• ‘mood follows behaviour’… wilding as self regulation?

    Gary Snyder talks from the Zen tradition of ‘wild mind’ as “elegantly self-disciplined, self-regulating. That’s what wilderness is. Nobody has a management plan for it.”

    In her book “Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life” Natalie Goldberg addresses how to bypass your inner critic so that you can unleash the forces of creativity that are inherent to mind….

    A few years ago Tara’s sister Aisling recommended Bessel Van Der Kolk’s mind-bending book on trauma and recovery The Body Keeps the Score….

    And I have long wondered what kind of thread exists that might weave an understanding of ‘wild mind’ into brain (neuro) science and bridges into insights on creativity like Goldman’s.

    Then this morning… thanks to Aisling once more …. a discovery!

    She forwarded a link to a YouTube interview with Andrew Huberman …. which we took a look at … and then couldn’t stop … for two hours (https://youtu.be/SwQhKFMxmDY)

    “Two breaths then an exhale … Adjusts the ratio of carbon dioxide to oxygen in the lungs … Calming me down … A physiological sigh… Or I can breathe rapidly to raise adrenaline to ratchet myself into action….or I toggle between wide dilated focus and sharp focus …. And all of these techniques are a clue to how high performing people self regulate … Techniques for resetting focus allows us to stay focused…”

    Andrew tells a compelling story on neuroscience… where he emphasises over and again that neuro plasticity is available to adults … Providing we understand how to focus – and reward ourselves internally … And have great deep sleep afterwards….or micro recoveries during activity … which saves and builds energy.

    Yoga nidra is – yes – a powerful practice …. And related to hypnosis scripts like sleep hypnosis (https://youtu.be/P5K-OOXkQH4).

    This is a state of ‘no duration Path and outcome’ focus … Helping regulate our nervous system (and by the way this is why rapid eye movement is do effective for some recovering from trauma)….

    Huberman keeps coming back to a mantra of ‘Duration Path and Outcome’ being the things that focus our attention … And which we can work with to shift out of reflex or habitual behaviour …. And so learn how to learn …

    …by linking milestones of intrinsic motivation to our dopamine system…. By beginning with behaviour not mindsets.

    A great way to spend a Sunday morning.

    And now … Up and out …

  • Lockdown: seeing knowing blogging differently?

    Lockdown again; and we walk ‘the crags’ – then ‘the badger’ (which takes in ‘the lobby’ – Oran’s parkour practice ground – names for local routes in the woods) – with Lyra. Every day, a path near our house. And usually taking a photo. A lichen. A puppy action shot. A sunset.

    As I skip back home with Oran, when he has finished hiding and sniping, I remember my conversation yesterday with Steve, who is taking a photo outside or near his house everyday as an experiment in seeing differently (drstevemarshall.com).

    And for the first time in a while, I sense a route towards blogging: sharing a few pictures from these lockdown walks with my family, and seeing what words follow.

    Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life arrived at Christmas. ‘Are network based life-forms like fungi and slime moulds capable of a form of cognition?’ Merlin is asking where I’ve paused – page 73 – for breath.
    Like an ear-worm, I can’t stop imagining, feeling, noticing fungi everywhere, every walk, every tree, every bouncy footstep through the forest. Tripping on no drugs, the world-view Sheldrake is enmeshing me within in his writing feels unstoppable. At the moment, I’m surrendering to this book and the sense that fungal sentience is more than possible….and almost tripping on the bounce underfoot as hyphae fuse and split, have sex, form information super-highways, somehow generate mitochondrial pairings with plants whose chemical stew bathes the soil in an explosion of networked wildness ….

    There is a seam in qualitative research – and action research – that takes inspiration from the mycorrhizal relationships fungi and imagines a participatory cosmology of co-researchers, growing consciousness together through curiosity, inquiry, action, hope (see for example http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.569.8038%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&hl=en&sa=X&ei=aV0EYNCCI5XKmAGvxJzwCg&scisig=AAGBfm27Cbyocf4xzzhrobryHjICCrksHA&nossl=1&oi=scholarr) Perhaps the fungi know more about this than we might ever have imagined…..

  • growing ulab Scotland… through film

    As you may know, u.lab is a massive online course (MOOC) run by MIT professor Otto Scharmer and the Presencing Institute. It’s a globally available, free course that lots of people across Scotland have participated in (see www.ulabscotland.com for more).

    u.lab Scotland has space within the online platform (called edX) to share material we generate here in Scotland – we call this the ‘SMOOC’ (Scottish Massive Open Online Course).

