Prospectus for Proof by Okanagan Institute

PROOF.

We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us. – MARSHALL MCLUHAN

Kelowna needs a place where smart and interesting people can gather to make all kinds of good – if not great – things happen.

PROOF. IS THAT PLACE.

Copyright ÂŠ 2013 The Okanagan Institute. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Proof Preview ISBN 978-0-9881477-7-5

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the National Library of Canada Produced and published by The Okanagan Institute 1473 Ethel Street, Kelowna BC V1Y 2X9 Canada www.okanaganinstitute.com in association with The CoCo Laboratory and The Rucker Archive

The Okanagan Institute is a group of creative professionals that have gathered around the goal of providing events, publications and services of interest to enquiring minds in the Okanagan. It partners with individuals, organizations, institutions and businesses to achieve optimal creative and social impact. Its mission is to ignite cultural transformation, catalyze collaborative action, build networks and foster sustainable creative enterprises. It provides innovative consultation, facilitation, professional development and creative services. www.okanaganinstitute.com The CoCo Laboratory is an innovation driven design, research and development incubator. It develops enterprises and projects that span built and natural ecosystems. The Laboratory exists to provide high value consulting, collaboration and commercialization services to individuals, companies and communities that are exploring and investing in regenerative technology. www.cocolab.ca The Rucker Archive is a world-leading image enterprise providing collection, exhibition and curatorial services. Mark Rucker has, for over 30 years, scouted for the most unique and surprising pictures and graphics from the 1830s to the 1960s. Images from The Rucker Archive have appeared in advertising, TV, film, print and digital media. High-quality reproductions of the Archiveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hundreds of thousands of images are available for license or purchase in both digital and hardcopy formats. www.theruckerarchive.com

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s some of the things we can imagine are possible in such a place: design a toy, conduct an experiment, meet interesting people, print a lithograph, enjoy a freshly baked pastry and a cup of coffee, invent a new product, compose a symphony, propose a solution to a problem, build a ladder, attend a workshop, present a seminar on the fate of a species, show a collection of bones, show a collection of photographs of bones, participate in a ritual, make a jar of pickles, weave a wall hanging, learn to write poetry, edit an online journal, construct and finish a piece of furniture, have a quiet lunch, conduct a roundtable, use a 3d printer, sculpt a face, download a manifesto, write a manifesto, play a game of chance, demonstrate a magic trick, start a company, throw a pot, dry and package wildcrafted herbs, solve a logic puzzle, observe a chemical reaction, shape an argument, conduct a review, curate an exhibition of lithographs of food, create an album of photographs, make a maquette, sing, share a harvest feast, ferment a liquid libation, foment a revolution.

Social Innovation is Design Design is the ability to create, connect, integrate, see systems; to simplify, identify, and convey meaning; to tell stories; to visualize the unimaginable; to build and introduce order through beauty and elegance. Design allows an outsider to be stupid in all the right ways – by listening and observing. And that’s just the invisible part, before designers create artifacts that speak to mass audiences and create movements.

“Our world will increasingly be shaped by the degree to which designers are able to create smart, effective, and elegant solutions that improve what that world looks like, how well it functions, and what it’s like to live in it. The future surely will transform design – but it’s just as certain that design will transform the future, by visualizing, optimizing, giving shape to, and ultimately creating a world that, for now, we can only imagine.” – Tom Wujek

Design can make a game-changing contribution to social innovation, but to do that, designers need a way to immerse themselves in the contexts where social innovation happens, acquire the skills they need to play a leading role, and a means to facilitate the process and foster collaboration. The big opportunity is to apply the creativity, skills, vision, and methods of design to the entire process of social innovation – to work from inside the system, helping people see the same things, connect the silos, and make sense of problems by making them imaginable and accessible. Design helps define a path forward. It untangles the complicated processes and players, helping us map what’s working and where. Design for social innovation includes the design of everything: from conversations, communication campaigns, experiences, structures, technology platforms, systems, products, business models, strategies, art, and culture. It incorporates all traditional and new design disciplines and mediums – identity, communications, print, interactive, film, product, and movement design. It has the potential to be the single integrating force we need to take on the challenges we face – systemically and sustainably. If social innovation is our relationship with purpose, design is the means and the method to make that purpose manifest. That’s what we plan for our programs to do, from inside and alongside businesses, organizations, communities, governments, entrepreneurial enterprises, and nonprofits. Social innovation needs practitioners who are creative, visual, passionate, broadly curious, generalists, integrators, listeners, systems thinkers and doers, and people who know how to create lives filled with both success and purpose. It needs designers.

Proof may refer to: Proof (truth), argument or sufficient evidence for the truth of a proposition. Formal Proof. Mathematical Proof, a convincing demonstration that some mathematical statement is necessarily true. Proof theory, a branch of mathematical logic that represents Proofs as formal mathematical objects. Alcohol Proof, a measure of an alcoholic drink’s strength. Artist’s Proof, a single print taken during the printmaking process. Galley Proof, a preliminary version of a publication. Prepress Proof, a facsimile of press artwork for job verification. Proof coinage, coins once made as a test, but now specially struck for collectors. Proofreading, reviewing a manuscript or artwork for errors or improvements. Proofing (baking technique), the process by which a yeast-leavened dough rises, also called “proving”. Theory of justification, in epistemology, a reason for or explanation of a proposition or belief. Philosophic burden of Proof. Proof complexity. Proof procedure. Provability logic. A recursively enumerable set, also known as a “provable set”. Homeopathic proving, a homeopathic procedure. Proof of concept. Proof test, for a firearm. In Legal terms: Evidence, information which tends to determine or demonstrate the truth of a proposition. Evidence (law), tested evidence or a legal Proof. Legal burden of Proof. Etymology: from Middle English Proof, from Old French prove, from Late Latin proba (“a Proof”), from Latin probare (“to prove”); see prove. Proof: An effort, process, or operation designed to establish or discover a fact or truth; an act of testing; a test; a trial. The degree of evidence which convinces the mind of any truth or fact, and produces belief; a test by facts or arguments which induce, or tend to induce, certainty of the judgment; conclusive evidence; demonstration. The quality or state of having been proved or tried; firmness or hardness which resists impression, or doesn’t yield to force; impenetrability of physical bodies. A Proof sheet; a trial impression, as from type, taken for correction or examination. A sequence of statements consisting of axioms, assumptions, statements already demonstrated in another Proof, and statements that logically follow from previous statements in the sequence, and which concludes with a statement that is the object of the Proof. A process for testing the accuracy of an operation performed. A measure of the alcohol content of liquor. Originally, in Britain, 100 Proof was defined as 57.1% by volume (not used anymore). In the US, 100 Proof means that the alcohol content is 50% of the total volume of the liquid, and therefore absolute alcohol would be 200 Proof. Proof will also soon be a place in Kelowna where interesting things happen. www.proofclub.ca

Design has the potential to be the single most powerful, relevant and restorative process for change known to humankind. Design can be the methodology that integrates and scales the millions of initiatives

already underway, that aligns diverse communities around a shared vision when they need to work together but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how, making invisible dynamics visible, enabling enlightened businesses to grow and thrive. And not least, design has the capacity

to invite, motivate, engage, entertain and delight people, moving them to action, inspiring them to believe that something better is possible. It is a vision in which designers are the leaders we need now. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Cheryl Heller

We can imagine what the inside and outside of such a place would look like, and we can imagine a location that would be a good place to start. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we are issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process. Our first manifestation will be in the form of a membership club.

On the following pages we present some of the outcomes of our preliminary conversations. These conversations are continuing, and we welcome you into our circle. If you want to become a member or be kept informed on our progress, please contact us by visiting

www.proofclub.ca

Table of Conversations ■ Starting a New Conversation ■ The Idea of Imagination ■ Mobilizing the Millennials ■ Untangling the Food Puzzle ■ Regenerating a Growing Edge ■ The Social Basis of Change ■ A Platform for Enabling Ideas ■ Changing the Design Horizon ■ Making Agritecture Possible ■ All Roads Lead to the Future ■ Laboratories of Social Design ■ The Market and the Kitchen ■ Making the Maker Leap ■ The Collaborative Opportunity ■ Incubating Creativity ■ A Vision of Strategic Design ■ On Developing Prosperity ■ The Generative Imperative ■ Design Beyond Expectations ■ Waste Not, Want Not ■ The Argument for Craftwork ■ Commons Sense Creativity ■ Generational Collaboration ■ Imagining a Marketplace ■ Social Change Laboratories ■ Creativity, Central and Critical ■ Open Source Modelling ■ The Innovation Community ■ Transformation by Design ■ Reawakening to Retail ■ Making a Creative Noise ■ Hot in the Community Kitchen ■ This Club Will Have You ■ The Creative Dividend ■ The Circle is Never Complete

THERE ARE NEW RULES

WRITE MORE WRONGS The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Starting a New Conversation What makes a community a desirable place to live? What draws people and what are the things that make them want to stay, put down roots and build a life? Are communities better off when their residents feel more attached to the community, are more engaged with it? Many of us are frustrated by the slowness of social change. It feels as though we are moving into a time of almost perpetual crisis, in which the only way to insulate ourselves from feelings of fragility and threat is to tune out, to retreat further into the social isolation which is the leading symptom of the malaise. A part of every community finds ways to go from wishing we could organize and get more done together to finding effective ways to make it happen. For people raised in a culture where walking away is always an option, this takes real conscious effort and the kind of humility that doesn’t always come easily to people who were promised everything. There is little science to this, but a great deal of art. It’s uncharted territory, but more and more people are starting to question the status quo and talk about how we can together engage with the great work of our time.

