Blog – Page 6 – Exhibit Change

Movie and Date Night: If You Build It

Posted on February 18, 2014September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

IFC Center : If You Build It Documentary www.ifccenter.com

Every few months or so, we gather a group of our fellow practitioners to catch up, mingle and most importantly cross-connect to see what might emerge. Usually we invite a few people through our network for a themed dinner, we have done public health + design a few times. This time we thought we do Movie and Date night to see “If You Build It” before reconnecting over dinner.

The documentary follows a year of Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller of Project H, the ups and downs of working with the students and the school board of Bertie County, losing their key champion and eventually their teaching salaries. Undeniably a journey of the uphill battle of bring an innovative solution to a undebatable wicked problem of engaging youth in their education experience.

Studio H - Design. Build. Transform. www.azuremagazine.com — Studio H – Design. Build. Transform. www.azuremagazine.com

By far my favourite moment is the one that most reminds me of why we do this kind of work at all, the giant smile on the faces of the students as they were able to put their chicken coop together and feel overwhelmingly proud of their efforts. You could see that these would be moments they would remember forever. The movie gave me inspiration and strength that the struggles are well worth the efforts and the smiles on those kids faces as they figured out how to put their ideas into execution, to see their designs come to life and the satisfaction of building a contribution to the community to be proud of are priceless rewards.

Like most people in our Community of Practice, learning from other design practitioners keeps us going and I am honoured to say that we are facing quite a few big ones in Toronto. After seeing Emily Pilloton’s TED Talk in 2010 where she talks about the “Teaching Design for Change”, it is needless to say that we instantly became fans of Emily’s work through Studio H. At Exhibit Change, we aspire to learn from those who are stepping up and out there into the world to share the message of what can happen when we take a risk at using design as a language for experimenting with boundaries and tensions. It is the ultimate play space if you can get just 1 person to believe it is possible.

I left the movie with a few hundred new ideas and questions burning, how might we innovate within the boundaries of the institution? how might we preserver to demonstrate our visions? how might we collaborate with unusual suspects for greater impact? how might systems learn to adapt to the ever changing times?

To join our Community of Practice, come be a part of our Google + group called Design Connector where we and others share ideas, resources and events.

TEDx YMCA Academy: EduMakers

Posted on January 28, 2014September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

I feel honoured to have been asked to speak at the 5th TEDx event at the YMCA Academy this coming Saturday. I have attended 2 of the previous TEDx events hosted by the Academy and it’s always a welcomed source of inspiration to see the culture of dedication to learning and sharing that the Academy provides.

The TEDx YMCAA talk that has always stood out for me was by an actual student from the Academy who spoke about his experience of searching for, and eventually finding, a place where he wanted to learn. Having struggled with other schools, he liked the fact that YMCAA teachers respected you enough to let you call them by their first name and showed him that they genuinely wanted to get to know their students. He spoke of his experience at other schools where he went through the motions, did the homework but never felt it was worth his while to share what he had done with his teachers who, to him, didn’t seem to care at all about whether he was succeeding or not. At the Academy, he’s always proud to show his work.

Another TEDx moment that stands out for me also reinforced my understanding of how truly dedicated the Academy is towards making sure their students have a chance to succeed. It was an unscripted moment when halfway through the event, the Head of School Don Adams made an apology to 2 of his students. These 2 students were originally scheduled to talk at TEDx but both students had decided that it was too much pressure to speak. In a show of empathy, Don felt like he had asked a lot of them and he now owed them a great deal of respect for agreeing and having the courage to say they weren’t ready. He wasn’t worried about disappointing the crowd but mending his relationships with his students.

It was this passion and dedication to Don’s students that brought us to hosting Islands of Excellence, an education conference within the Academy and why we continue to work on our relationship with the school.

This Saturday at TEDx, I will be speaking about The Awkwardness of Collaboration. Here is a short blurb:

The Awkwardness of Collaboration

We have all been there, at the crossroads of trying to approach the conversation of how we are going to work together, facilitate our mutual success and wanting to tie each other up with rubber bands. There is a delicate balance to strike in the zone of playing nice, giving time to build trusting relationships and navigating how much to push one another. If at the root of it all, collaboration is meant to be greater at its sum then how might we question, provoke and evolve through the process?

