4. Call to Join Shift Lab 2.0

CALL TO JOIN SHIFT LAB 2.0 COME JOIN THE SHIFT LAB!

About the Shift Lab

A partnership between Edmonton Community Foundation and Skills Society Action Lab, the Edmonton Shift Lab is an action-oriented exploration of racism in our city. We are building on the great work done in Edmonton and approaching these challenges through a Social Innovation lab to steward an exploration that can provide us with insights and prototypes into how we can make change. We have completed one cycle of the lab (what we affectionately call Shift Lab 1.0) and are currently recruiting for people to join us for our next cycle -- Shift Lab 2.0!

What is a Social Innovation lab?

A Social Innovation lab draws on the strengths, empathy, creativity, and wisdom of a collective to explore new ways of making progress on a complex challenge. The lab will have several stages and will begin by making sense of the problem at hand by learning and listening to stories and reflections from the community. These insights help generate empathy and ideas for prototypes. These prototypes are tested and vetted by the community multiple times: even if an idea doesn’t work, they will incorporate the learning into a new prototype. When they find ideas that work, the Shift Lab will help them grow, but by the very same nature, these ideas can be messy, divergent and provocative to work through.

To learn more about Social Innovation labs or Shift Lab 1.0, check out our report.

What is Shift Lab 2.0?

The guiding question for Shift Lab 2.0 is this: How might we create better anti-racism interventions that acknowledge everyone’s humanity and create behaviour change? Three key components are in this question.

Firstly, there are many anti-racism interventions in the world. Some of them are very effective. Some of them are less so. Can we build on what is already working and upgrade it? What can we learn from other sectors that might help?

Secondly, racism is partly a process of dehumanization so beginning from a place of humanity is important. But using humanity as a starting place to engage with folks who don’t suffer the consequences of racism is also important: Daryl Davis, a black musician from the US who builds relationships with members of the KKK, talks about the importance of respecting the humanity of Klan members while challenging their ideas. Humanity, to different degrees and in different ways, is key.

Finally, interventions have to be grounded in behaviour change, they can’t just be about awareness or empathy building. Both of these things are important, but awareness isn’t action.

Call to Join Shift Lab 2.0 (cont.)

What does a Core Lab team do?

Striving to be a diverse representation of the system being explored, the Core Lab teams do sense-making of the key challenge; do scrappy, rapid research; make sense of insights; come up with possibilities; and prototype and test solutions.

Guided by a human-centered design and systems thinking process, they contribute their own skills, knowledge, and ideas to the challenge area and lab process. Core Lab team members will at times be facilitators in community and lab sessions, create learning experiences in community, and cocreate prototypes. Each team will be supported by a prototype coach and have support to help coordinate logistics.

“Prototyping is a rapid, low-cost, low-risk, learning-rich approach to surface and test promising responses to tough challenges. Prototyping precedes, rather than replaces, conventional pilot projects. Unlike pilots, where a promising intervention is “fixed” for a longer period of time and assessed through thorough evaluative techniques, prototyping can be used to quickly and inexpensively develop and test ideas that may warrant eventual pilot testing.” - Mark Cabaj

By the end of the lab process there will be a portfolio of tested prototypes ready to expand into the community. There are financial resources available to help this process.

Why get involved?

The Core Lab team is the heart of the Shift Lab and is the driving force behind developing the prototypes that will emerge. You will learn from others, engage in a process that will support the creation of innovative pathways, and promote engagement within a complex issue. Whether this is an area you’ve been working in professionally for years, part of your lived experience, or an issue you’ve always wanted to explore, this is an opportunity to dig deep into an meaningful issue in our community.

Who are we looking for?

We’re looking to build teams (4 teams of 7-9 people each) of stellar listeners and doers, with a mix of domain expertise, fresh perspectives, and lived experience – teams who can easily collaborate across backgrounds.

We need people who are thoughtful and help bring out the best ideas from the team they are working with. We’re looking for critical and empathic thinkers, those that strive to understand needs from an individual level and can put into perspective from a bigger picture level. We’re looking for people with an ability to work in complexity and uncertainty, people willing to take risks and learn from others, and creative thinkers who will make ideas happen. In particular, we are looking for designers, data lovers, educators, story-tellers, policy makers, behaviour change specialists, peace-makers, and rabble-rousers. Past experience with social innovation is not required!

Lab Team Challenge Brief

Each Core Lab team member will be a part of one of four prototype teams. Each team has a challenge brief which includes an initial question, some context for that problem area, and questions to consider. The briefs are meant to be a starting place and will change and evolve with the prototype. The four teams are:

• How might we reimagine what it means to be a treaty person? • How might we create an interactive empathy experience that strives to reduce racist behaviour over time? • How might we create “ on-ramps for racial justice” that help overcome White fragility? • How might we design an intervention to de-escalate public displays of racist behaviour?

Call to Join Shift Lab 2.0 (cont.)

What is the “Sleepy Middle?”

The Sleepy Middle is an archetype that has emerged in the development of Shift Lab 2.0. Imagine a continuum: on one end, there are torch-carrying racists. On the other, there are passionate anti-racist activists.The Sleepy Middle is between these two poles. They think of themselves as good people. They would be shocked by a racist joke but might also be unaware of how systemic is infused in everyday life. They have varying levels of understanding of what racism is, whether it still exists, and why it’s important to work to end it.

Time Commitment

The Lab will commence in March and run until September 2019. The Core Lab team will meet for five “sprints” as a complete group during this period:

• Sprint 1: March 1-3 • Sprint 2: April 5-7 • Sprint 3: May 31-June 2 • Sprint 4: July 12-14 • Sprint 5: September 14

The first four sprints include a Friday evening (roughly 5pm9pm), a Saturday (roughly 9am-4pm) and a Sunday morning (roughly 9am-12pm). The September sprint will be a single day from 9am-4pm. Support for childcare costs is available if needed.

Individual prototype teams will meet between these formal sessions; the timing, duration, and frequency of these smaller meetings will be determined by the prototype teams and might require daytime, evening, or weekend work. We anticipate an average time commitment of 25 hours a month, with some months being lighter or heavier.

Core Lab Team Honoraria

We want to value contributions and time commitments of all participants, and therefore have numerous options to honour this. This can be in the form of direct compensation to an individual (for those who are self-employed or underemployed/not working); organizational support to offset work hours (for those coming from an agency/organization); or a donation to the prototype work (for those who do not need compensation). Details will be discussed with applicants.

How do I apply?

Each applicant should submit the following by February 4, 2019:

A short (one page maximum) answer to the following questions:

• Why do you want to be involved with the Shift lab? • What strengths, skills, gifts, or insights can you bring to this project? • If you were to imagine the absolute worst kind of project team to work with, what would it look like? Describe what would make it so terrible for you (e.g. the people involved, the way it was run, the kind of project, etc). • Something that shows your life/work experience. This could be a resume, a piece of art, a story or poem -- whatever is your preferred method. • A confirmation that you are available for the majority of workshop dates and project work • A brief statement (3 sentences max) detailing which team(s) you’d like to be a part of and why.

If you are interested, please send your completed application to us at info@edmontonshiftlab.ca by February 4, 2019. Have any questions? Feel free to email us or check out our website (www.edmontonshiftlab.ca).

Sincerely, The Shift Lab Stewardship Team