    In the first two years, the focus of the content was interviews with people applying innovative approaches to making a positive difference to communities and organisations, suggesting connections to concepts covered in u.lab.

    This year, and building on the 2016 report we did of the u.lab Scotland story so far, we are in a stronger position to begin to ‘crowd source’ content – so a small group of us from the u.lab sensing team got together to prototype a way to do this.

    We’re starting small. Sourcing existing films and making a few new ones that show how ways of working explored in u.lab are coming to life across Scotland.

    We’re now ready to share what we’ve come up with here – a blog a week in the run up to the u.lab live session.

    In the first week, we shared a brand new film from Coproduction Network Scotland called ‘Created by Conversation’ – you can see this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai7cNgdxX6c

    This is the text that goes with it on EdX:

    In Scotland, we are finding that the ‘U’ is helping connect people who are working for positive change.

    U.lab Scotland is ‘co-initiating’ a community of change makers who are finding a common language, understanding and practice that seems to speed up our ability to  create positive change in our communities.

    For example, there is a growing group of people interested in how people who use public services can have a strong voice in shaping how they are designed and run (sometimes called ‘co-production’).

    One example of co-production in Scotland today is shown in a film called ‘Created by Conversation’.

    It tells the story of bringing about a new partnership between people who have been released from prison, private sector companies offering jobs to these people, and government.    At its heart, the story is about changing how we listen to each other in order to ‘let go’ and open up to new possibilities (‘open heart’).

    Coming next:

    – Peter Ashe will blog about inviting analysts in Scotlands’ National Health Service to get out and meet the people behind their data; and

    – Kuladharini from Scottish Recovery Consortium will reflect on a 500 mile ‘sensing journey’ in support of Scotland’s recovery community; and

    Katy McNeil will tell a story of turning a ‘hunch’ into a prototype at CivTech (r) Edinburgh – an ‘innovation accelerator’ (stay tuned to learn about what that is…)

    • For our final EdX content, we are looking to highlight some examples of creating prototypes – and then scaling them up. Do you have a story that might help others really understand how to do prototyping? Get in touch with Nick Wilding or Keira Oliver as soon as possible if so…
  • From the attention economy…. To an attention inquiry

    Yesterday I discovered Tristan Harris’ Time Well Spent campaign… and its underpinnings in a powerful critique of how social media colonises our attention…. by generating addictions.

    For a while my gut’s been saying similar things….. Especially around questions of being a dad to young boys growing up as smart phone technology has arrived (iPhone is ten this year; Eisean is 8 and his brother is 6).

    This morning I read in brainpickings a powerful summary of Why Time Flies by Alan Burdick.

    And I wonder…. Is this a moment to inquire together into our relationship with time and especially social media?

    Responses welcome….

  • ‘Rocky Road’ – New short film on 100storieslogo
    co-production in Scotland

    ‘Rocky Road’ tells the inside story of how local community activists took over the Community Centre in their ex-mining village Dalmellington.

    In this 5-minute film, community activist Sharon Smith and Angela Graham, Senior Estates Surveyor at East Ayrshire Council, take the camera into their own hands, and grill one another about the ups and downs of the process. It’s a revealing conversation.

    rockyroadfilming

    This video is the first of ‘100 Stories for Co-production’ – an Ingage-led project, supported by the Scottish Co-production Network, aimed at spreading the word about what it really takes for communities and government to work together.

    The film highlights the success as well as the challenges of taking a co-production approach and tells the story of the Community Asset Transfer of the local Dalmellington Community Centre.

    Sharon Smith, community activist and Secretary of Dalmellington Community Association, said:

    “The threat was that the Community Centre was going to be closed down and bulldozed. We couldn’t allow that to happen.

    When the Council turned down our first business plan, we were all gutted. It was very disappointing and disheartening. But we didn’t give up.

    “It’s been a rocky road… but what we’ve done in the past year is remarkable. The whole process has been a learning curve – not just for us, but for the Local Authority as well.”  

    Angela Graham, Senior Estates Surveyor at East Ayrshire Council, who has taken on board the Council’s ‘Vibrant Communities’ co-production approach over the past 18 months, said:

    “Studying as a surveyor did I ever think I would be involved in discussions about what night of the week bingo’s held on?

    “I was one of the faceless corporate people. Learning to work with community groups that I hadn’t met before. I had to let go a wee bit of my inner control freak!

    “My advice is to embrace co-production. Not only will it make your job easier, but it’ll also make it more rewarding.”

    The film is co-produced by the participants, social enterprise film-makers media co-op, the Ingage team leading on coproduction policy and practice at Scottish Government, along with the ihub in NHS Healthcare Improvement Scotland, and the Scottish Co-production Network.


