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Editor’s note: Vietnamese and Bhutanese participants of the Lab met in March for a sensing journey into hot spots of innovation in Vietnam. The group arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, and began by reflecting on their time together in Berlin. As with the sensing journeys in New York City and South Africa, participants began their time together by reflecting […]
Editor’s Note: In this post, Global Wellbeing Lab participants who took a sensing journey in South Africa reflect on what they saw and experienced. Lab 2.0 co-facilitator Marian Goodman gives us an introduction to the South Africa sensing journey: The group from South Africa identified a number of places and people of interest, in our quest to uncover evidence of […]
Last week, five participants from the Lab met in the Bronx in New York City to do a regional sensing journey. Why the Bronx? When we met in Berlin, part of the Lab structure was to choose a location for a regional sensing journey. Our North America cohort was interested in an experiential understanding of the key issues shaping the […]
Lab 2.0 participant Gregor Henderson was recently featured in an article in The Australian. “Has the drug of economic growth put us on a rat wheel of false expectations and conjured a materialistic beast that must be fed, at the expense of a community and social life at the heart of our fundamental wellbeing? For Gregor Henderson, a prominent Britain-based international mental health commentator and part of the Global Wellbeing Lab, the evidence of this is sufficient to take pause.” Read the full article here.
Michelle Long, Executive Director of BALLE and participant in Lab 1.0, has helped launch a Wellbeing in Business Lab in Oakland, California. A microcosm of what we’re doing here, applied at a local level, the Wellbeing in Business Lab brings together “50 of Oakland’s most inspiring business founders, leaders, investors…who are moving beyond maximizing “me” and toward business that maximizes well-being for all…[and] who recognize that the evolution we need will come from putting individual transformation at the center of the shift.” Read more about the Wellbeing in Business Lab here. Below, watch Michelle talk about her work as pioneer for a local living economy and for compassionate entrepreneurship in an interview she did for the edX course U.Lab: Transforming Business, Society, and Self.
In the coming days, we will post stories from the Global Wellbeing Lab’s regional sensing journeys. In advance of these posts, I would like to explain what we mean by a “sensing journey”. In the Lab, we are interested in understanding and addressing the deeper root causes of the intertwined environmental, social, and spiritual-cultural challenges that all societies face today. To do that, we need a method and framework for making sense of our current situation, connecting to our deeper sources of inspiration and creativity, and taking mindful collective action that generates positive outcomes for the planet, each other, and ourselves. It is a tall order. And yet, a promising approach does exist. The Lab is designed on the principles of Theory U – an innovation process that individuals and groups can use to suspend habitual ways of paying attention, access deeper sources of knowing, and explore the future they want to create through rapid-cycle prototyping. Developed by Lab co-facilitator Otto Scharmer along with colleagues at MIT, Theory U has been field-tested in multi-stakeholder innovation processes around the world over the past two decades. Below is a 5-minute video introducing Theory U (part of a free edX.org and MITx course on Theory U titled U.Lab: Transforming Business, Society, and Self). One way the U process differs from other innovation processes is in its emphasis on co-sensing. Co-sensing helps us connect with and tune in to the contexts that matter; moving into a […]
You might be wondering what the Global Wellbeing Lab actually is. If so, this post is for you. Overview The Global Wellbeing Lab brings together diverse leaders from across systems, sectors, and regions to develop and strengthen initiatives that improve wellbeing at personal, relational, and systems levels. The Lab is a learning and action platform hosted by the Boston-based Presencing Institute, Germany’s […]
Lab 2.0 participant Lorenzo Fioramonti (and co-authors) recently published an editorial in Foreign Policy Magazine on the types of changes we need to make democracy fit for the expectations and challenges of the 21st century. In the piece, they argue for assessing the quality of a democracy not by its economic output but by the broader metric of increased wellbeing. Read the editorial here.
We asked a number of Global Wellbeing Lab 2.0 participants to tell us briefly who they are, why they joined the Lab, and what the kickoff workshop in Berlin was like for them. Here is what some of them had to say: Alfred Tolle, Google (Ireland) Alfred Tolle from Presencing Institute on Vimeo. “There was a deep sense of connectedness between us and the universe which created the confidence that we are part and initiator of transformation.” Hang Mai, Xanh (Vietnam) Hang Mai from Presencing Institute on Vimeo. “I’d like to quote what Mr. Masanobu Fukuoka said in his book ‘The one-straw-revolution’: Because the world is moving with such furious energy in the opposite direction, it may appear that I have fallen behind the times, but I firmly believe that the path I have been following is the most sensible one” I’m happy for joining the Global Wellbeing Lab where I meet great people and know that I’m not alone on this path. The Karma Kitchen (LINK) of [Lab 2.0 participant] Nipun [Mehta] is very inspiring to me. I’m going to apply the spirit of pay-it-forward in publishing a book in March 2015. The e-book will be free with a call-to-action that everyone who could read the free e-book is recommended to buy a hard-copy and offer it to someone who is actually farming but can’t access to the internet. Alexander Frederiksen, Cykelven and Donkey Republic (Denmark) “Taking part in the Wellbeing […]
Global Wellbeing Lab 2.0 participant Pedro Diniz shares a gorgeous video about his organization’s pioneering research and work in Agroforestry in Brazil. Agenda Gotsch apresenta Agrofloresta em Grande Escala – Fazenda da Toca from Agenda Gotsch on Vimeo.
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