Wise Democracy Victoria

Outside of the traditional organization, participatory, user-centric approaches are gaining prominence in solving problems. Among these approaches is the innovation Lab, or change Lab, a creative environment that employs proven and repeatable protocols to seek disruptive, potentially systems-tipping solutions. 

The Canadian organisation MaRs has looked upon why and how the “change Labs” are gaining prominence in solving wicked problems. MindLab is used as case in the report available here: http://www.mind-lab.dk/assets/718/Torjman_MaRSReport-Labs-designing-the-future_2012.pdf

MindLab http://www.mind-lab.dk/en
MindLab is a cross-ministerial innovation unit which involves citizens and businesses in creating new solutions for society. We are also a physical space – a neutral zone for inspiring creativity, innovation and collaboration.

At heart, innovation labs are designed to foster collaboration. By this we mean they tend to be established as platforms where multiple stakeholders can engage in interaction, dialogue, and development activities. More "collaborative‟ or "joined-up‟ government has long been a mantra within public management thinking (Mulgan, 2009; Bason, 2010; Torfing and Sørensen, 2011). Indeed, few politicians run for election on a platform of not wanting to create more coherent and holistic services for citizens. However, how to enable more collaborative approaches to policy and service design within a politically governed, bureaucratic environment has often seemed elusive. Even novel e-government solutions have often been trapped in the silo mentality of public organisations, thus not harvesting their full potential. With innovation labs, the hope is that the establishment of dedicated, cross-cutting organisational structures can strike a blow at vested interests, power plays, and organisational infighting. Labs do so by being permanent structures with a mission to temporarily unfreeze organisational embedded practices.

In this paper (see link below), the history of MindLab – one of the world‟s first public sector innovation labs – is told as an example of how one might strengthen innovation in the public sector through interaction and mutual learning, and how the need for innovation support changes as experience and learning increases and relations are strengthened between the stakeholders. This is not a happy-end fairytale, although several of the ingredients are present: The urge to act and change the public sector, the hero who knows of innovation, the many opponents and barriers and few friendly helpers. Instead it might be a never-ending story… and it begins in the dawn of the new millennium.

The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal,
Volume 17(1), 2012, article 4.  http://t.co/vIUHwSWn 
Powering Collaborative Policy Innovation: Can Innovation Labs Help?
Helle Vibeke Carstensen & Christian Bason Helle Vibeke Carstensen Director of Innovation Ministry of Taxation
Nicolai Eigtveds Gade 28, DK-1402 Copenhagen Denmark
Christian Bason Director of Innovation MindLab Slotsholmsgade 12, DK-1216 Copenhagen Denmark

People are rising up against plutocracy and corporate capitalism in growing movements around the world, such as "Yes We Camp" and "Occupy Wall Street."  One of the defining characteristics is to establish grassroots participatory democracy as a fundamental organizing principle.

“Yes We Camp,” one of the witty twitter hashtags of Spain’s 15 May movement, sums things up well. Inspired by the Arab Spring, galvanized by crisis, unemployment and austerity, fed up with the ineffective, corrupt, and often misanthropic political process, we are leaving our homes and moving to the street. In a blend of last-chance desperation and optimistic empowerment, we are building autonomous, totally democratic camps in city centers across the world. In these camps total inclusive democracy is praxis, everything is shared, and we build revolutionary consciousness everyday.
The camp is fundamentally organized around the principle of the General Assembly. If you’ve been in any kind of leftist meeting you have an idea of how it works: someone volunteers to be meeting facilitator, and people raise their hands to get on the ‘stack’. The facilitator calls on people in the order they volunteered, and only one person speaks at a time. They seek consensus rather than majority rule: all of the meetings I witnessed ended with dissenters agreeing to proposals and accepting the decision of the group. In a majority vote, voters are presented with a yes/no question and 51 percent carries the day, but in General Assembly proposals are built during conversation and debate, and as such actually reflect the desires of the group as a whole.
From the general assembly Los Indignados formed commissions, which focus on specific issues and questions within the camp, such as communication, international press, infrastructure, and food. These commissions set up their own booths and tents, where they work and remain available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to speak with the public walking through the square. Commissions all have their own assemblies, following the same methods. As such, all actions, choices, and movements are formed from the bottom up, not the top down.