    About 100 Stories of Co-production

    ‘100 Stories’ aims to enable people from across Scotland’s diverse co-production movement to share stories about the impact we are making. This initiative seeks to:

    • Experience stories of putting people at the heart of what we do
    • Share strategies of movement building
    • Shape the evidence base for co-production
    • Widen the ownership of the 100 stories co-production movement in Scotland.

    Ingage leads on coproduction policy and practice within Scottish Government. As part of its work, the Ingage team at Scottish Government, along with the ihub in Healthcare Improvement Scotland, are jointly funding and supporting the development of this work, with the aspiration that it will build capacity for many others to become involved and co-design the 100 stories.

  • U.Lab Global pic

    My take on the ‘U Lab’ 

    For me, the  ‘U Lab’ (sign up at : https://www.edx.org/course/u-lab-transforming-business-society-self-mitx-15-671x) is about offering people ways to lead ‘from an emerging future’ through times of transformation and disruption, bringing to this task an ‘open mind, open heart, open will’. It’s been put together by a group from MIT in America (the same group that well known names in the world of systems change – like Peter Senge – belong to).

    In a way it U Lab is a crystallization of decades of learning from social and business change movements, and it’s founded on a stark critique of our current economic, social and political thinking that Scharmer calls ‘organised irresponsibility’.

    At heart, U Lab is an attempt to support and catalyse an emerging community of change makers to step up our impact by paying more attention to how we learn and create new solutions for ourselves, and also together. The first time around, something like 26000 people took part from 126 countries.

    How the Scottish Government got involved

    One of those people was a Director in the Scottish Government (Kenneth Hogg). In his capacity as lead on developing the ‘policy profession’ within the Government, and mindful of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s commitment to put participation and community empowerment at the heart of her approach to government, Kenneth thought that U Lab could help. It is focused on better meeting future challenges, it is a participative approach, and focuses on turning actions into real action. He asked members of his team – Angie Meffan-Main and Keira Oliver – to book three dates for ‘warm up’ events in June, July and early September. The idea being to attempt to seed wide interest in the course and in particular to encourage people from all walks of life to host ‘hubs’ – spaces where people could come together for the live sessions… the times when the many thousands of people from around the world tune in together.

    U Lab 2.0 – starting soon

    The second global U Lab ‘MOOC” (Massive Open Online Course) kicks off on September 10th. And on 1st September the team running the MOOC will be in Edinburgh to support an event – the last of three – for people interested in participating. In preparation for this, a team of six people from government, private, third and public sectors have come together to design an event that we intend will build significantly on two previous events.

    With the event happening in under four weeks and already 250 people signed up, a group comprising volunteers who have attended previous sessions met yesterday to start the design process. At the end of our meeting, we decided to share what we’ve come up with as this blog – to both ‘walk our talk’ about working in transparent ways that are accountable to the wider community now gathering around the U Lab; as a way to record our decisions; and as a way to invite feedback towards creating an event with even more of a buzz than the first two.

    Our first design meeting

    The first and second events had been led by Kenneth Hogg (Director for Local Government and Communities in the Scottish Government), with support from his team. At the end of the second event Kenneth signaled that he’d like to invite a wider community to take a lead on the next event, and proposed that the third event could have a different, more co-created feel: less about talking from the front, more about sharing what’s happening in relation to this work across Scotland.

    Before the 3rd July event, about 25 people were invited along to brief Otto and colleagues on the Scottish context to help them ‘tune in’ to where we are at. After the event, this group got an email if anyone might be willing to join a design/hosting team. In addition, a couple of folk had pro-actively offered to help out following the second event.

    Those who could agree on a date to meet have now become the design team: Debbie Bayne, Peter Ashe, Jenni Inglis, Fiona MacNeil, Karen Lawson, Julie Arts (calling in from Belgium) and myself.