We need to regenerate a world in which we all receive gifts and we all have duties. This is a very important way of being human. Tragically, the expansion of centralized political and economic structures tends to eclipse our need for gifts and duties. We rely on money or the state for everything. And so we forget what Ivan Illich called the “vernacular domain” – the spaces in our everyday life in which we create and shape and negotiate our sense of how things should be. The commons represents a “third way” – not locked into the profit-driven mechanics of the market nor solely dependent on government agencies – that enables everyday citizens to make decisions and take actions that shape the future of their communities. The commons is built on a network of social relationships that arise from the implicit expectation that we will take care of each other and on a shared understanding that some things belong to all of us and must be used in a regenerative and equitable way. We simply think of it as “common sense,” the “common good,” the “common wealth”. It’s a way to tap into the hidden chamber within our imagination which harbors vivid images of different ways to live and create.

From incubators and makerspaces to nonprofits and social enterprises, the energy surrounding social innovation is contagious, but as this ecosystem grows, social change entities become disconnected and often work in silos. Conferences like TED attract hundreds of people and connections are made, but the consolidation of brain-power, energy, talent, and resources isn’t permanent enough to create long-term efficiency and large-scale change. Coworking spaces are specifically designed to inspire, connect, and enable individuals to realize entrepreneurial ideas, but how could this model be pushed further? How could the innovative work within these walls be shared with the public? How could untapped social capital within the public be leveraged, and how could collaborative innovators be connected to more resources? Why not elevate the productivity and purpose of such a space so that organic collaboration can be fostered? With Proof, we propose to convene an open environment that represents in a small way the kind of community we are, and the kind of community we imagine we can become.

THERE ARE NEW RULES How to feel miserable as an artist. Constantly compare yourself to other artists. Talk to your family about what you do and expect them to cheer you on. Base the success of your entire career on one project. Stick with what you know. Undervalue your expertise. Let money dictate what you do. Do whatever the client, customer, gallery owner, patron or investor asks. Only do work that your friends would love. Bow to societal pressures. Pretend. Set unachievable or overwhelming goals, to be accomplished by tomorrow. Be half-hearted. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

The Idea of Imagination We need to establish a local Okanagan culture of social entrepreneurship, social enterprise and social innovation. We also need new, effective and efficient solutions to doggedly persistent social problems, and sustainable businesses that create jobs with good wages and benefits, and generate value for the community. The Okanagan has no shortage of talent to pull this off. But there is also a disconnection, largely between talent and resources (innovators and funders), though many other disconnects exist as well. There are too many prospective door-openers acting as gatekeepers, too many burgeoning thought-leaders and gamechangers unrecognized and without resources and support,

too many nay-sayers and status-quoers. An ecosystem that encourages and supports social innovators and social entrepreneurs wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t happen overnight, nor will it happen until we simultaneously value the wisdom and experience of grizzled veterans while welcoming and encouraging new thinking. With both, breakthrough innovation is possible, and probable. We have all of the pieces of the puzzle to rethink our approach to social services and business. Now we need to begin putting them together, which is the difficult part. The first task is to focus on cocreating an environment for those thought-leaders and change makers to create deep

innovation and change. To develop capacity building mechanisms and programs for learning and sharing in small groups. To articulate a charter that enumerates a set of beliefs and a series of best practices to address issues and to explore opportunities and barriers. With Proof, we propose to convene such an open environment that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and start the transformational process of becoming.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

INVENT SOMETHING BETTER WITH LESS The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Mobilizing the Millennials Expanded sidewalks, not expanded art galleries, are what appeal to millennials and what civic leaders should be obsessing over. So says Lisa Rochon, Architecture Critic at the Globe and Mail, referring to the nearly 10 million Canadians born between 1980 and 2000. She proposes that art needs to come out of the neat confines of the institution and bleed into the streets so that it can be experienced like a chance operation. She also speculates that while the baby boomer parents of the millenials are out in overscaled homes in the suburbs, their descendents prefer smaller encounters in informal spaces: back lanes with brick walls covered in graffiti or parking lots behind art galleries and department stores. They value cultural fusion and authenticity in both their lifestyle and their food.

The millennials also would appear to differ from their parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; generation by not feeling empowered strutting through towers of commerce with their monolithic, minimal plazas. In sharp contrast, the millennial seeks out spaces with the patina of an undiscovered treasure. And for them, public space is more important than private space. Social ventures are companies or organizations that seek to create measurable social and environmental impact through a business and revenue model. This combination creates long lasting impact that is achieved in a financially sustainable way. The social venture model puts forward an important role of creating benefit for society while providing meaningful opportunities for workers, making the sector is attractive to millennials.

Around the world, and here in the Okanagan, social ventures are demonstrating the impact and innovation that can be created through business models that leverage the untapped potential of the millenials, and the boomers. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

FREE FOOD FEED THE BODY AND MIND, NURTURE THE SPIRIT

The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Untangling the Food Puzzle Food banks, with all of their collecting and sorting and distributing and thanking, are meeting the needs of everyone except the people they were set up to help: the poor and hungry. This emergency handout approach divides us as citizens, breaking down our society into us and them, givers and takers. The former feel generous and kind, while the latter feel ashamed, their agency, their health, and their dignity diminished. We need to stop cheering on an approach that has already failed, and instead focus on the root of the problem: people are hungry because they are poor. They do not have enough money for food because of inadequate income supports, minimum wages that do not cover the bills, and the lack of affordable housing and child care. The Okanagan is no exception. Young and old have difficulty making ends meet and are forced into the downward cycle of social welfare and disenfranchisement. Our

youth can flee, to seek opportunity elsewhere, but that only hides the problem. Instead of further entrenching tired solutions that let governments – and all of us – off the hook, we need to build organizations that foster the will to tackle poverty and establish social programs, employment strategies, and supports that provide access to affordable housing, healthy meals and meaningful social and economic opportunities. In the end, the costs of inequality and poor health are borne by all of us, straining our health care system, and compromising the safety of our neighbourhoods and the productivity of our citizens. Food can be a powerful tool for change and community transformation, and in the past decade we have seen a surge in school gardens, farmers’ markets, and community supported agriculture. Progressive groups have utilized this new energy and thinking to help establish programs where marginalized people are

offered more than mere handouts. Rather, they are given opportunities to grow, cook, eat, and learn about the healthy food we all need. Such programs build hope, skills, and self-worth among our community members, who may then become powerful advocates for change – to the food system and to the social, economic and political systems. This model has radically altered communities and generated enough interest to galvanize a growing network of progressive food initiatives across the country. It’s time to bring that energy to the Okanagan. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

BuyLess MakeMore LiveBetter The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Regenerating a Growing Edge Regenerative agriculture rejects the industrial approach to food production that developed during the 20th century. This system, with its reliance on monoculture, mechanization, chemical pesticides and fertilizers, biotechnology, and government subsidies, has made food abundant and affordable. However, the ecological and social price has been steep: erosion; depleted and contaminated soil and water resources; loss of biodiversity; deforestation; labor abuses; and the decline of the family farm. The concept of regenerative agriculture embraces a wide range of alternative techniques, including organic, free-range, low-input, holistic, and biodynamic. The common thread among these methods is an embrace of farming practices that mimic natural ecological processes. Regenerative farmers minimize tilling and water use; encourage healthy soil by planting fields with different crops year after year and integrating croplands with livestock

grazing; and avoid pesticide use by nurturing the presence of organisms that control crop-destroying pests. Improving food security involves integrating health, economic, ecological and social factors. Action to increase food security can be seen as a continuum that ranges from providing nutritious food for those in need, to building capacity and access within the community, to redesigning the local food system for regenerativity. Support for local food production, and ways to connect local consumers to local suppliers, helps build a stronger and more regenerative local economy. Food dollars remain in the community to circulate from buyers to sellers and back again. Addressing the local food system through food security is also a way of linking to other issues that communities grapple with, such as the just treatment of farm workers, food pricing that provides the farmer with a livable income,

and alliviating the negative health effects of systemic poverty and homelessness. Opportunities for community members to share and connect around agriculture and food – including farmers’ markets, community gardens and kitchens. and advocacy to improve access to healthy locally-grown foods – creates greater awareness and understanding of regenerative issues. By building stronger partnerships and social networks around food issues, we can also strengthen the resilience of society at a local level. It’s increasingly obvious that we need to bring innovative thinking and progressive practices to the agriculture sector in the Okanagan. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. John Kenneth Galbraith The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

The Social Basis of Change From incubators and makerspaces to nonprofits and social enterprises, the energy surrounding social innovation is contagious. But as this ecosystem grows, the consolidation of brainpower, energy, talent, and resources needs to be just permanent enough to foster long-term efficiency and create a culture of change. Coworking spaces are specifically designed to inspire, connect, and enable individuals to realize entrepreneurial ideas, but we need to imagine how could this model be pushed further, how the innovative work couldbe shared with the public, how the untapped social capital within the public could be leveraged, and how collaborative innovators could be connected to more resources. We’re exploring a solution that takes its inspiration from a social space everyone has a relationship with: the restaurant and bar. People have gathered in these spaces for centuries to eat, drink, interact, ideate, and innovate. They can naturally attract an eclectic mix of collaborators: business leaders, inventors, builders, engineers, teachers,

lawyers, farmers, technologists, designers and other community members. Social change needs to be social. Why not elevate the productivity and purpose of a shared space so that organic collaboration can be fostered? In the space we intend to explore what a joint narrative between a restaurant and bar, coworking space, and makerspace could look like in the Okanagan creative ecosystem. The concept allows entrepreneurs to work in the same space as makers, and more importantly, allows social change work and impact to be made visible to the public, offering greater exposure to social capital, greater transparency with the community, and greater opportunity for partnership and efficiency. The space will inform stakeholders about local initiatives, connect investors to projects that need funding, bring together like-minded organizations, and showcase how innovative ideas can have impressive and enduring local impact.

