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Systemic Design and Promising New Forms of Public Engagement

Skillful Engagement Series

2018, Skillful Engagement, Community Building

In this interactive workshop, Ben Weinlick of the Skills Society Action Lab, along with colleagues Aleeya Velji and Sameer Singh of the Edmonton Shift Lab, will share learning and experience around stewarding social innovation labs, and robust community co-design processes. Systemic Design is the engine underlying much of their lab work and essentially blends systems thinking and design thinking to help with tackling complex challenges with community.

Join us for a workshop that blends story and theory, and learn a systemic design tool you can use and take away into your own practice of stewarding community engagement explorations.

Tue, 26 Jun 2018

2:00 p.m. (PT)

Room 420
SFU Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue

580 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC

We respectfully acknowledge that this event takes place on the Unceded, Traditional, Ancestral Territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm First Nations.

Skillful Engagement Series

Skillful Engagement is a community of practice for engagement practitioners. The series showcases innovative projects and speakers, provides a forum to share knowledge and challenges, and acts as a catalyst to inspire and support the growing engagement sector. This work reflects a shared understanding that improved engagement of communities, organizations and stakeholders leads to better decisions and stronger, more resilient outcomes.

Skillful Engagement is a partnership between the SFU Centre for Dialogue’s Civic Engage Program, SFU Public Square, and SFU’s Dialogue and Civic Engagement Certificate program.

Presenters

Ben Weinlick

Ben is driven by the desire to help people and community get better at navigating complex challenges together. He is the founder of Think Jar Collective, co-founder of MyCompass Planning and a senior leader at Skills Society – one of the largest disability rights and service organizations in Edmonton. Through his role at Skills Society he stewards the Action Lab which focuses on systems change and social innovation R&D. For his work striving to lead systems change over the last 15 years he has received some awards including the MacEwan University distinguished alumni award, and the Government of Alberta Community Disability Service Sector Leadership Award.  

Aleeya Velji 

Aleeya thinks in systems and developed her understanding of complex environmental, social, and economic challenges through her work as an educator, an ABSI Connect Fellow, and as an intrapreneur at the City of Edmonton. Aleeya currently works in Studio 44 at the Ministry of Education, exploring how to infuse design thinking, systems thinking and foresight into the daily work habits of people and in organizations.

Sameer Singh

Sameer Singh is passionate about building community, trying new things and exploring the unusual. He worked as journalist & radio/tv reporter in Edmonton and the Yukon and made 2 internationally-broadcast documentary films on indigenous experiences of climate change and the journey of a male bellydancer, respectively.  Sameer completed an MBA at the University of Toronto and co-founded the Rotman Design Challenge, North America’s first graduate school business design competition. He is a graduate of two Banff Centre service design programs and has worked in business incubators, community mobilization initiatives and most recently served as the International Coordinator for the 2nd World Indigenous Nations Games.

Partners

Skillful Engagement Series Events

  • Systemic Design and Promising New Forms of Public Engagement

    2018, Skillful Engagement, Community Building

    In this interactive workshop, Ben Weinlick of the Skills Society Action Lab, along with colleagues Aleeya Velji and Sameer Singh of the Edmonton Shift Lab, will share learning and experience around stewarding social innovation labs, and robust community co-design processes. Systemic Design is the engine underlying much of their lab work and essentially blends systems thinking and design thinking to help with tackling complex challenges with community.

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  • Don't Engage the Public... Before You've Answered These Six Questions

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    This interactive workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to explore key characteristics of highly effective public engagement. Using case studies, scenario exercises, and industry best practices, the session will provide an opportunity to road-test six strategic questions that can help increase the effectiveness of engagement initiatives and meet the expectations of sponsors and participants.

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  • Cultivating Trust: An X Factor for Effectiveness

    Community Building, Skillful Engagement, 2017

    In this experiential workshop, we’ll explore cultivating trust at three different levels: Self, Group, and System. Along the way, we will tap into the frameworks and wisdom of Trust Theory and Process Oriented Psychology. We’ll also practice Groundwork, Intuitive Writing, and Flirts – three versatile inner work practices for gaining insights and responding well regardless of what life brings us.

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  • Evaluating Engagement: Exploring Principles-Focused Evaluation

    2016, Community Building, Skillful Engagement

    Join us for the 4th installment in the Skillful Engagement Series to learn with world-renowned author, evaluation consultant and thought leader Michael Quinn Patton. Michael will share insights from his most recent work and thinking on Principles-Focused Evaluation, which examines whether principles are clear, meaningful, and actionable, whether they are actually being followed, and whether they are leading to desired results.

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  • Design Thinking for Facilitators

    2016, Community Building, Skillful Engagement

    During the third installment of the Skillful Engagement series – Design Thinking for Facilitators – you’ll learn about design thinking, a human-centred, systems-based approach to problem solving that encourages you to step back and explore a problem space with an open mind and an expanding set of methods.

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  • Engaging Across Differences with Natasha Aruliah and Suzanne Hawkes

    2016, Community Building, Skillful Engagement

    In this 3-hour workshop you'll learn about the key, practical questions to ask at the outset of any skillful engagement initiative to ensure a more inclusive process and outcomes. Facilitators Natasha Aruliahand and Suzanne Hawkes will share several brief case studies and best practices and draw on the wisdom and specific challenges of participants in a rich, highly interactive dialogue.

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