I love you

Institutional Transformation!• “Living Lab” is an intensive program for a group of students

• To use their own body as a site of experiment for understanding the psychological factors influencing their habits of consumption and – To collaboratively generate a database for how the activities of their community

(for example, their school/workplace interact with wider human and ecological systems;

• Ultimately using creative social media tools and academic or scientific reports to – Mobilize other youth and the wider communities to become more

environmentally aware – Advocate for inclusion of the successes coming out of this experiential learning

to be incorporated in their official curriculums.

An Example of a 6-month curriculum

Food

Energy

Water

Media

Economy

Relationships

1st Month

2nd Month

3rd Month

4th Month

5th Month

6th Month

Dec 2010

1- For each month, the students will choose an aspect of their life related to consumption (i.e. food, energy, water, media, economy, relationship, sex, buildings)

2- For each week, the students will meet for 3 hours to decide how they wish to perform the two parallel tasks:

I.e. In relation to food, where does one eat, what type of food.

Instead of eating in restaurants, eat home-cooked food. Or eat organic food instead.

What is the future vision underlying the eating of non-organic/toxic food? What other alternative ways to reach this vision?

How to improve this experiment, so others in the future can also repeat the experiment?

I.e. in relation to media, i.e. who built the computer, the labor conditions, who provided the electricity to power the computer, the local and global carbon footprint; how is the computer made, the cycle of these materials

Calculation of entire supply chain, environmental impact, institutional and economic structure, historic and emergent model of my consumption patterns and behaviors. Situating the implications locally in my own life and the life of the community (I.E.HKU))

Edit and upload the videos documenting the dialogue process; upload all the team-generated database of materials onto open-source websites, produce a profile on media/communication.(More see “output”)

3- Based on the lessons from the experiments, they will start to design some small projects in the community.

Other Notes: • Throughout the process of the research, the researchers will have

already presented their results through social interactive media tools, for their experiments and the data's to be able to be replicated and accessed easily.

• Based on the responses, they will also start to build a network platform supporting people from around the globe to pilot the program in their own local setting. The whole process will accumulate into a final report and proposal for reform to UN Secretary and relevant international educational or environmental organizations (i.e. HKU curriculum reform committee).

Theoretical Basis

• Much of the current institutions are based on a growth model (assuming infinite growth in a finite environment) which is unsustainable in itself, much of the humanitarian and environmental efforts have unconsciously self-identified with this model, and thus, producing outcomes which may in the long term amplify the conditions of the initial problem despite the success of the project. The tension felt by the young change makers of the inconsistency of the process may sometimes lead them to give up their dream completely.

• One of the implications of the growth model is that human beings are treating themselves and the environment as an object, which can be controlled, managed, regulated, manipulated, and the denial of this process.

• One example is the problem-solving approach adopted by today’s environmental activists: The instance of trying to solve problems as if they are separated from the problem itself, is also an instance of denial that they may be part of the conditions for the experience of the problem.

• Thus, climate change, environmental and social degradation can be seem as symptoms of this process, treating nature, other human beings and our bodies as separated from ourselves.

Climate

Change

Problem-Solving (Institutions)

Assuming I am separated from the (creation of) the problem/the world

Thought as a System Denies Itself (that it represents reality)

Event / Symptom

Pattern

Systemic Structure

Mental Model

• At a deeper level, this underlying assumption of separation and denial, both with the problem-solving mind-set and the currently globalised institutions based on consumption can be seen as a reflection of an incoherence in the logic/ structure of thought:

how thought as a system denials itself: – It represents the reality to us, and it denies that it merely

represents.

Structure of Thoughts

The Iceberg Model of 4 Levels of Thinking

The Imperative

• The necessary implication of accepting human factors in causing climate change is that the collective human being is acting on the planet at a scale equivalent to or greater than the geological force of the planet; and which may irrevocably alter the quality of the system beyond the point of systematic resilience (“tipping point”).

Design Process for Emergence

Note: No Specific Project Action Plan is included because the design process has to be collective . Below (on the right) is an example of what the meetings (throughout the program) will look like:

Historical Tribal World Emergent World

Agree/ DisagreePolite Conversations

Why agree/disagree? (Inquiry & Dialogue)

1- Lecture Room Setting2- Agenda & Specific Output3- Search for a Right/Realistic /Practical Points of Views3- Argue & Prove & Disprove

1- Sit in Circle2- No Agenda & Acknowledging the complexity of the issue3- Observe One’s and Own groups' thinking process4- Listen to How Oneself Listens5- Facilitator (from Bohm Dialogue)

Presumes we are separate. Presumes we are only parts of the whole.

• Thus, the discipline of systems thinking (the capacity to look at the whole rather than the parts) and be aware of our interconnections with other systems and for the human beings to become self-aware of themselves a system or collective becomes a capacity which may give evolutional advantages.

Core Discipline ofTransitional Leadership

• Most of the experiments will be designed around the idea of attention.

• The Historical world (causing current experience of problems) is that individuals have separate thoughts, which they can be responsible for, and thus, be responsible for their action.

• The emergent world is where one sees how what one pays attention to affect the state of being (body) and from which thoughts generate.

Historical Tribal World Emergent World

Presumes we are separate.

Thoughts

ActionsProblem

State of Being

Presumes we are only parts of the whole.

Attention

Aspiration

Historical Tribal World Emergent World

Problem

State of BeingAttention

Aspiration

Contraction of the Body

ReducedPerception of Forms

Increased

Manipulate or control people like objects

Feels Being Part of Something Bigger

Conditions of Problem Dissolve as The body self-balances

Historical Tribal World Emergent World

Presumes we are separate.

Problem

State of Being

Presumes we are only parts of the whole.

Attention

Aspiration

Generating Creative Tension

Core-Discipline ofTransitional Leadership