In using the social assets of facilitation, collaboration, and communication, we can imagine a larger role for the coworking model that transforms the way we approach social change. By incorporating some of the values that can make the Okanagan unique, such as embracing failure, honouring all ideas, actively listening, and consistently asking “what if” we intend to connect innovators across sectors and disciplines. We intend to rewrite a narrative full of social problems into one of creative solutions. We intend to amplify social change efforts through consolidating resources. We intend to accomplish all these and more through an innovative social space. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

BETTER ISTHEONLY CUREFORTHE CRAPTRAP The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

A Platform for Enabling Ideas Participatory, user-centric approaches are gaining prominence in solving “wicked” problems. Among these approaches is the innovation lab, or change lab, a creative environment that employs creative protocols to seek disruptive, potentially systems-tipping solutions. At heart, innovation labs are designed to foster collaboration. They are platforms where multiple stakeholders can engage in interaction, dialogue, and development activities. For example, more collaborative government has long been a mantra within public management thinking. Indeed, most politicians run for election on a platform of wanting to create more coherent and holistic services for citizens, but lack the cognitive or creative resources to achieve anything like that. With innovation labs, the intention is that the establishment of a dedicated, crosscutting organisational structure can undermine the insidious influence of vested interests, power plays, and sectoral infighting. Creative spaces for innovation do so by being structures with a mission to test best practices, in order to

free up resources and opportunities that can realize commercial and cultural value. We know that markets are no longer the only sources of innovation, and that citizens are capable of more than just voting during election time. We have entered an era where interactive technologies and a renewed idea of citizenship are enabling us to experiment with alternative notions of regeneration and to share knowledge in increasingly dynamic ways. We now see artists, policy makers and business innovators collaborating with citizens, and helping communities diagnose and solve their problems. What emerges, then, is a laboratory where the local and global are balanced and mediated, and where local resources and know-how are given wider legitimacy as meaningful problem-solving tools in the quest for cultural sustainability. Here, innovation is intended as a catalyst for social change – a collaborative process through which citizens can be directly involved in shaping the way a product, project, policy, or service is created and delivered. A shift from control to

enablement turns innovation labs into platforms for empowerment – holistic, living spaces where people make their voices heard and draw from their everyday experiences to affect change. Such efforts demonstrate how buildings have the power to make neighbourhoods more vibrant, and how art can be used to convert community spaces. This is what placebased creative problem solving looks like in action. This is the power of the everyday. At its simplest, what is needed is a new way of thinking about communities and change. Guided by principles such as collaboration, innovation and participation, it will attest to the power of community in stimulating the kind of innovative thinking needed to tackle complex issues. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

EAT,DRINK& BEMERRY,FOR TOMORROW WEPARTY. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Changing the Design Horizon Design has moved from a source of conversational befuddlement to a commonplace household and boardroom subject. The re-staked fences of its cultural mindspace has opened up room for some internal redefinition and introduction of new criteria in its practice. From within, green, social, experiential and user-centric disciplines have burst forth fully-formed after years of advocacy.Â At large, the return of a DIY ethos and a cultural appreciation for craftsmanship created a whole population of armchair designers. Many groups and individuals have played a part in nurturing this expansion and many believe that the practice of design has never been in better form. However, in looking deeper into design discipline and the motivations and satisfactions of its practice, there are troubling indicators. With its widespread recognition and acknowledged commercial value design has never been more in danger of losing itself.

Without a strong sense of purpose in its adherents, without introspection and discussion of duty and drive, of beauty and purpose, without these internal forces redrawing designâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s irregular and idiosyncratic outline the profession risks being defined by outside pressure. As an essential element of the human condition design must be practiced in and for itself, and live in a space outside of, as well as in the service of, our societal or economic systems. Designers must actively define and thereby defend design. Designers have enormous power to influence people â&#x20AC;&#x201C; by designing the products they buy, the media they read, the information they receive, who they vote for, what they shop for, and in many more ways than most are aware of. What they design has a strong social repercussion in the every-day world of hundreds, thousands or even millions of people. What they do for a living every day, can and will impact at least one life.

What does it mean to be a designer in this corporatedriven, over-branded, global consumer culture? Who are designers responsible to? Who do these designers work for? Are they researching clients, making sure these are not fraudulent, polluting or abusing? Do they still work for them? Do they take a stand? Or figure bills need to be paid? What is responsible design? With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

The road to perdition is NOT paved with good intentions. STAY OFF IT. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Making Agritecture Possible It’s almost a cliche that anyone with a sufficiently good idea can create a fabulously successful company on the Internet. That’s because there are practically no barriers preventing entry to online entrepreneurship: if you’ve got an idea, a laptop and a credit card, you’re in business. Food processing has traditionally been regarded as something else entirely. But over the past few years, something remarkable has begun to happen. The process of making physical stuff has started to look more like the process of making digital stuff. The Maker movement offers a path to reimagine the ways food and drink is produced – not by returning to the giant factories of old, with their armies of machines, but by creating a new kind of manufacturing economy, one shaped more like the web itself: bottom-up, broadly distributed, nimble and highly entrepreneurial. The image of smart people and processes changing the world with little more than a network and an idea increas-

ingly fortells the food processing businesses of the future. The Maker movement represents the first steps in a different way of doing business. Rather than top-down innovation by some of the biggest companies in the world, we’re starting to see bottom-up innovation by countless amateurs, entrepreneurs and professionals. We’ve seen it work before, in bits, from the original PC hobbyists to the Internet’s vast citizen crowd. The conditions are here for it to work again, at an even broader scale – this time in atoms. It’s now possible to imagine and build the architecture of a new age of food innovation. The next generation of products can be produced in radically different ways, in facilities that can be more like artist’s studios than factories, that take advantage of digital technologies and toolsets, that use just-in-time and smallbatch methods. and that can be marketed using a wider variety of channels and networks.

Creativity is arguably society’s number one economic and cultural asset. Conceiving, making and marketing extraordinary ideas and products are within the reach of every entrepreneur and adaptive business willing to take risks with form and function. Great products are appreciated by the people that value creative outcomes. Imaginative solutions to food security problems require us to create a new agritecture for innovation, one that transforms the raw materials of agriculture through a creative re-imagining. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES If you want something you’ve never had, then you’ve got to do something you’ve never done. This is the

MakerManifesto 1. We will wait for no one. 2. We will make the things the world needs. 3. We will see challenges as opportunities to invent, and invention as a means to proving our ingenuity. 4. We will be obsessed with improving things, whether just a little or a lot. 5. We will show the world how sexy manufacturing can be. 6. We will hunt down new skills, unmask locally made materials, keep our work sustainable and be kind to the environments in which we make. 7. We will share what we make, and help each other make what we share. 8. We will be responsible for acting on our own ideas. 9. We will forge collaborations. 10. We will remake the world with our own hands. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

All Roads Lead to the Future In the future, economic and social life could be rooted in the community and the region. More production will be local and regional, with shorter, less-complex supply chains, especially but not only in food supply. In the future, enterprises could be more committed to the long-term well-being of employees and the viability of their communities and could be supported by local financial institutions. People could live closer to work, walk more, and travel less. Energy production could be distributed and decentralized, and predominantly renewable. Socially, community bonds could be strong; connections to neighbors could be genuine and unpretentious; civic and community service groups plentiful; support for teachers and caregivers high. In the future, local governance could stress participatory, direct, and deliberative democracy. Citizens could be seized with the responsibility to extend the commons – the valuable assets that belong to

everyone – through community land trusts and creative collaboratives. In the future, products could be more durable, versatile, and easy to repair, with components that can be reused or recycled. Applying the principles of industrial ecology, the negative impacts of products throughout their life cycles could be minimized, and production systems could be designed to mimic biological ones, with waste eliminated or becoming a useful input elsewhere. The provision of services could replace the purchase of many goods, and sharing, collaborative consumption, and community ownership could be commonplace. In the future, green chemistry could replace the use of toxics and hazardous substances. Organic farming could eliminate pesticide and herbicide use. Prices could reflect the true environmental costs of the products we consume. Schools will stress environmental education and pursue “no child left inside” programs.

In the future, locally owned businesses, including workerowned, customer-owned, and community-owned firms, could be prominent. So, too, could hybrid business models such as profit/nonprofit and public/private hybrids. Cooperation could moderate competition. Investments could promote import-substitution. Business incubators could help entrepreneurs with arranging finance, technical assistance, and other support. Enterprises of all types could stress environmental and social responsibility. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

DO WHAT YOU

LOVE WHAT YOU DO The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Laboratories of Social Design Social innovation laboratories research, test, demonstrate and scale new ideas and innovative practices within communities, working with varied stakeholder groups. Such labs are particularly useful for dealing with long term social problems that have become resistant to traditional solutions. They create an opportunity to explore, test and prototype new ideas, approaches and solutions in a disciplined and proactive environment before implementation. They are dedicated and disciplined places for research and development, trial and error, working together across sectors, incubating new ideas and launching social enterprises. Specifically, their common characteristics include: a testing ground for new ideas; convening of interdisciplinary teams of policy makers, funders, service providers, business and labour, as well as users and volunteers; multisector sponsorship and engagement; enabling beneficiaries with firsthand experience

and knowledge of the problems that shape and lead the process. Knowledge, solutions and tools generated from these social innovation labs can be used by government organizations, social enterprises, institutions, nonprofits and business to introduce new solutions, improve services and scale social innovations. Social innovation labs have become an important stimulus for public sector innovation. Government, non-profit and business support of social innovation labs can include in kind support, staff and consultant secondment and financing. Through rapid prototyping to test ideas out before implementation and through the application of design thinking, complexity theory, computer modelling and visualization, dialogue and qualitative research, a wide variety of outcomes are possible. Continuous research and outreach programs will in turn scale, measure and prove solutions.

