Friday, 26 February 2016

8 innovations that could update our economic system (and how we consume)

The following is an excerpt from an article Otto Scharmer, the brains behind U.Lab, wrote in 2014 about the power to change systems with innovation:

There are eight institutional innovations that, as a set, could update the economic system to operate more intelligently across silos and boundaries by shifting the economic logic from ego-to eco-system awareness:

1. Nature

Instead of treating nature’s gifts as commodities that we buy, use, and throw away, treat the natural world as an eco-system that we need to cultivate.

2. Entrepreneurship

Reinvent our concept of labour and rather than thinking of work as a “job” think about it as passion-led entrepreneurship.

3. Money

Reinvent our concept of money. Instead of extractive, capital should be intentional, serving rather than harming the real economy.

4. Technology

Reinvent how we develop technologies. Empower all people to be makers and creators rather than passive recipients.

5. Leadership

Instead of individual super-egos, we need to build the capacity to co-sense and co-shape the future on the level of the whole system.

6. Consumption

Rather than promoting consumerism and using metrics like GDP, move towards sharing and collaborative consumption, and using measurements of well-being such as Gross National Happiness (GNH) and the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI).

7. Governance

Reinvent how we coordinate. Move toward complementing the three older mechanisms (hierarchies, markets, and special interest groups) through a fourth mechanism: acting from shared awareness, from seeing the whole.

8. Ownership

Advance the old forms of state and private ownership by creating a third category of ownership rights: commons-based ownership that better protects the interests of future generations.

These eight “acupuncture points”, as a set, could help us to shift the old outdated capitalism into a 21st-century economy that creates wellbeing for all.


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Thursday, 25 February 2016

About Incredible Edible Lambeth, our Partner

What is Incredible Edible Lambeth?

Incredible Edible Lambeth is a collection of people and organisations who work together to make sure that healthy, sustainable, locally produced food is available to everyone living in Lambeth, regardless of income, both now and in the future.

Where did it all start?

It all started in with Incredible Edible Todmorden  and we found the ethos inspiring. We believe in systems which are easily replicable and have an eco-system of their own. Many of our projects demonstrate this.

What’s special about Lambeth?

Like most London boroughs, Lambeth is a series of interconnecting villages. Those villages are full of people growing and producing food (123 growing projects and counting). They are also full of people who suffer food poverty and ill health. Lambeth is a diverse borough offering a rich food heritage

Incredible Edible's Aim is?

To increase healthy sustainable food grown, produced, sold and eaten trough transforming our local food system, by celebrating, supporting and strengthening community food activity and the connections between local people and local food.

Who can join?

Incredible Edible Lambeth is everyone who cares about our aims and is connected to Lambeth through living or working. We are not bigger than our active members who are out there doing projects under various scopes and names.  You can join by becoming a member.  Help us by being active. Discuss with us on twitter or Facebook.




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Six Weeks to Change the World: The U.Lab: Grow Your Own Leaders syllabus


  • Week 0: Intro night Connect with others working in the food system. Vision what you want from the Lambeth food system by 2035, hear an overview of the U.Lab course with Q&A. Expect high energy and enthusiastic people – and of course food.
  • Week 1: Mapping the food system Develop a shared understanding of the food system – what is broken, what the power dynamics look like and areas for influence
  • Week 1b: Optional visit Visit a community food project and practice a new communications tool
  • Week 2: Connecting the personal to the group Practice a coaching circle, supporting each other in individual leadership challenges
  • Week 3: Bringing it all together Understand how Lambeth-based food growers, makers, retailers, innovators and redistributors work together, and discover the sweet spots for change
  • Week 3b: Optional Visit Visit a community food project
  • Week 4: Prototyping Get creative and build mock versions of your ideas in a group
  • Week 5: Developing Prototypes Build on what you started in Week 4 – get feedback fast and adapt your project
  • Week 6: Celebration and next steps


Each session will be on a Wednesday, will run from 6pm until 8.30pm, and dinner will be provided.

Dates
Week 0: Wednesday 9th March (Launch)
Week 1: Wednesday 16th March
Week 1b: Saturday 19th March
Week 2: Wednesday 23rd March
Week 3: Wednesday 30th April
Week 3b: Saturday 2nd April
Week 4: Wednesday 6th April
Week 5 Wednesday 13th April
Week 6: Wednesday 20th April


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U.Lab: Grow Your Own Leaders - Are you up for the challenge?

Impact Hub Brixton and Incredible Edible Lambeth would like to invite you to take part in a leadership development programme aimed at food leaders like you.

We all want to put people at the heart of the food we create. What if here in Lambeth we produced, distributed and ate food in a way that supported our community’s need to live healthily, socially, sustainably and affordably enabled food producers, manufacturers, retailers and innovators to work effectively together enabled us all to get more involved in meeting our own food needs?

But we can’t do this on our own.

Many of the problems we face with how our food is grown, distributed, eaten – and sometimes wasted – don’t have easy answers. People locally and globally, whether citizens, local growers or large manufacturers, struggle to see the bigger picture, or understand how to make an impact. We need a different approach.

We are convening a group of 25 people for a 6 week programme to jointly find these answers for Lambeth and beyond. Food growers, retailers, manufacturers, caterers, distributors, policy-makers, innovators, activists, writers – come and join us.

We will work with an approach known as U.Lab. This is a way of leading profound change that has been developed by action researchers at MIT, and practiced by leaders around the world for over 20 years.

Are you up for the challenge?


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U.Lab: My experience

Wayne Trevor – Lambeth resident, lead of community projects West Norwood Bzz Garage and Open Orchard, Hub member, TfL employee and U.Lab participant – reflects on what U.Lab: Future of Lambeth meant to him.