    We met on August 6th and these are the key themes as I heard them from our conversation:

    ‘Raising the Bar’ and communicating with those coming/colleagues Some of our discussion was about who we were and what our mandate was:

    • Although we’ve never worked together before we recognize that between us there is a lot of experience in hosting participative events; and that working together is an opportunity to learn from and with each other;
    • We are confident in our ability – together – to come up with something really good; to ‘raise the bar’ : we intend the balance of this event to be much more about those who are coming than those who are on stage.
    • We are a bit worried that someone may come in at the last minute and over-rule our plans; we are therefore keen to have really good communication as well as a clear mandate to get on with this task from both Kenneth as well as our U Lab colleagues (and recognize that Nick and Julie carry important roles in ensuring this).
    • We agree there is a big opportunity to make ‘harvesting’ more central in how we run the event – that is, feeding back learning in ‘real time’ and in creative ways from group discussions happening in the hall; and
    • We intend to be as open as possible about our design for the event and encourage feedback about this, hence this blog; and
    The U

    Content/Sensing questions

    Reflecting on previous events, we framed these questions: 

    • Could/should we introduce elements of the ‘U’ more explicitly this time: practices (the journaling worked well last time) and theory (something around levels of listening?); might we invite Otto to do this?
    • How can we create a design that can work for people who will be coming with different needs: from newbies feeling fuzzy or without any previous info on U Lab; to people who are signed up, ready to go, and stepping forward as hub hosts?
    • What kind of tone do we want to strike? How to ‘not get too heavy’ about this; to cultivate and encourage a feeling of intrigue/ readiness/ willingness to ‘get on the train’ and ‘give it a go’; to enjoy who else is ‘on the platform’ ; and to be able to have ‘safe’ conversations
    • How to steer away from off-putting jargon and language, and steer towards enabling this emerging community to see, enjoy and explore itself – in the context of our common curiosity about the U Lab?
    purposeulab

    Purpose

    At this point I proposed that our conversation might itself be following a ‘U’: we began with a ‘check in’ (in U language ‘download’ about who we were); then we had a frank conversation about our views of previous events (including feedback from others that we’d heard) and what we personally would need to step into putting work into creating the next one (‘debate’ and ‘sensing’). I proposed we now work together on a statement of purpose for the 1st September event. This took about 30 minutes: we took time to sit in silence to tune into a sense of the best potential for what might happen. The pace of our conversation slowed down, and we disrupted a pattern from earlier so we could hear softer voices as well as more forceful ones. We arrived at the following – draft – statement of purpose for 1st September:

    Purpose of 1st September is to create an appreciative community ready to explore U Lab 2.0.

    Next Steps

    So now we’re moving into a ‘prototyping’ phase – coming up with early designs for the event towards agreeing on one to try.

    • Nick agreed to write up this blog, run it by the team (including Julie and Kenneth), then post to the Facebook group and the ULab wordpress site. Nick will also clarify with Kenneth what resources are available to us to run the day (eg from tablecloths to write on to enabling graphic facilitation etc).
    • We would like to ask Keira to help with preparations when she returns from leave on Monday (and later Angie), including booking a room at SAH for the next meeting (20th August, 12-5pm at St Andrews House Edinburghideally); and potentially getting in touch with everyone who has signed up on eventbrite to (a) double check they are coming as it may be a while since they signed up, including an offer from Jo Kennedy to develop their hub hosting ideas to potentially share on 1st September; and (b) send a wider email out again about the event across networks as per originally as well as to government colleagues
    • Fiona agreed to collate and make a proposal for an event design based on everyone’s input by Tuesday.
    • Jenni has agreed to develop options for harvesting (Nick to update Jenni about ideas Kenneth has already had on this);
    • Peter will share a cartoon where he imagines peoples’ journeys into the event and beyond; he also has energy to support Keira in keeping the online conversations moving
    • Debbie will develop ideas for a ‘badge’ that everyone can be invited to develop at the beginning of the day that may contain questions we hold, something about us, and more; and feed into design for the day; and
    • Julie had to sign off early, but is ready and willing to support in any way on the day in any role that is appropriate; and can also ensure Otto and Adam and other U Lab colleagues are ‘in the loop’ re the design

    A little more background – how this design group came together

    To support the U Lab ‘warm up’ events, Kenneth asked Otto Scharmer if he and his team might be willing to support Scotland to help get the ball rolling. At around the same time, a number of us who had also done the first U Lab met up. We decided to work together to support these events in June, July and on 1st September.
    For my part, I offered three things back in May:

    • The first was to help the group learn from our efforts to spread the word. In an early conversation, several of us talked about being wary of ‘pushing’ something at people. In particular we saw a danger that the U Lab might come across as ‘the next thing’, rather than providing a framework for many existing approaches and tools. We also wanted to make sure that we could walk before we try to run – and not over-sell this prematurely. How might the offer be pitched appropriately to support and build on what we already have?
    • My second offer was to pitch in at the events to do some filming as one way to track this learning (above) as well as offering participants and others a way to remember/catch up with the developing story. The first two films are here: https://ulabscot.wordpress.com/resources/
    • I was also asked to play an interviewer role during the first event to help draw out what the experience of a ‘coaching circle’ was like from some of the folk who’d done this – it was clear from our early conversations that some of the real magic lay in the conversations that the U Lab material inspired between people who had made the effort to come together for the live sessions and more… and we wanted to communicate this.