Knowledge democracy is understood to mean at least three things. First it recognizes that knowledge is always represented in diverse forms: music, song, story telling, sculpture, community meetings in addition to the academic forms of text, statistics and graphic representations. Second, knowledge democracy recognizes the diversity, complexity and holistic nature of other ways of knowing. And third it recognizes the critical role of knowledge in taking action to make a difference in our lives. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

MAKEGOOD GOODSOME GOODSOME SOMETHING The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

The Market and the Kitchen The cultivated rusticity of the farmers’ market is a part of weekend life in communities large and small as the high days of the summer harvest arrive. But beyond the familiar mantras about nutrition or reduced fossil fuel use, the movement toward local food is creating a vibrant new economic laboratory for agriculture. The result, with its growing army of small-scale local farmers, is as much about dollars as dinner – a reworking of traditional models about how food gets made and processed, how it gets sold and how farming and food production get financed, and who is doing the work. It’s obvious that the future is local. Economists and agriculture experts say the “slow money” model of channeling investment into small-scale and organic food operations, along with the aging of the farmer population and steep barriers for young farmers

who cannot afford the land for traditional rural agriculture, are only part of the emerging mix. Mass-production farms that depend on cheap labor are losing some of their price advantages over locally grown food, which tends to be more expensive. Consumers are increasing expressing their preferences. Local farm sales are becoming more stable, predictable and measurable. Local revenues have been radically undercounted in analyses that mainly focused on road stands and markets. When sales to restaurants and stores are factored in the local food industry is showing significant upside potential. More predictable revenue streams, especially at a time when so many investments feel risky, are creating a firmer economic argument for local farming that, in years past, was more of a political or lifestyle choice.

How farmers and producers make it pay is by getting closer to the customer. A byproduct of local food is that people are more likely to understand and appreciate who is producing the food they consume. To address the emerging issues of food security and near-toxic ingredients, some communities have instituted family cooking and food literacy classes at local schools, and at community kitchens. Such classes allow families to spend quality time together learning a wide variety of culinary skills, and how to make healthy food choices. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

What comes easy doesn’t make us

SMARTER PROOF. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Making the Maker Leap Imagine a new company, ProofCo, making its first product: a small backyard aquaponic greenhouse. They make the first prototype themselves, as well as a handful of others. Then, it’s time to go into serious production. ProofCo is small, and they don’t have sufficient manufacturing capacity themselves, so they outsource to a factory that can handle small batches cheaply. If the product is successful and demand builds, they may well opt to move production back inhouse to cut out delays. If it’s astonishingly successful, then they may decide to move production to multiple factories closer to market territories. They have to be flexible because their business is constantly evolving. They are

able to be flexible because their design files are digital and the tooling costs minimal. This adaptive business will need to be flexible and accommodating in other ways, too. It needs to be in constant contact with its customers and be prepared to respond quickly to their feedback and criticism. It needs to be able to draw on needed skills and resources through networks and collaboration. The Maker movement has a long way to go before it can really be said to have come of age. But that doesn’t mean it should be ignored or regarded solely as a hobbyist’s or niche manufacturer’s paradise. It represents the first steps in a different way of doing business. Rather than top-down

innovation by big companies, we’re starting to see bottomup innovation by countless individuals, including amateurs, entrepreneurs and professionals. We’ve already seen it work before, in bits, from the original PC hobbyists to the web’s citizen army. Now the conditions have arrived for it to work again, at even greater, broader scale, in atoms. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

Leave the door open to the unknown, the door into the dark.That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. Rebecca Solnit The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

The Collaborative Opportunity Genius comes alive in the places where we work and live. Small, dynamic, local businesses and the passionate entrepreneurs who lead them, need to have the energy to pivot in response to rapidly evolving markets. Their capacity to adapt, putting continuous innovation into practice, positions them to solve market problems and address social and environmental concerns quickly and successfully. But the breakneck pace of entrepreneurial business and the stresses and strains of social entrepreneurialism in particular, are exhausting. Collaboration provides the energy to recharge and the support to rebuild resilience,

so grassroots business leaders can continue to bring their genius to the world. Learning is only valuable when it’s shared. Every entrepreneur learns lessons every day. Some last a lifetime; some are forgotten as soon as they’re applied. But lifelong learning is unquestionably a vital characteristic for successful social entrepreneurs. Collaborative design facilitates sharing of countless ideas, best practices and new perspectives, each of which contributes to every person’s work. A community of leadership is vital to society’s transition toward regeneration.

Open collaboration is one key to resilient, sustainable organisations. Successful communities thrive when they work together. Businesses are no different. And entrepreneurs need sounding boards, allies, suppliers and partners to help them achieve their visions of a world made better by their businesses. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

When you come to a fork in the road,

TAKE IT.

YOGI

BERRA

The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Incubating Creativity Life as an creative entrepreneur in any discipline is a formidable challenge, fraught with relatively low lifetime earnings, modest exposure and acclaim, and a great deal of uncertainty. Many fall by the wayside for lack of encouragement or the ability to afford the training, space, and time to pursue their work. Yet few other occupations attract the talent and fierce commitment the creative world does. A creative personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s needs change as his or her work evolves. At the outset, aspiring artists, whether through school, lessons, or traditional and community activities, need encouragement and training. A few are self-taught. Some take classes throughout their lives. But for most, the end of formal schooling is a critical juncture. Suddenly cut off from teachers, classes, practice, and workspace, they must find new peers and mentors, new spaces to convene with others and try out their work. Dedicated spaces for creative entrepreneurs serve these needs. Many creative forms require partners, and need venues where they can link up

with others who will help them develop their work and bring it to the public. Many creative entrepreneurs need access to costly tools, equipment, and space. Incubators can provide these things collectively and much less expensively, and often at higher quality, than an individual could afford alone. Of course, many also need financial support, such as grants and awards, to afford space, time, and supplies. Many Incubators help in this regard by acting as regranters, funneling resources to worthy artists by running grant competitions funded by foundations, sponsors, and granting bodies. An incubator can also offer opportunities for more accomplished creatives to mentor or teach, providing intellectual stimulation as well as income. The Okanagan needs service venues where creative entrepreneurs can come together to show and share their work, give and receive feedback, teach and learn, ponder creative and professional challenges, share workspace and equipment, and exhibit their work. Two features distinguish

such creative incubators from artist-serving organizations, technology accellerators and academic or training institutions: 1. A dedicated space for gatherings, shared equipment, personal or group work areas, exhibitions and performances 2. An open door, whereby anyone who expresses an interest may become a member, and have access to events and services at an affordable price. There is qualitative substantiation that nurturing a pool of creative entrepreneurs strengthens regional economies through income generated from creative work and connections, and through contributions in making noncreative businesses more productive. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

align IDEAS WITH ACTIONS The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

A Vision of Strategic Design Ignorance, as the cliché goes, is bliss. Modern society is now beginning to see – sometimes painfully – that the most critical challenges we face are also the ones which are most interconnected or systemic in nature. A blissful ignorance of Earth’s ecology allowed humanity to enjoy decades of unprecedented development without much thought about its long- term consequences. Only recently have the negative impacts of this development been measured and broadly understood by science, yet lagging and conflicted decision-making has inhibited a serious and concerted response. By expanding our understanding of systemic problems, we can better appreciate the principles that govern them and the risks they pose to society. Today we find ourselves in an awkward adolescence, disabused of a happy obliviousness to the difficulty of dealing with systemic issues, but still without tried and true exper-

tise to definitively lead us away from oblivion. Will the 21st century be one of growth – of human health, happiness, and resilience – or will we face further hardships as the consequences of blissfully ignorant decisions continue to compound? By developing strategic design, it is possible to advance society’s ability to cope with complex issues, such as climate change and demographic shifts, by developing tools to assist communities and institutions to better conceptualize and respond to “wicked” challenges. Increasingly society operates “pre-factually.” In such cases, analysing existing options may not provide the necessary insights needed to respond successfully because the challenge is one that has not been dealt with before and the facts do not exist yet. Although there has been intense focus on innovation in products and businesses, our understanding

of innovation at the systems scale is still emerging. Society finds itself lacking sophisticated ways to articulate new ideas about systems and the ways they relate and interlock. Through its ability to cope with uncertain and unstable contexts, to link up the small details and the big picture, and to understand the connection between quality of concept and quality of execution, the practice of strategic design is a promising capability in the face of the contemporary world. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

TimeisMoney

MoneyTalks TalkisCheap The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

On Developing Prosperity There was a time when the term “economic development” referred to the practice of luring firms and jobs by providing monetary incentives to locate there. Now, communities increasingly are realizing that the quality of the places within the community are playing a larger role in today’s economic decisions. In an age when much work can be done through a fast internet connection, location and place seem to be more important than ever. Communities need to understand that in a world where a job can be located anywhere, people need to have a good reason to choose their city or town. The economic importance of place can’t be understated, especially of commercial districts that provide a compelling experience and bring people together. Places need “distinction” – emphasizing what is unique about them; “variety” – of people, businesses, culture, buildings; and “flow,” the ability of people to choose their own paths at their own pace. There is a direct link

between these physical manifestations of place and attracting talent and business.

That’s made placemaking a goto strategy for driving prosperity.

From celebrating the uniqueness of a place to bringing amenities such as food markets to make more complete neighbourhoods, placemaking is becoming a leading economic development strategy. Communities need appealing parks, plazas, streets, markets where people can interact. Provide them, and prosperity – in the form of jobs – will follow. Businesses want places that are attractive to employees, places where connections can happen, where productivity and creativity increase and where networks foster collaboration and innovation.

A place that attracts creative people and fosters innovation will also attract smart, sustainable development. And that gives communities an opportunity to exercise smart prosperity principles such as density, walkability, mixed-use, access to transit and green design and construction as additional development occurs. We’re just starting to make the planning changes that will ensure our prosperity provides opportunities to all sectors of our society.

