with and gambled on. Between the boundary of what is possible and what is not there is a field: a space of transformation the universe only releases in the dusty arena of action, trying, failing and trying again. The threshold between what is and what could be is rich in potential for change. | <blockquote>Liminal space […] was tricksterish and, like Raven stealing fire from the gods, I learnt one of the secrets of the universe: up close, the laws of possibility are not fixed. They can be risked, experimented with and gambled on. Between the boundary of what is possible and what is not there is a field: a space of transformation the universe only releases in the dusty arena of action, trying, failing and trying again. The threshold between what is and what could be is rich in potential for change. |
| -Lucy Neal</blockquote> | -Lucy Neal</blockquote> |
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| One simple way to foster emergence in a lab is to begin the process by introducing participants to each other as creative humans. As one of the participants noted: “We were freed up from organisational responsibility and brought together also as individuals not feeling that we always had to represent our brands. Facilitation was very important”. It was our hypothesis that playful co-creation could bring people together quicker than an expert debate or power-point presentations. For example, the first encounters of Marine CoLABoration included comparing personal "worldchanging experiences", visualising skills and personalities present in the group, and collaboratively designing future scenarios for the lab. Gradually, discussions shifted focus from individual to collective engagement. The first hypotheses and experiments emerged from participant-lead "open space" sessions about challenges with valuing the ocean in their current work: “The open space allowed us to explore what we wanted to know and what we wanted to do, without being pushed for results”. There was enough time and space for the participants to learn from each other, to learn by doing. Some ideas continued to develop and grow, others petered out. Collaborative teams were formed as required and dissolved when they became unnecessary. Rather than strictly directing the process, the lab approach encouraged fluid movement of ideas, inspiration and people. It brought to light where the participants' aspirations and energies lie. It allowed people to step up when leadership was called for and to forgo propositions if they had no traction. Marine CoLABoration became a "space to experiment with different ways of thinking and learning from others". The direction of the lab emerged from the work done in the lab. | One simple way to foster emergence in a lab is to begin the process by introducing participants to each other as creative humans. As one of the participants noted: “We were freed up from organisational responsibility and brought together also as individuals not feeling that we always had to represent our brands. Facilitation was very important”. It was our hypothesis that playful co-creation could bring people together quicker than an expert debate or power-point presentations. For example, the first encounters of Marine CoLABoration included comparing personal "worldchanging experiences", visualising skills and personalities present in the group, and collaboratively designing future scenarios for the lab. Gradually, discussions shifted focus from individual to collective engagement. The first hypotheses and experiments emerged from participant-lead "open space" sessions about challenges with valuing the ocean in their current work: “The open space allowed us to explore what we wanted to know and what we wanted to do, without being pushed for results”. There was enough time and space for the participants to learn from each other, to learn by doing. Some ideas continued to develop and grow, others petered out. Collaborative teams were formed as required and dissolved when they became unnecessary. Rather than strictly directing the process, the lab approach encouraged fluid movement of ideas, inspiration and people. It brought to light where the participants' aspirations and energies lie. It allowed people to step up when leadership was called for and to forgo propositions if they had no traction. Marine CoLABoration became a "space to experiment with different ways of thinking and learning from others". The direction of the lab emerged from the work done in the lab. |
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| Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney are co-founders of FoAM, a network of transdisciplinary labs at the intersection of art, science, nature and everyday life. Their work can be found on the FoAM website http://fo.am and you can follow FoAM on twitter @_foam | Maja Kuzmanovic and Nik Gaffney are co-founders of FoAM, a network of transdisciplinary labs at the intersection of art, science, nature and everyday life. Their work can be found on the [[https://fo.am/|FoAM website]]and you can follow FoAM on twitter [[https://twitter.com/@_foam|@_foam]] |
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maja