    The first two events attracted 180 and 250 people respectively. Each time, there was quite a buzz in the room: it seemed clear that there was much more happening than simply telling people about a new course and I tried to capture this sense in the first two films.

    Immediately after the second event I was on leave for a week and when I returned Kenneth and Keira had also left on holiday and had proposed that I now work with Julie from Belgium – who works with the global U team – to design/host the third event on September 1st.

    So I now find myself in the exciting place of supporting a shift of ownership and control towards an emerging ‘U’ community: just the type of work that the government is going to be doing more and more of.

    At the heart of this is the balancing act of turning up ‘as myself’ to support this shift of power and control; whilst also being a Scottish Government person and all that entails. As we observed in the design group meeting, there is a lot happening around this apparently simple task of designing an event: this is a moment when the nature of government, and how government is done, is changing; and it’s a moment when there is more potential for more of us – as citizens – to step forward to help create the new relationship between citizen and state.

    I’ll blog again to share how it’s going. Perhaps that will be part of the key about navigating this new way of working: learning how to be open about it and also being open about the feedback I get after taking this risk…

    Nick Wilding

    17th August 2015

  • Placeholder Image

    100 Stories: Sharing experience and shaping evidence to strengthen Scotland’s co-production movement

     

    24 January 2017

    10:00am – 1:00pm (followed by lunch)

    The Whisky Bond, Glasgow

    Please find the agenda here.

    Building on the enthusiasm generated at our first 100 Stories event in November, which was part of co-production week, we will be holding our first event of 2017. Please join us to:

     

    • Experience stories of putting people at the heart of what we do
    • Share strategies of movement building
    • Shape the evidence base for co-production
    • Widen the ownership of the 100 Stories co-production movement in Scotland

     

    To register for this free event, please click here. Registration will be on a first come, first served basis so please register early. Confirmation will be sent shortly after registration, and further details will be sent to all attendees at least a week before the event.

    Background

    All across Scotland, people are experimenting with putting trust and shared decision making at the heart of public service. We are learning how sharing power can create better outcomes for people and places. Sometimes, professionals use terms like ‘asset-based approaches’, ‘social innovation’, and ‘co-production’ to describe this shift to working with people, rather than doing stuff to or for us.

    A report of our first event – in November 2016 – is available here. This was held as part of ‘Co-production Week’ hosted by Scottish Co-production Network.

    In short, ‘100 Stories’ aims to enable people from across Scotland’s diverse co-production movement to share stories about (evidence) the impact we are making…

    At the moment (early 2017) we are asking two questions of ourselves:

    1. ‘How can we generate 100 powerful, well evidenced and diverse stories about making co-production a reality in Scotland today’? and
    2. ‘How can we share these in ways that enable the public, media and politicians to better support, enable and champion our movement to grow?’

     

    This event is being held as part of the Fire Starter Festival.

    Between 23 and 30 January 2017, Workforce Scotland will be hosting and supporting the Fire Starter Festival, a week-long festival of collaborative learning events, illuminating creative and innovative ways in which we can all transform ourselves, our organisations and the wider system of public services in Scotland.

    For more information on the Fire Starter festival click here: Fire Starter Festival

     

    If you have any questions about this event please do not hesitate to contact me (r.darbyshire@nhs.net).

     

    Thank you.

     

    Best wishes,

    Ruth Darbyshire

    On behalf of Sarah Currie and Nick Wilding

    ihub Directorate, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Ingage Division, Scottish Government

    co-pro 5.jpg

     

     

     

  • Beginnings of … a ‘100 Stories’ Movement

    All across Scotland, people are experimenting with putting trust and shared decision making at the heart of public service. We are learning how sharing power can create better outcomes for people and places.

    Sometimes, professionals use terms like ‘asset-based approaches’, ‘social innovation’, and ‘co-production’ to describe this shift to working with people, rather than doing stuff to or for us.

    This site has been set up as a home to an initiative called ‘100 Stories’, which grew out of an event in November 2016 – part of ‘Coproduction Week’ hosted by Scottish Coproduction Network. A report from that event is available here: 100-stories-event-report.

    In short, ‘100 Stories’ aims to enable people from across Scotland’s diverse coproduction movement to share stories about (evidence) the impact we are making…

  • Getting involved in the ‘U Lab’ – massive online global course on transforming self, society and business
  • Beginnings of a book group: first session on Frederic Laloux’ Reinventing Organisations