Placemaking is the best way to generate lasting prosperity at a time when technology gives people and companies greater freedom to work and do business wherever they please. There’s a realization that capital and people can go where they like more than ever before. For that reason, place matters more than ever.

With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

Attitude IS

EveryThing The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

The Generative Imperative Today, many people realize that it’s not about the environment versus the economy, not a tradeoff between unemployment and pollution. It’s not about picking one or the other. We cannot choose between the environment and the economy. We need both. This realization is at the heart of an emerging economic and environmental concept, which can be termed the “generative economy.” It reflects a growing recognition that, on the one hand, the challenge of sustainability rests almost entirely in getting the economy right. Putting a price on carbon, valuing natural capital and ending perverse subsidies, among other things,

are all vital to meaningful environmental reform. And, on the other hand, if we wish to create a sustainable economy, we must pay more attention to the environment. Against a backdrop of climate change, resource scarcity, the massive loss of biodiversity and a variety of other environmental issues, business as usual is increasingly risky. Simply put, a generative economy is low-carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive. Some of it’s key features include: A robust recycling and reuse industry, with minimal waste sent to landfill.

The Okanagan has the opportunity to be among the leaders in this generative transition. We have an abundance of renewable resources, the capacity to generate ample amounts of renewable energy, and sufficient wealth to finance the transition. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

It is the nature of idea to be communicated: written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on cross breeding, grows better for being stepped on. Ursula Le Guin The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Design Beyond Expectations Traditional definitions of design often focus on creating discrete solutions – be it a product, a building, or a service. Strategic design applies some of the principles of traditional design to “big picture” systemic challenges like health care, education, and climate change. Strategic design redefines how problems are approached, identifies opportunities for action, and helps deliver more complete and resilient solutions. It is about crafting decision-making. This works best when design is integrated into the DNA of organizations, creating new opportunities for designers with a strategic aptitude to migrate from studios and ateliers to integrated positions, embedded within organizations and governments. Strategic design laboratories seek to expand the practice of design beyond of the realm of cultural affairs. Although many designers have backgrounds in architecture, graphics or other fields of traditional design, new design imperatives work is focused on honing the skill set and mindset of the designer to help

solve the challenges faced by an ever more challenged, interdependent world.

of understanding and communicating complex, even contradictory, relationships.

The strategic designer has three core competencies: integration, visualization and stewardship.

Good ideas are easy to come by: implementing the right ones is not. In recent years, the emphasis on “design thinking” has powerfully demonstrated the value of applying creativity in a business, institutional or community context.

Because key decision makers sometimes only see the parts rather than the whole of a problem, they may be blind sided by the unintended consequences of their choices. The naturally integrative approach of design helps illuminate the complex web of relationships – between people, organizations, and things – to provide a holistic point of view. By working across different areas of expertise, strategic design outlines the “architecture of the problem,” highlighting key opportunities for improvement in all aspects and outcomes of a problem. Today, the challenges we face have reached a new level of complexity and uncertainty, for which spreadsheets, whitepapers and other familiar analytical tools are insufficient. Fluent in visual representation, the strategic designer uses this skill as an important and iterative means

But successful design is not only about creative thinking. It also involves implementation and ensuring that key ideas maintain their integrity during the implementation process. Designers must be involved over the duration of change processes, providing constant expertise and feedback to identify, test, and deliver durable solutions With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

It’s Never Too Late to Make Sense of Nonsense The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Waste Not, Want Not Sometimes we get bored or tired of things, sometimes things go out of style, sometimes we’ve no further use for something. But it’s more than likely that a large percentage of the stuff we’ve thrown away, we got rid of because it was broken. Just a couple of generations ago many of these broken things would have been repaired, once, twice or even over and over again – whether tables, clothes, shoes or tools. This attitude of scarcity, of material things being limited and valuable, is now largely history. In our throwaway society stuff is cheap – it often costs less to buy a new one than it would to fix the old one, and certainly it’s a lot less hassle and inconvenience But taking the time and effort to repair things is making something of a comeback – from Repair Cafes to increasing numbers of people getting involved in the DIY ethos. Some of this is down to austerity of course many of us having to get by on less money than before, and so feel more inclined to patch up our clothes, or re-screw a table leg, than use the excuse to buy something new.

But some of the popularity stems from an increasing awareness of the connection between our own wasteful, consumerist lifestyles, and the environmental and social damage being done elsewhere in the world to support them. We increasingly understand it’s hypocritical to bemoan climate change while buying endless replacement gadgets and stuff made in Chinese coal powered factories, or to feel appalled about poor working conditions or workplace disasters elsewhere in the world, while buying endless GMO cotton Tshirts. This isn’t just a personal problem – we’ve built our whole economies on a model of never ending consumption. We need to maintain “consumer confidence” or GDP takes a bit of a hit. The phrase “planned obsolescence” was first used in 1932, in a plan to help end the depression by ensuring all manufacturers produced goods that were designed to quickly break in order to stimulate and perpetuate consumer demand. They realised even then, that if we all simply stop buying new stuff we’re going to have to face some rather difficult consequences.

On the other hand the phrase “waste not want not” dates back to at least the 1700s, and suggests that if we were to waste less in the present, then we’d have more left for ourselves in the future. Solving this dilemma – by ensuring resources are used not just effectively, but also efficiently, but without collapsing the economy, is one of the key challenges of sustainability. To achieve it we’ll need to develop a much more circular economy, making it easier to use and reuse materials – while at the same time decoupling economic growth from our habits of consumption. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES Enjoy lettuce while you still can. And anything else that arrives in your life from a truck, for that matter. For vegetables, get used to whatever it is they served in railway hotels in the 1890s. Jams. Preserves. Pickled everything. Douglas Coupland The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

The Argument for Craftwork The book Shop Class as Soul Craft by Matthew Crawford has struck a chord with contemporary readers concerned about the trajectory of the modern workplace away from knowing how to do things instead toward a dominant role of the kind of work done by “symbolic knowledge workers” who make up roughly twenty percent of the labour force, and occupy a privileged position in that they can sell their services in the global economy. They are welleducated and will occupy an even more advantageous position in society in the future. Coming at a time of economic crisis, an increased interest (and necessity) of repairing our own stuff and growing our own food, and growing concern about the viability of an economic system based upon outsourcing and offshoring, the book is a timely reminder that certain kinds of work are always necessary, and further, that many of the manual trades possess an inherently integrative and purposive function that are often lacking in the sorts of deracinated jobs in many contemporary blueand white-collar workplaces.

The book is also a repudiation of much of the ideology that underlies modern globalization and elite and academic assumptions about the superiority of office work over hand craft. Crawford argues on behalf of the virtues of crafts – those forms of work that require skill of hands, a storehouse of knowledge and experience, patience, improvisational ability, and creativity. His book is a searing indictment of the alienation and deforming nature of much of what constitutes modern work, whether those “manual” jobs that tend to be modeled on mass-production models of assembly line, or “brain” work that more often than not results in alienated workplaces. The ideologists of the knowledge economy have posited a false dichotomy between knowing and doing. The fact of the matter is that most forms of real knowledge, including self-knowledge, come from the effort to struggle with and master the brute reality of material objects. These activities, if done well, require knowledge both about the world as it is and about ourselves, and our own limita-

tions. They can’t be learned simply by following rules, as a computer does; they require intuitive knowledge that comes from experience and repeated encounters with difficulty and failure. A decline in tool use would seem to betoken a shift in our mode of inhabiting the world: more passive and more dependent. Perhaps the time is ripe for reconsideration of an ideal that has fallen out of favour: manual competence, and the stance it entails toward the built, material world. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

If something be not done, something will do itself one day, and in a fashion that will please nobody. THOMAS CARLYLE The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Commons Sense Creativity The world faces pressing social, environmental and ethical challenges – climate change, health issues, water scarcity, obesity, inequality and poverty. The need for greater innovation and creativity is clearer than ever if we are to survive and thrive. We won’t manage our way out of trouble, we will need imagination and inspiration to overcome these challenges, yet ironically some of the best and most impactful creative work will come from reframing these problems as opportunities. Environmental, social and ethical responsibility used to be extremely technical, about governance, reporting and accounting; which never really needed creative engagement. Now it’s all about people – their behaviours, actions, attitudes, their lives and it is here that creatives excel. As mediators between business, technology and people, the creative industries are fantastic at bringing meaning, simplicity, emotion, humour and innovation to difficult, complex or often worthy causes to deliver stories that

capture hearts and minds and change people’s actions and behaviour. As the goal of changing people moves centre stage in the sustainability debate, so do the creative industries. We can not simply engage with society’s deep-seated social challenges with our existing toolkit, in the hope we can instantly tackle or resolve them. We will need new tools, skills and behaviours which are only just beginning to emerge. First, a personal interest or passion for particular social causes really goes a long way. Add to that empathy and humility – not qualities always present in the average creative individual, agency or service. Creative people and businesses need to develop a greater familiarity with the rising citizen culture of resilience and sustainability practices and ethics. In the same way that creatives have progressively become digitally literate and at the cutting edge of social media and interactive technologies, we need to get literate on sustainability and learn the skills of tenacity and advocacy.

Markets are no longer the only sources of innovation. We have entered an era where interactive technologies and a renewed idea of citizenship are enabling experiments with alternative notions of sustainability and sharing knowledge and skills in increasingly dynamic ways. Creatives working alongside policy makers, policy makers collaborating with citizens, and citizens empowering communities to diagnose their problems more accurately. What emerges is local resources given wider legitimacy as meaningful regeneration tools. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

DON’T BUY THINGS YOU DON’T NEED WITH MONEY YOU DON’T HAVE TRYING TO IMPRESS PEOPLE YOU DON’T LIKE. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Generational Collaboration Collaboration between generations has traditionally looked like grandparents reading to small children, a one-way power dynamic between professional mentors and their younger colleagues, and awkward attempts to manage a next-generation workforce. There are also strong beliefs, held by many, that “youngsters are to be seen not heard,” or even that the final decision should always be made by the oldest person in the room. These cultural and societal norms and habits seem to shape so much of our thinking. “I’m older than you, I’m supposed to be wiser than you.” Not everyone will say something that direct, and sometimes it even has more of a dismissive edge. The challenge seems to be our willingness to be humble and genuinely recognize when we are learning. If new understanding is igniting inside of us because of something another person is doing or saying, we are learning from them. They are contributing to our knowing and influencing our actions and decisions. This is a precious gift and we have the opportunity to step beyond traditional boundaries and be open to learn from whoever has the wisdom of the moment to share, regardless of their age or background.