Be a part of the conversation.

Attend http://www.tedxymcaacademy.com/attend.html

Streaming http://www.tedxymcaacademy.com/stream.html

Twitter @ymcaacademy #TEDxYMCAAcademy #TEDx

Presenting: CatalystsX, Our February Tune Up Project

Posted on January 27, 2014September 3, 2014 by Colin Lacey

Our first Tune Up for 2014 is coming up on Saturday, February 22. We are excited to grow our Tune Up community and have great news about our challenging February Tune Up project.

Presenting: CatalystsX!

Cx is a community of people building a culture of personal & systems transformation towards a better future. Cx acts as a shared platform for change agents across Canada working towards transforming the future.

The February Tune Up project will explore the challenges of engaging and sustaining a network of social innovators across Canada, both online and offline.

Ready to start putting your design-thinking knowledge into action? Register here.

About Tune Up

Tune Up is hands-on design thinking applied to a real world wicked problem. Anchoring the conversation in reality, the workshop engages both an organization with an identified problem as well as individuals eager to practice and experience the design-thinking process. The ultimate goal for Tune Up is to expose both the organization and the designers to the design thinking process and facilitate collaborative learning.

Click here for more information on Tune Up.

Come practice with us.

Posted on January 22, 2014September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

Exhibit Change is a community of designers working to solve real world problems where they are happening.

In our Design Thinking for Impact portfolio we are focused on working with individuals learning and practicing design thinking. We think that there are crucial lessons and principles that lend themselves to solving the complex problems that we face today. We offer a variety of workshops to keep you practicing, including Tune Up & DT4i.

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With Tune Up, we are working with organizations and individuals learning design thinking together. Individuals are practicing their design thinking skills on an organization’s real problem. The organization is exposed to fresh ideas, a new community to be accountable to and a slew of next steps to pursue. Tune Up is a 1 day workshop.
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In DT4i, we are working with individuals dedicated to practicing the process of design thinking in the safety of risk-free collaboration and coaching. The individuals attending DT4i workshops will get the opportunity to go through the design process twice to gain skills in user-centric approaches and prototyping. DT4i is a 2 day workshop.
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Coming to our workshops, you will get a chance to:

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[tab title=”DESIGN THINKING”]Thinking and solving problems using the design-thinking process means approaching a challenge through empathy, prototyping and iterating solutions. It is your opportunity to really spend time looking at the challenge from new and different perspectives.[/tab]
[tab title=”PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE”]The magic to design thinking is learning by doing, and doing it over and over again to learn from your own mistakes.[/tab]
[tab title=”OTHER BENEFITS”]

We promise you will be able to walk away with these experiences:

Hands-on & intensive collaboration with stakeholders
Safe space to test out ideas and assumptions
Intentional focus on balancing task and team dynamics
Bias towards action and prototyping concepts
Encourage active participation and roles for different leaders and champions

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What to expect at each of our workshops:

All workshops can be customized to suit your needs. Interested in how we can bring our workshops to you and your group? Let’s chat! designthinking@exhibit-change.com

	Rapid-Fire	Tune-Up	DT4i	Design Labs
Timing	2 to 3-hours workshop	1 day workshop	2 day workshop	3 to 5 days
# of Participants	12 – 30 designers	One organization + 12 designers	12 – 20 designers	16 – 24 designers
Description	Fast-paced facilitated introduction to design thinking, working collaboratively to solve a relatable wicked problem	Working closely with an organization’s “how might we”, designers will practice design thinking on a real world wicked problem	Designers will spend 2 days practicing the design thinking process twice to get a sense of iteration & ideation	Immersive design thinking process, working through a wicked problem directed towards an implementation strategy
Suitable for	Introduction to Design Thinking Team Building	Focus on Creative Problem Solving Introduction to Co-designing Practicing Design Thinking with Users	Focus on Empathy Studio environment Focus on human-centered solutions & prototyping	Co-created solutions with stakeholders Focus on empathetic collaboration & integrated feedback

RETHINK: EWB National Conference – Engineering Change

Posted on January 15, 2014September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

Over the weekend of Jan 10-12, EWB Canada convened their greatest minds and hearts to their National Conference, RETHINK. Focused on Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Partnership for Global Development, EWB Canada is working to solve some of the world’s most wicked problems: poverty and inequality.