“I’ve been hearing lots about U.Lab – what exactly is it?”

This was the response I heard from anyone listening to me enthuse about the amazing course I was doing – a course that was having a life-changing impact.

Reflecting back, I’m not sure I am much clearer on what it is. It’s an Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), as the education bods at MIT like to call it. It’s a leadership course about transforming business, society, and self. Or as I often told people, “it’s basically a theory that explains why everything in the world is broken, and gives the tools and hope on how to fix them”.

At its heart is Theory U, an approach to leading profound change that has been developed by action researchers at MIT, and practiced by leaders around the world, for over 20 years. We got to practice Theory U on the topic of ‘the future of Lambeth’.

And when I say practice, I mean practice. We got to act out (yup, cringes and all) how we experience the systems in Lambeth and how we’d like them to be, in a process called Social Presencing Theatre. We listened, meditated, journalled, listened, watched, coached, shared, prototyped and listened some more through 10 weeks of the U.Lab course.

The thing that got me the most was the honesty and vulnerability it encouraged us to express. How often in any workplace or community group are we encouraged to really share what’s going on, to express those little doubts, those massive frustrations, the despair of not knowing what the hell we (or someone else) is doing? All of this is welcomed in U.Lab – it’s necessary even. And we do it on a personal level, and as a group. It helps us to move through those experiences. To work out what is of value. What we need to keep and what we need to let go of. And then we take all of that and we do something that we collectively think will make a difference – a process called prototyping.

The course is finished. But two months later and 8 of us are still prototyping. That was how valuable we all thought this stuff was – so far clocking up about 100 hours of work after the course. We’re following our energy – on running a U.Lab course on the Lambeth Food System. Our hope is that we can bring a group of people together who will bring energy and enthusiasm to make some amazing changes.

Watch this space Lambeth.
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Monday, 1 February 2016

Key Dates

Week 0: Wednesday 9th March (Launch)

This is our launch day, when we welcome anyone interested in joining the programme to join us at the Impact Hub in Pop Brixton from 6pm.

Week 1: Wednesday 16th March

This is our first day of the course and is for invitees only (people who have a confirmed place on the course and who have paid the course fees). We'll be meeting one another, giving an introduction into Theory U and jumping into some of the practical exercises. You can find the presentation given in the session here.

Week 1b: Saturday 19th March

This is an optional day. We will be doing two visits:


Week 2: Wednesday 23rd March

This week was all about co-sensing and how to listen.

Week 3: Wednesday 30th March

This week was all about presencing, the U curve, standing out in the car park at Pop Brixton and getting a sense of where we are going.

Week 3b: Saturday 2nd April

This is an optional day. Time to practice coaching circles/case clinics at the hub. We start at 10.30am.

Week 4: Wednesday 6th April

Week 5 Wednesday 13th April

Week 6: Wednesday 20th April

This is our last formal day of the programme. But the Impact Hub will be running its Open Project nights for any participants that would like to keep working on joint projects.
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Andry Anastasiou


What's your story?

I'm a member of the Impact Hub and a previous participant on the U.Lab course. I've been involved in collaborative communities in Lambeth for several years and work as a professional leadership coach.

What is your connection to the Food System?

I'm a food lover and an amateur above all. Although I worked in Brixton Wholefoods when I first moved to Brixton my main motivation to help improve the food system in Lambeth is from the perspective of a user: food has a central place in my life, whether it is shopping for food in local markets or cooking for friends and family.

What is your experience of U.Lab?

As a qualified and experienced coach with the Institute of Leadership and Management and a qualified coaching with 20 years’ experience I found U.Lab to be a genuinely inspirational and energizing experience that helped inform my own work life.

What will the success of this course look like to you?

Success for me will look like better, people-centric leadership on the food issues that matter to all of us. I'm particularly conscious of the capacity for this course to help changemakers come up with more holistic and sustainable solutions.
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Sue Sheehan


What's your story?

I participated in the last U.Lab course, with two hats on - as a participant and with my professional interest as someone who works for Lambeth Council to promote community action and participation.

What is your connection to the Food System?

I'm lucky enough to have made my passion for the food system my job. I cofounded a community group dedicated to fighting climate change, was a founding member of Transition Town Brixton and from that was asked to be Lambeth's Green Community Champion. Part of my job is to connect people who want a greener, more sustainable community with one another and help them build their own groups and networks.

What is your experience of U.Lab?

I was initially skeptical but I found the course really started to resonate with me, and help me think through some of the intractable problems that we face time and time again when trying to change the food system.

What will the success of this course look like to you?

I would love to see this course help changemakers in our community develop better ways of working towards solutions to the problems our Lambeth food system has. We have such energy in our communities and harnessing that power to build movements is a real challenge.
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Wayne Trevor


What's your story?

I'm a member of the Impact Hub and a previous participant on the U.Lab course who wanted to carry on with what we started to help bring about real change in the food system in Lambeth and beyond.

What is your connection to the Food System?

I'm passionate about local growing and using unloved public spaces to contribute to a more sustainable, healthier city. I've volunteered at the West Norwood Feast, run a trade school growing edible flowers. For the past year and a half I've been running Bzz Garage, a project to transform the West Norwood Bus Garage into a bee-friendly haven and Open Orchard, a project to plant more than 100 fruit trees in public spaces.

What is your experience of U.Lab?

I really liked the way it forced us all to be honest and open about vulnerabilities.  For me, being able to express those little doubts, those massive frustrations, uncertainties, were key to working more collaboratively and not falling into old patterns of working.

What will the success of this course look like to you?

Success for me will look like better quality listening and embedding of some of the core principles of U.Lab in how the group on the programme interact with one another as they work towards new ideas for how to change the food system in Lambeth.

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