Papers

Integration of Art of Hosting methodologies and principles into social innovation lab practice

A case study from a social and public innovation lab in New Brunswick, Canada

Lewis Muirhead and Rosamund Mosse

NouLAB, Alternate Future Design | Evoke by Design

In September 2017 the first multi-year standing lab undertaken by NouLAB was launched on the topic of Economic Immigration. Along with the more traditional Social Innovation Lab methodologies such as design thinking, systemic design and Social Labs structures as defined by Hassan (2014), Jones (2014), and Westley et al. (2015), NouLAB employed the participatory practices of the Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter (AoH) to design and facilitate lab sessions.

The Economic Immigration Lab has run for 18 months, and two full cycles. NouLAB has identified the linkages between the AoH approach and the systemic principles of design. Of specific interest is how multi-stakeholder participants’ learning and capacity is effectively enabled by the philosophy holding space, encouraging an atmosphere of psychological safety, experimentation, and learning,
addressing root causes of problems not merely symptoms.

Keywords: Social Innovation Labs, Art of Hosting, Participatory Practices, Public Sector Innovation, Systemic Design

Posted October 2018

©­ Author, published by the Systemic Design Association

Open Access article published under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License. This permits anyone to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or form according to the licence terms.

Suggested Citation Format (APA)

Author(s) (20##). Article title. Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD#) Symposium. rsdsymposium.org/LINK.

by-nc-nd.eu