It was a pleasure to be there in a spectrum of capacities and to speak on 3 different panels. Our relationship with EWB Canada goes back to when we delivered a design thinking workshop for a pre-deployment team in 2012 and since then our admiration for their vision, ability to pivot and invest in people has only grown.

On Saturday, I was on a panel called “Physical and Non-Physical Spaces for Collaborative Entrepreneurship” and on Sunday, I was on 2 panels “The Future of Foreign Aid” and “The Innovation Forum”. Each panel was uniquely different and demonstrates the breadth of knowledge EWB Canada is working on bringing to their membership.

Along with 4 other panelists, we spoke about “Physical and Non-Physical Spaces for Collaborative Entrepreneurship” from all corners of the work. From academic, to government, to non-profit, social innovation and back again. Wearing our variety of hats, we spoke about the physical tactics of having white boards everywhere and different working environments – formal and informal, to the benefits of convening thinking spaces at events and during meetings and of course to the culture and trust in collaborative relationships. Throughout the diversity of perspectives it was clear that the overlaps were built from the community, how the space is formed, how the culture evolves and how the relationships spur collaborations.

Putting my Masters Student hat on, I had been given an opportunity to work on strategy and foresight for EWB Canada over the past semester and our group was asked to present on “The Future of Foreign Aid”. Our delivery provoked some deeper thinking around how EWB Canada will prepare for the uncertain future.

On Sunday afternoon, “The Innovation Forum” on “Facilitating in Complex Problem Environments” rounded out the conference for many with an opportunity to dive deeper into their own challenges. Through some unconventional methods we exposed a range of challenges that face facilitators and those operating in complex problem environments. Individually we may each have hesitations about our role, but together we are all facing similar challenges and learning together grows our ability to tackle the world’s most wicked problems.

It was a pleasure to share the weekend’s “stage” with Ryerson University, Hub Ottawa, Camaraderie, Ashoka, OCAD University, McMaster Innovation Lab and MaRs Solutions Lab alongside all the participants from EWB Canada.

“With new abilities to understand how problems connect, we are called to share and collaborate in our work, to create solutions larger than single organizations.” – RETHINK website

Designing Toronto: Incubating, Iterating & Prototyping

Posted on December 19, 2013September 3, 2014 by Colin Lacey

A new project for 2013, Designing Toronto is a collaborative initiative between Think Fresh Group & Exhibit Change.

Back in November, the Designing Toronto team hosted an amazing session with our Advisory Team that really helped to push this project forward. We were able to bring together many elements that had been under development since the summer – everything from our online survey results to a draft course curriculum. Not to mention, we were able to tell the advisers that Designing Toronto was already featured in the Novae Res Urbis journal!

At the meeting, the advisers really pushed our thinking in terms of what will really make this initiative scalable, sustainable as well as exciting and innovative. It was a really great meeting and Exhibit Change and Think Fresh Group can’t thank the Advisory Team enough!

Taking time to reflect on the feedback and advice given, we have been able to iterate the course prototype into a model that will definitely bring Designing Toronto to life in 2014.

Moving into the new year, Designing Toronto will be focusing on launching a stellar crowd-funding campaign (we already have some top-notch prizes!) and putting together a strong communication, branding and marketing package. Just as much as a priority, we will be working hard to refine and polish the course structure and curriculum to make this project sparkle, as well as starting a working group to research organization models to keep this idea growing beyond the first cohort in 2014.