We aren’t approaching the visioning process in the traditional manner of creating our preferred picture of the future and driving towards it. More, we are together imagining the future into being. We are asking ourselves questions such as: What is the story of this place and its potential role in the local community? How can we relate to the community and how will the community relate to us? How can we honour and deepen the legacy of those who came before? Assuming our community has its own voice, what is it saying to us? Sensing into the possible, what are the minimum, elegant, next steps, and how can we turn those into something great? In addition to our own listening and imagining, we are inviting people to share their images of possibility and creative inspirations for this place. We are committed to collective intelligence informing our actions and we trust that this intuitive and collaborative approach will yield paths forward that none of us could have imagined on our own. We’re discovering that comentoring is a more useful construct than traditional mentoring, eldering, or teaching. By being open to fresh perspectives and actively learning from one another’s

life experiences and skills, we are accessing leverage points that far exceed our individual capacities. Organizations of all types are facing critical issues as Baby Boomers, now entering their 50s and 60s, enter their older years in a world that is dramatically different than the one they have been operating in. Doing it the way we’ve always done it is no longer an option. Younger collaborators deserve to be considered equal contributors to innovative solutions rather than needing to “wait their turn.” If organizations are to thrive in these turbulent times, these new perspectives and redefined partnerships between generations are sorely needed. Elders can enter the legacy stage of their lives by forming alliances with younger leaders around the critical challenges that not only organizations but also communities are facing today. This will require a new paradigm for all generations and we want to be part of the movement that is responding to this opportunity. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING, DON’T DO IT. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Imagining a Marketplace Recent trends in consumption indicate a growing demand for fresh and local food.This is particularly true in urban settings where access to local food is more difficult. Meanwhile, local farmers, bakers and other producers are feeling increased pressure to participate in the expanding number of farmers markets, while balancing the need to be on the farm and maintain their businesses. Pocket markets are local food markets that sell directly to the pubic on behalf of local food producers. Being smaller than farmersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; markets allows them to make fresh, local food more accessible to the consumer, and ultimately helps to nurture the local food movement. This model is beneficial to the producer as it allows them to sell a quantity of product without having to incur the time and financial costs of being at a farmers market. Products are purchased directly from the producer at a wholesale price and then sold at the market at the same retail price the producer would normally charge. This method

guarantees the farmers (or baker) a sale, while reducing the burden on resources. Although a pocket market lacks the direct connection between producer and consumer, it can emulate that connection by displaying information about each vendor at market. This can be done through vendor profiles, which show where the food comes from, how it is grown or made and who produced it. Education and building consumer awareness are integral parts of a pocket market, so in addition to vendor profiles, information posters and pamphlets litter the tables, and pocket market staff are always at hand to answer questions. Education is essential as it can help create informed consumers, at the pocket market and outside of it. A pocket market can play an important role in supporting the production and distribution of local food. More importantly, it can help bridge the gap for local farmers, urban backyard growers and local food eaters by providing an alternative market format that

adds to the current make-up of the farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s market world. There are many good reasons for setting up a market to ensure that the end result meets the expectations of everyone. These include increased access to healthy foods close to work or home; support for local farmers and processors; community economic development; creating a more vibrant place in a neighborhood or community; bringing more cohesion and vitality to a place by providing a venue for people to meet and chat; providing an opportunity to raise awareness about local food, health and sustainability. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

Opportunity doesn’t arrive at moments of convenience. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Social Change Laboratories Continued investment in scientific and technological solutions alone is unlikely to result in breakthroughs to our most pressing issues. This is because many of these issues are not technical in nature, they are social and adaptive. While science and technology continues to generate innovations, social policy will continue failing to keep pace unless investment is deployed in that space as well. Otherwise, developments in science and technology will improve the lives of some, complicate the lives of others, in other instances make life worse and in others have no impact whatsoever. Unless we can figure out everything from the wisdom of a rights-based approach to healthcare, intellectual property rights to price points and market mechanisms that control access to innovations, the majority of people in the world will remain oblivious to

the most profound of scientific and technological breakthroughs. For a number of challenges where social solutions are possible but difficult, scientific and technological solutions are pursued instead – for example, cleantech solutions to the climate challenge. These responses to truly complex challenges at best represent a great wager, where we are making a tremendously risky bet that a technical solution will be found. In reality, however, technology alone rarely, if ever, represents a clean or complete solution. Part of the challenge is that we do not have a mature and disciplined approach to learning how to create change socially. Learning is ad hoc and fragmented. If we’re lucky we stumble on effective approaches via a course or a book and if we’re unlucky, we don’t and burn out trying. Where does one go to learn about

effective change strategies? Where does one engage with the evidence of what works and what does not work? We are in increasing need of dedicated spaces where we can learn the practical skills of how to design and implement effective strategies for social change. We need social laboratories that provide practical instruction like schools, and that can at the same time function as social innovation collaboratives. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES ■ If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of the world. ■ If you have money in the bank, your wallet, and some spare change you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. ■ If you woke up this morning with more health than illness you are more blessed than the million people who will not survive this week. ■ If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the agony of imprisonment or torture, or the horrible pangs of starvation you are luckier than 500 million people alive and suffering. ■ If you can read this message you are more fortunate than the 3 billion people in the world who cannot read at all. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Creativity, Central and Critical To flourish, society depends on a strong cultural heritage driven by innovation. Creativity should the heart of every community. It finds expression in great visual art, wonderful music, fabulous public performances, stunning writing, inspiring buildings and streetscapes, gritty new productions and countless other media, messages and performances. Giving form to our innate human creativity is what defines us to ourselves and the world. This is what the arts have always done. Think back to any significant time in the past and the chances are that it is the creative output of the time that comes to mind â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from rock art to rock and roll. The lasting value and evidence of a civilisation are its artistic output and the ingenuity that comes from applying creativity

to the whole range of human endeavour. Yet all too often the arts are pushed into a box that says entertainment, icing on the cake, when they are a key ingredient. We have an opportunity to put creativity and the arts back into the centre of Okanagan life. A rich and nuanced cultural community is something that most people want. People in the Okanagan love music, drama, dance, books, digital media and exhibitions, just as they love sport. They want the arts to be a part of their lives and are proud when our local creativity is recognised nationally and internationally. At the same time we know that grassroots arts and culture can create vibrant neighbourhoods, build social connections and provide young people with an interest and passion that can last a lifetime. What is

education if it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t teach our children to think creatively and innovatively? The creative sector touches on and is touched by the cultural vitality we make and share. What use is a robust economy unless it enables innovative communities that can attract and stimulate the young? How can good governance exist without a population that is engaged, educated and able to form its own opinions? It is the centrality of creativity to living full and rich lives that will define the future, for ourselves and for our communities. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

SAY YES TODAY YES TOMORROW YESTERDAY The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Open Source Modelling Organizations can’t ignite systems change alone. They will always be hindered by their own programmatic myopia, constrained by their internal innovation cycles, isolated by their own geographic limitations, restrained by their ever-present funding limitations, and hampered by their capacity to manage rapid growth. If we could free existing solutions from these constraints, would we continue to see more new innovations or would we start to see greater replication of established, effective models? Imagine if successful organizations learned to systematically make their business models open source without being territorial, without having to safeguard brands. This epochal shift in traditional development thinking would actually promote, rather than hinder, significant gains in the overall reach and efficacy of social sector and social economy work.

We are not suggesting a new take on collective impact. Instead, we see it as a new way of iterating that would allow for significant and rapid improvements on existing and successful products. Not rapid prototyping of early-stage innovations or “hack-athoning” new ideas, but rapidly scaling what already works by way of entirely new actors who are able to make new value from old methods in new ways. We can do this by tangibly increasing the efficiency, expansion, reach, and net impact of the original model, whatever the sector and wherever the work. By opening up our models, successful groups make second-mover advantage (when a company or organization benefits from feedback on a competitor’s earlier release) possible – in fact, probable. And if scale and real saturation are the end goals, versus a single organization’s success and acclaim, then this is exactly what we need to see.

The social enterprise meme – and by extenuation the social economy meme – is emerging in the vacuum created by the breakdown of our social structures and institutions. It is unambiguously positive. It encourages high-mindedness and plays t our deism. It is emotionally uplifting. It is actionable. Anyone who wants to can go out and start a social enterprise. It doesn’t take a million dollars. And most importantly, it is luminously preferable to the alternatives. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

IF YOU WANT TO

CHANGE THE WORLD THROW A BETTER PARTY The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

The Innovation Community Innovation needs a space for working; a space for connecting; a space for learning; and a space for sparking and growing new ideas. The social mission sector needs a space where innovative people, companies and organizations come together to ignite and advance new ideas that can advance our communities, and change our world. The social mission sector is rooted in the shared values of community, collaboration and entrepreneurialism. As a community, we need to believe in the strength of the sectorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s diversity. We need to believe in the power of social capital and social enterprise. We need to believe that great things happen when we bring together a mix of creative and socially conscious innovators. We need to believe that, by working together we can reduce costs, forge powerful relationships, and spark new

ideas to improve our communities and our world. The Okanaganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s social mission sector is made up of individual social entrepreneurs and dozens of small organizations that work with limited resources to pursue their missions and to effect positive change in our communities. Most of the nonprofits and charities have less than five paid staff and operate on small annual budgets. These productive and proactive groups are frequently in substandard office facilities, work in isolation from their peers, and are forced to quickly scale up and scale down based on the ebb and flow of project funding. By pooling the limited resources of a number of groups, they could leverage the power of the collaborative to achieve more.

