Practicing Being a Sponge

In 2010, I was lucky to be invited and hosted at a training on Toronto Island for the Youth Social Infrastructure (YSI) Collaborative. This training was transformative. I was able to connect to a group of extremely passionate, like-minded, action oriented folks who understood the value of reflection. It was powerful.

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Throughout the years, I have been intention about practicing these skills of participatory leadership and in particular Art of Hosting. The YSI introduced me to a way of working where voice and power and parallel to the calling to do work that moves you.

Last year, I was honoured to be brought into a calling team looking to connect with others and create another opportunity to practice these tools.

At Exhibit Change, we bring Art of Hosting and Design Thinking tools together specifically in our work to connect with stakeholders and facilitate co-design to build ownership and purpose into each project we work on.

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Next week, I am excited that Art of Social Innovation is finally happening. Being on this team has already taught me so much. Heading into next week’s training, I am delighted to be a host and a sponge.

I know that I will get the most from the 3 days of training and 1 day of design by opening myself up to people around me and learning with my heart and mind open.

Art of Hosting practices key principles that have resonated with me for some time. Primarily, it is about having conversations that matter. Honouring people for who they are and their voices and experiences.

“Give what you can and a little bit more” – Tim Merry

We have often integrated Art of Hosting tools into our work. You may have experienced a World Cafe or Open Space or Pro-Action Cafe with us. Each of these tools builds our tool kits and gives us methods of convening and cultivating relationships and connections.

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World Cafe is a great tool for getting a sense of the conversation in the room and drawing out themes in the room. The harvests from World Cafe are often nuggets of surprise or questions that lead to deeper conversations.

Open Space is a ideal tool for creating a container for participants to lead conversations or inquiries that they wish to share and jam on with others.

Pro-Action Cafe is useful for connecting others to one idea and working the intention towards action.

The best part about these tools is that we can facilitate conversations with them and scaffold a conversation for deeper meaning without having to explicitly tell participants about them. For example, here are 2 events we have used these tools in:

EdCamp Design Thinking (world cafe & open space)

Designing Toronto  (pro-action cafe)

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As a process and methods nerd, these trainings get me excited in a particular way as I know that they will stay with me long after the training has ended.

I am really looking forward to next week and being able to bring back and share learnings.

 

 

Professional Development – Design Thinking for Impact Workshop | August 22 & 23

Design Thinking For Impact 

This will be a 2 day training on the design thinking process and working for social impact. Over the course of two days, participants will get the opportunity to learn design thinking, practice the process and to work with others on how they are bringing it back to their work places.

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Participants can expect a hands-on experience for building an understanding of design thinking, learning to work together to build new ideas and get the opportunity to navigate some of the uncertainty of working with complex challenges.

Together, participants will:

  • explore a wicked problem
  • be able to tackle deepening of empathy
  • defining the questions we ask
  • creating valuable solutions
  • testing out assumptions in an iterative process

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Who should come to Design Thinking for Impact?

Individuals working to make a difference. Participants coming from a diversity of backgrounds will learn how unusual collaborations can lead to innovative solutions. This workshop is for participants eager to gain knowledge about design thinking and how it can be applied to their work. Learn the methodologies, mindset and process of iteration, prototyping, empathy and problem-framing.

Logistic Details:

August 22 – 23 9am – 5pm
Centre for Social Innovation
720 Bathurst Street
Meeting Room #1 (2nd Floor)

Exhibit Change has recently been doing design thinking workshops at Glen Shields Public School, read more here “How might we bring design thinking to Glen Shields Public School?” 

Resources: 

Virtual d.school Crash Course

Stanford’s & IDEO Founder David Kelley on Design Thinking video

IDEO Human Centred Design Toolkit 

EdCamp BootCamp Training | August 21, 2013

edcamp_logoEdCamp is a uniquely powerful movement growing through out education professional development. It is a way to connect to other educators, to other people thinking about what is happening and will be happening in education, to explore your own questions and curiosities.

EdCamp BootCamp is a way to explore the mechanics of the unconference.

This will be a one day training ALL about unconferences and facilitation. Unconferences are participant-driven, the content is created on the spot by the people who are in the room. This training will give an overview of a few different techniques and facilitation methods that can be used for EdCamps. Coming to EdCamp and meeting like-minded people is awesome and being able to facilitate when you get back to your place of work is equally as powerful.

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From EdCamp Hong Kong – a little lesson on how to make coffee before we got going for the day

This training is intended for individuals who have organized or are thinking of organizing an EdCamp in their own community and is looking for some basics on how the facilitation happens. Participants will learn about unconference models, practice unconference techniques and dynamics. Learn strategies of how to design the day, how to facilitate conversations and how to capture what happened to share beyond the day.

Tickets for participation for EdCamp Design Thinking are still open. October 5th, 2013, join educators, learners and designers who will be discussing “How might design thinking impact the future of education?” An opportunity to meet other EdCampers and practice.

*All proceeds/fees from EdCamp Bootcamp will go to funding EdCamp Design Thinking* 

Register for EdCamp Bootcamp – August 21, 2013

To read about other EdCamps:

EdCamp Hong Kong : Reflection Blog from Bad Kids Collective – The Amazing Race 

EdCamp Toronto: Reflections from EdCamp Toronto