Are you interested in helping us build Designing Toronto? Have an expertise at crowd-funding campaigns? Want to show off your marketing mojo? Make sure to sign up for the Designing Toronto newsletter to stay updated and get the details for the next design session.

See you in the new year and hopefully also at the next Designing Toronto meeting happening on Wednesday, January 15!

A year in review with Exhibit Change

Posted on December 19, 2013September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

Dear 2013,

It has been a fantastically great year of learning, growing and sharing. We are spending time this week thinking about all we have done, what has come of the year and where we are headed. Looking back at how we were Ringing in 2013, it is nice to see that the resolutions we made stuck and now we are ready to say goodbye again and bring on 2014.

This year, we have had the extreme pleasure of working with some fabulous collaborators, convening spaces for conversation, working to really embrace and celebrate failures as learning opportunities and having way too much fun.

As the final weeks of 2013 speed by, we are trying to tie up lose ends and working to do it with flare and perhaps put a bow on it.

Thanks for bringing us these highlights:

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[section title=”AMAZING CONFERENCES”]

EduCon in Philly
SXSWedu in Austin
EdCamp STEAM in NYC
ECOO in Niagara

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[section title=”FACILITATED WORKSHOPS”]

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[section title=”PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT”]

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[section title=”DESIGN THINKING TRAINING”]

Glen Shields Public School
Design Thinking for Impact
Tune Up

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[section title=”AND…”]We moved, did Strategic Planning and Colin came on board :)[/section]
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Phew!

What an amazing year, I will remember the network of collaborators, educators and friends who have supported us through, a focus on learning to get to failure and beyond, and ultimately that we are connecting the dots in ways I could never have imagined. I am so excited for what 2014 is going to bring.

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[section title=”IN 2014, WE RESOLVE TO”]

celebrate our failures
commit to being a learning organization
practice our craft
live the process
make meaning of our work

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See ya later 2013, we will remember you fondly!

Jenn

c/o the Exhibit Change team

Engagement in a Ball Pit

Posted on December 19, 2013September 3, 2014 by Colin Lacey

This summer the Exhibit Change team got really excited to throw a ball pit event. Yes, you read that correctly. An event with a ball pit. Why? Well, where to begin…

If you live anywhere in Toronto, it would almost be impossible to have never seen the development proposal white boards announcing a potential new development project and spelling out details for upcoming community consultation meetings.

If you have ever dared to venture into one of these community consultation meetings, it is arguably an alienating experience that is a mix of posturing and politics set up in a conference room somewhere. You will soon discover that any opportunity to participate in the decision making process in your neighbourhood has been diminished to reading presentation slides and filling out feedback forms.

Which begs the question: why is the standard for community consultation in Toronto not anywhere close to authentic engagement?

Community engagement is a catchy phrase to throw around, and at its essence requires a culture where citizens have greater decision making powers beyond the occasional opportunity to cast a vote. If we, as a city, want community engagement then we very much need to start building this culture of participation.

So how do we begin to create a culture of community engagement? We at Exhibit Change decided that it might start with a ball pit.

If we want to build a culture of citizen participation, we need to start learning who we share this community with on a daily basis. Which, naturally, is uncomfortable. We all have our circle of family, friends and co-workers, but when it comes to the people we share a building with, wait at the same TTC stop every morning, or buy vegetables at the same market, it’s easier to keep a distance.

The Ball Pit project seeks to challenge that, if only for an afternoon. For our first event, we set up shop in a park and asked perfect strangers to jump into the pit and to start a conversation with someone they have never met. Sounds challenging? At first, yes. But the results were amazing.

As with our other work in design-driven community engagement, we know that true learning begins once you get people a little uncomfortable and then helping them move beyond that. On that sunny summer Saturday, we met enterprising cheese salesmen who connected with a stranger in ball pit about growing up in New Brunswick. Another set of strangers talked in length about whether coyotes were cool animals to have in the city or a real problem. Most people we met call Toronto their second home.

As we explore this new venture, we want to give props to the Soul Pancake team who inspired us to do something awesome with a ball pit. Thanks!