Having reached year 6 of an espoused 10-year journey, the Systems Changes Learning Circle is (again) convening monthly Dialogues on Social Innovation at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto.
Starting up in 2019, the Circle was convening regularly in the Climate Ventures space at 192 Spadina Avenue. The pandemic interrupted in-person meetings, and the core group continued philoosophical and theoretical development.
A return to normalcy encourages the Circle to serve as mentors on thinking through systems echanges.
As an introduction, an online Lunch and Learn was scheduled. Dialogues can be free-flowing, with a light guidance along three questions:
- 1. Which differences make a difference in your social innovation? Which rhythms are normal, and which are shifts?
- 2. What influences advance or block the rhythmic shifts of your social innovation?
- 3. Where can the pacing of systems changes, as faster or slower, favour your social innovation?
To better describe these questions, very short (5-minute) presentations were provided as orientation.
| A. Welcome | :05 | |
| B. Rhythms: Normal or Shift? | Presentation One | :05 |
| Dialogue One | :10 | |
| C. Influences: Advancing or Bocking? | Presentation Two | :05 |
| Dialogue Two | :10 | |
| D.Pacing that favours: Faster or Slower? | Presentation Three | :05 |
| Dialogue Three | :10 | |
| E. Next Meeting (poll) Better Questions? |
:10 |
With only an hour scheduled for the Lunch and Learn session, participants only got a brief taste of the way a dialogue would run.
Brief animations served as metaphors on which dialogues could be built. Oriented towards an audience of practitioners, the presentation defers more rigourous theoretical explanations into later mentoring.
This recording of the presentation segments (all within 15 minutes) is available on Youtube , as well as on the Internet Archive .
| Video | H.264 MP4 |
| March 18 (15m54s) |
[20240318_CSI_SystemsChangesDialogues.m4v] (HD 2255kbps 277MB) [on the Internet Archive] |
A standalone audio track was extracted from the video recording.
| Audio | |
| March 18 (15m54s) |
[20240318_CSI_SystemsChangesDialogue.m4a] (20.7MB) [on the Internet Archive] |
The embedded movies make a slide preview on the web more of a challenge. The ODF, PDF and surrogate Google Slides versions are posted over on the Coevolving Commons.
The circle is looking forward to welcoming more practitioners thinking through the systems changes associated with their social innovations.
Here is the original abstract sent in advance.
Abstract
Is your social innovation work responding to systems changes… or is it leading to systems changes? Join us for a discussion on how the timing of changes can work for, rather than against, our social impact work. In our next Lunch and Learn, CSI Members David Ing and Kelly Okamura will introduce us to new ways of thinking about organizational systems, paying particular attention to the rhythms, texture, and pacing that make a difference
David and Kelly will also address:
- 1. Which differences make a difference in your social innovation? Which rhythms are normal, and which are shifts?
- 2. What influences advance or block the rhythmic shifts of your social innovation?
- 3. Where can the pacing of systems changes, as faster or slower, favour your social innovation?
About Systems Changes Learning Circle:
The Systems Changes Dialogues on Social Innovation are mentored by members of the Systems Changes Learning Circle. The Circle was founded at CSI and OCADU in 2019, on a 10-year journey towards rethinking systems. The mentors are David Ing, Dan Eng, Kelly Okamura and Jenya Nee. There will be a monthly peer-to-peer mutual learning group at CSI, with the first meeting convening in-person at 192 Spadina on Wednesday, March 20 at 4:00pm. A poll on online vs. in-person meetings will determine future scheduling.