Given the low cost and high value of their contribution to our communities, our municipal and regional governments need to find a way to accommodate them in a dynamic convergence facility that provides workspace, shared services, programming and incubation support to social mission groups and social entrepreneurs. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES ■ You are not your bra size, nor are you the width of your waist, nor are you the slenderness of your calves. ■ You are not your hair colour, your skin colour, nor are you a shade of lipstick. ■ Your shoe size is of no consequence. ■ You are not defined by the amount of attention you get from males, females, or any combination thereof. ■ You are not the number of sit ups you can do, nor are you the number of calories in a day. ■ You are not your mustache. ■ You are not the hair on your legs. ■ You are not a little red dress. ■ You are no amalgam of these things. ■ You are the content of your character. ■ You are the ambitions that drive you. ■ You are the goals that you set. ■ You are the things that you laugh at and the words that you say. ■ You are the thoughts you think and the things you wonder. ■ You are beautiful and desirable not for the clique you attend, but for the spark of life within you that compels you to make your life a full and meaningful one. ■ You are beautiful not for the shape of the vessel, but for the volume of the soul it carries. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Transformation by Design Participatory, citizen-led and bottom-up approaches to development are gaining currency. In a global context of increased complexity and volatility, governments and public sector organizations are considering how to innovate processes and practices in order to serve the interests of citizens and communities and achieve sustainable long-term outcomes. There are myriad opportunities for design to shape decision-making and to visualize alternative futures for positive social change. During the past few decades, social innovations have moved from the fringes to the mainstream. Often, these social innovations are hybrids of existing elements, rather than wholly new inventions. Putting such innovations

into practice usually involves cutting across organizational and disciplinary boundaries. Experimental models and tools that businesses use to promote market-based approaches are also being used in transformative social innovations. Social enterprises balance a social mission with financial viability and harness the power of the market, investment and entrepreneurship to solve critical social or environmental challenges. As worldwide interest in applying design methods to spur entrepreneurial social innovations, technology inventions and social businesses is increasing, the role of design in the social enterprise movement is emergent.

The challenges and opportunities in harnessing the capabilities of design and preparing designers for leadership roles in developing sustainable social ventures demand new structures and process. Professional opportunities in social innovation, social enterprise, design entrepreneurship, social finance and impact investing require new frameworks for successful multidisciplinary teams and partnerships. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

Possible can be done immediately. We’re already working on the Impossible. But please allow 48 hours for Miracles. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Reawakening to Retail Great bookstores, coffee houses, cafés and some specialty shops are what urbanists call third places. Like farmers’ markets, they add to a community’s sense of identity, they nurture our sense of ourselves, they comfort and energize us. And like farmers’ markets, most customers come for the atmosphere, the sense of shared community, and the opportunity to participate in social activities that further their values. Brick-and-mortar retailers are increasingly learning to serve as such third spaces, and benefit from the loyalty that acrues from providing such a valuable community service. It’s as much about experiences, unique environments and customer service as it is about transactions. The hard sell is is less important than providing something fun, helpful, satisfying or distinctive that ecommerce can’t offer. Stores are becoming more immersive, rather than simply a place to get something. As much as

they are selling products they are also selling a good time, a lifestyle and a vision of a possible world of sharing and connecting. When we go to a bookstore it may have leather chairs and nice warm feeling full of potential. It’s always very engaging and interactive and we’re going to buy three books we’re never going to have time to read, but that give us hope about the future. What the people in the bookstore business know is that many of us want to go back in time, like when we were learning and exploring, that we don’t really want to be the Jetsons, that we don’t want to live in the future. We want to go back to this thing that we feel we’ve lost. Great retail is about offering experiences - education, entertainment, sensory stimulation, a place to relax, an opportunity to gather with friends and colleagues - that go beyond the typically transparent attempts at driving sales.

Smart retailers give consumers compelling reasons to discover their spaces and spend time together inside. Smart retailers creatively rethink what a “store” is for and exploit what’s lacking online: a truly three-dimensional, tangible experience, where consumers interact with products and other people in ways they can’t do online. An experience might include getting advice, connecting and sharing interests, participating in in a seminar or sampling. The most appealing spaces are those in which the retailer becomes less like a servant or passive order-taker, and more like a curator. With Proof, we propose an initiative that represents in a small way the kind of community we imagine we can become. To that end, we will be issuing invitations to join our discussions, and help us start the transformational process.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

LEAVE NOTHING BUT FOOTPRINTS. TAKE NOTHING BUT PICTURES. KILL NOTHING BUT TIME. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Making a Creative Noise Time is the raw material of creation. Wipe away the magic and myth of creating and all that remains is work: the work of becoming expert through study and practice, the work of finding solutions to problems and problems with those solutions, the work of trial and error, the work of thinking and perfecting, the work of creating. Creating consumes. It is all day, every day. It knows neither weekends nor vacations. It is not when creatives feel like it. It is habit, compulsion, obsession, vocation. The common thread that links creators is how they spend their time. No matter what we read, no matter what they claim, nearly all creatives spend nearly all their time on the work of creation. Creatives do work that is, first and foremost, intrinsically rewarding. But, when they make an impact, they expect extrinsic validation: They don’t create solely for themselves, they want to make a real and lasting impact in the world around us. Creatives demand freedom, whether they work within companies or on their own, to run experiments, participate in multiple projects at once, and move their ideas forward. They thrive on flexibility and are most productive when they feel fully engaged.

Creatives make stuff often, and therefore, they fail often. Ultimately, they strive for little failures that help them coursecorrect along the way, and they view every failure as a learning opportunity, part of their experiential education. Creatives have little tolerance for the friction of bureaucracy, old-boy-networks, and antiquated business practices. As often as possible, they question “standard operating procedure” and assert themselves. But even when they can’t, they don’t surrender to the friction of the status quo. Instead, they find clever ways (and hacks) around it. Creatives don’t create solely for themselves, they want to make a real and lasting impact in the world around us. They expect to be fully utilized and constantly optimized, regardless of whether they’re working in a startup or a large organization. Creatives consider “open source” and the vast collective knowledge of the Internet to be a personal arsenal. Wikipedia and open communities for designers, developers, and thinkers were built by creatives. Whenever possible, they leverage collective knowledge to help make better decisions. They also contribute to these open resources with a “pay it forward” mentality.

Creatives believe in meritocracy and the power of online networks and peer communities to advance their ability to do what they love, and do well by doing it. They view competition as a positive motivator rather than a threat, because they want the best idea and the best execution to triumph. Creatives make a their living doing what they love. They consider themselves as both artisans and businesses. In many cases, they are their own accounting department, marketing agency, business development manager, negotiator, and salesperson. They spend the necessary energy to invest in themselves as businesses leveraging the best tools and knowledge to operate as a modern-day enterprise. Creatives are the rocket fuel for the social, cultural and economic engines that are transforming the way we work, the way we live in the world and the way we think, behave and believe. With Proof, we’re proposing an innovative space to enable good things to happen. We invite you to join us.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

SALTY, SAVORY, SWEET, SOUR & BITTER THE DIFFERENCE TASTE MAKES The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

Hot in the Community Kitchen In contrast to the industrial model of food as a commodity, the food on our kitchen tables often has complex, multilayered meaning and associations. Beyond being necessary nutrition, food expresses cultural identity and evokes personal, familial and community memory. The frequently used advertisement of “home-cooked meals” to entice customers into restaurants, although clearly not quite credible, works because of positive memories and myths associated with that ascription. Most of our significant holidays, festivals and community events are demarcated by specific foods. From bannock at pow-wows to the Thanksgiving turkey to the moon cakes at a Chinese festival, our cultures are rich with the variety and deep associations that foods evoke and signify. We are defined by the foods we eat, and we define our lives through a calendar of culinary explorations and experiments. Culinary monocultures can be as threatening to our cultural resilience and community survival as agricultural monocultures are to biological diversity. Despite the industrialization and attendant standardization of food, preparing food uniquely suited to occasions, tastes, cultural tradi-

tions and seasons remains a very important part of the quality of life for most of us. Although women continue to have primary responsibility for food and hence play a large role in protecting and enhancing food cultures, there is a growing interest in food varieties and food cultures across genders and generations. Food movements, such as Slow Food, the “hundred mile diet,” farmers’ markets, community shared agriculture projects, seed and recipe exchanges and food tourism (built on the pleasures of experiencing local food customs), are all aspects of the growing interest in alternative sources, varieties and cultures involved in the cooking of food. This challenges the notion that food is just another standardized commodity where unit price determines customer choice. It represents a key alternative perspective on the meaning, role and importance of food. There is a growing coincidence of perspectives and values between those who engage in family farming and those who defend it on the grounds that it is linked to their own possibility of eating well and having access to sustainably produced food from a known source.

Building relationships and understanding between farmers and eaters enhances power on both sides of this food equation. Furthermore, as the demand for more local, ecologically and culturally appropriate food grows stronger, the number of small-scale farms where that kind of production is feasible will also grow. Food-conscious people are everywhere working to reintegrate food production into their communities and regions, as well as their own backyards and roof tops. These initiatives increase understanding of, and control over, food sources and systems. Food charters, food coalitions and food policy councils are all positive efforts in that direction. As community awareness of the critical role food plays in defining our culture, the need for new tools of culinary awareness arise. Community kitchens provide a venue for robust discussion and learning about food choices and preparation, as well as an opportunity to embody the changes that more and more of us desire. With Proof, we’re proposing an innovative space to enable good things to happen. We invite you to join us.

THERE ARE NEW RULES Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with evergrowing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big. D

The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

This Club Will Have You Technology incubators will no doubt play a critical role in developing the Okanagan economy. But other innovation and incubation models are needed, ones that can bring together the people with the skills and expertise necessary to help sustain and broaden the social economy. A dedicated space outside the normal business and institutional melieus of technology innovation can enable entrepreneurs with ideas and drive to rapidly test new ideas in practice, and conduct quick assessments. It can allow fast learning across a community of collaborators. It can establish clear pathways for scaling up the most promising models. We need to develop a model which creates and supports ventures by social entrepreneurs. In order to accomplish such would require a multidisciplinary team, a staged investment model, and an emphasis on linking business expertise with an understanding of social policy contexts. A right-sized and right-livelihood community incubator alongside a social innovation investment mechanism that takes advantage of local resources. A relaxing and convivial hangout, a prototyping space, a shared community kitchen and food and drink processing opera-

tion, and informal opportunities to create and share ideas, tools and best practices. We have determined that a members club developed as a natural meeting point is the best way to address this opportunity. Such a club can be designed so that people from a diverse cross-section of the community will feel comfortable and even enthusiastic about using it as a point of civic engagement and knowledge exchange, as well as for more conventional social functions, networking and entertainment options. But more than that, such a club can serve as a intersection point where people can gather to learn how to make a difference. Where they can gather to contribute to the community. Where they can gather to explore creative and cultural affairs, the life of the mind and spirit, the culinary arts and agriculture, the natural and the built environment, as well as social and community issues. A “club for creatives” has the potential to be a living community notice board, a point where knowledge and connections can flow easily between different groups and individuals. The scope for this development will be worked out in detail over the next several

months. Many of the ideas have already be sketched out over the more that 35 postings in this series. The operational structure of the club is to have “stakeholders” whose primary role is formal stewardship, and “members” who have access to the space and help determine how it will br used. Of course there are many other possibilities we might also consider, but we first need to demonstrate how shared space can enhance community-based innovation, engage people of all sorts, and build community social and economic capacity. And so we move from informal proposals to real, meaningful engagement of the sort required for sustainable communities, from passive “passing through” to genuine involvement in the action and development of sense of place with all the cultural and personal connection which this brings. We’re calling this Proof, and we’re proposing an innovative space- a club for creatives to enable good things to happen. We have space for 12 stakeholders and 100 members to start. We will be opening the doors in late spring next year, and we invite and welcome you to join us.

THERE ARE NEW RULES There is no greater power than a community discovering what it cares about. Ask “What’s possible?” not “What’s wrong?” Keep asking. Notice what you care about. Assume that many others share your dreams. Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters. Talk to people you know. Talk to people you don’t know. Talk to people you never talk to. Be intrigued by the differences you hear. Expect to be surprised. Treasure curiosity more than certainty. Invite in everybody who cares to work on what’s possible. Acknowledge that everyone is an expert in something. Know that creative solutions come from new connections. Remember, you don’t fear people whose story you know. Real listening always brings people closer together. Trust that meaningful conversations change your world. Rely on human goodness. Stay together. ■ Margaret Wheatley The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

The Creative Dividend Creative activity is often viewed as a discretionary element in our regional economy, rather like icing on a cake of industry, finance and basic services. The economic impact of the creative sector has generally been gauged by totaling up the amounts that patrons spend on performances and restaurant meals, parking and shopping in districts around theatres and galleries. The occupation “artist” conjures up dual images of a few star painters, chefs and musicians who land the prestigious grants and the many aspiring actors, dancers and writers waiting tables to underwrite creative time in basement rooms. This is an impoverished view of the creative sector and its role in our regional economy. It treats the arts as a consequence of, even a parasite on, a successful business economy. On the contrary, artistic activity is a major and varied contributor to economic vitality. The productivity of and earnings in a regional economy rise as the incidence of artists within its boundaries increases, because artists’ creativity and specialized skills enhance the design, production and marketing of products and services in other sectors. They also help firms recruit

top-rate employees and generate income through direct exports of artistic work out of the region. Many artists are entrepreneurial - they are not starving, working menial jobs or waiting for the next grant, commission or role but actively seeking diverse markets and venues for their work. Many artists directly “export” their work to customers, firms and patrons elsewhere, enabling them to live in the region, to contract work from others and to generate work for and prompt innovation among suppliers. Creative networks, enhanced by spaces for working and gathering, can help spread entrepreneurial ideas and practices both within and outside the region. This “creative dividend” is a product of long term commitments by patrons and the public sector to creative education and to artists. The importance of amenities, quality of life and an active and nurturing creative community is critical in attracting and retaining creative people. Creative activity as a significant contributor to our regional economy needs nurturing. In comparison to the very modest amounts they devote to the creative sector, our governments pour hundreds of millions of dollars into downtown revitalization, new plant

attraction and even big box retail developments. Large physical performing and visual arts spaces receive the lion’s share of public and patron support while the labour side of the equation is undernourished. Creative sectordedicated spaces, studios, new or renovated live/work spaces and occupation dedicated gathering venues deserve public and patron support. Also needed is public support to help creative individuals, groups and businesses position themselves to enhance their export potential. And so we’re moving from informal proposals to real, meaningful engagement of the sort required for sustainable creative communities, from passive “passing through” to genuine involvement in the action and development of sense of place with all the creative, cultural and personal connection which this brings. We’re calling this Proof, and what we’re proposing is an innovative space- a club for creatives - to enable good things to happen. We have space for 12 stakeholders and 100 members to start. We will be opening the doors in late spring next year, and we invite and welcome you to join us.

THERE ARE NEW RULES Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

The Work Is Just the Beginning The incentive for being part of a creative enterprise is the same incentive that drives the social economy.Working and creating in a dynamic environment with other motivated people and organizations is inspired by, and fueled by, a community of collaboration. For sharing space means more than simply being office mates, or cultural patrons. It means sharing ideas, strategies and experiences. It means supporting each other throughout the innovation process. It means working together to build creative products and services and connecting them back into the community. It means creating opportunities to learn, grow and become more resilient together. In the process, the arts sector can learn from the environmental community, and social justice groups from professional associations. Through such efforts and processes we can begin breaking down the barriers between social movements and release the creative

energy and potential that comes from cross-sectoral collaboration. At Proof, we can take advantage of our space and our programming to provide a launchpad for new social mission initiatives. There are many people, companies and organizations with great ideas for improving our communitiy, but great ideas need structural and strategic support to get off the ground. The social innovation process can support emerging projects, providing services that range from workspace and administrative support to organizational and strategic planning. We intend to create a dynamic convergence facility that provides workspace, shared services, programming and incubation support to social mission groups and social entrepreneurs. We intend to create a healthy creative environmentvfor shared learning, foster a sense

of community, and support established and emerging leaders. Through incubation activities, it is possible to help ensure that promising community initiatives have the best possible chance of success. As we move from informal proposals to real, meaningful engagement of the sort required for sustainable creative enterprises, we create genuine involvement in the development of sense of place with all the creative, cultural and personal connection which this brings. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re calling this Proof, and what weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re proposing is an innovative space - a club for creatives - to enable good things to happen. We have space for 100 members and 12 stakeholders to start. We will be opening the doors in late spring next year, and we invite and welcome you to join us.

THERE ARE NEW RULES

STOP THE WAR ON TERROIR. BUY LOCAL AND EAT YOUR VEGETABLES. The Club for Creatives | www.proofclub.ca

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

The Circle is Never Complete Creativity. According to the dictionary it is “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations.” A more concise definition is “bringing something new of value into existence.” The etymology of “creativity,” however, is what resonates for those of us who are passionate about embedding creativity in the communities in which they live. The word comes from the Latin creatus, which means “to have grown.” The creative arts and enterprises enable us to communicate effectively within and between generations, making sense of life experiences, understanding and celebrating the present, and creating a legacy for the future. They also allow us to experiment without fear of failing - to be challenged - and to succeed in learning new skills and discovering latent ones. Strengthening connections among people, creativity fosters a sense of community in which each person’s contribution is respected. In the near future, economic and social life will be rooted in the community and the region. More production will be local and regional, with shorter,

less-complex supply chains, especially but not only in food supply. In the near future, enterprises will be committed to the longterm well-being of workers and the viability of their communities and will be supported by local, complementary currencies and local financial institutions. People will live closer to work, walk more, and travel less. Energy production will be distributed and decentralized, and predominantly renewable. In the near future, community bonds will be strong; connections to neighbors will be genuine and unpretentious; civic associations and community service groups plentiful; support for teachers and caregivers high. Personal security, tolerance of difference, and empathy will be high. Local governance will stress participatory, direct, and deliberative democracy. In the near future, citizens will be seized with the responsibility to manage and extend the commons - the valuable assets that belong to everyonethrough community land trusts and otherwise. In the near future, locally owned businesses, including worker-, customer-, and community-owned firms, will

be prominent. So, too, will hybrid business models such as profit/nonprofit and public/ private hybrids. Cooperation will moderate competition. Investments will promote import-substitution. In the near futures, social incubators will help entrepreneurs with arranging finance, technical assistance, and creative support. Enterprises of all types will champion the ecological and social as much as the economic. As we move from informal proposals to real, meaningful engagement of the sort required for sustainable creative enterprises, we enable genuine involvement in the development of a sense of place with real creative, cultural and personal connection. Welcome to Proof. What we’re proposing is an innovative space - a club for creatives that will enable great things to happen. We have space for 100 members and stakeholders to start. We will be opening the doors in late spring next year, and we invite and welcome you to join us.

THE PROSPECT OF PROOF IS GENERATIVE

www.proofclub.ca

Proof is an initiative of the Okanagan Institute in association with the CoCo Laboratory and the Rucker Archives