Systems (just) in Time - EduEx 2020
Graphic Recording
“Cultures are conversation networks, and a culture becomes another when you change the conversation network that makes and defines it.” Humberto Maturana
In the second half of 2020 I worked with a team of learning consultants to explore systems innovation learning. They engaged on the premise that change includes everyone and systems can be learned anywhere. The team was composed by Deborah Rim Moiso, a learning designer, facilitator and trainer, member of the IAF - International Association of Facilitators and of the ClimateKIC’s ClimateCoaches network; Eleanor Saunders, a coach, trainer and learning designer, and finally Heiko Specking, an advocate for transformation with over 30 years of experience in the field of sustainability, with particular expertise connecting the broad spectrum of philanthropy engagement with the varieties of social-environmental viable investment practices.
The challenges they set out to explore are the ones currently faced in the learning arena of systems innovation:
- Complexity of topic and application, and the missing understanding of trans-contextuality - Training and education in systems thinking and systems innovation is still at an academic and learning tool stage, but not yet mainstreamed or tactile
- Systems innovation teaching takes time, yet often learning is time-bound to the setting of a workshop or lecture. A deeper understanding and application of the content unfolds in time.
- Systems are so important to the change required by the climate crisis, and locally by Transformation in Time, that systems learning cannot be only for those working in the field, but also needs to spread out to include your kids, your grandma, everyone.
In order to tackle these challenges and move systems learning into a novel space, they carried out a series o experiments to work with the ‘unheard voices’ in the climate change narrative: the very young and the very old, with an aim to see if they would engage in a systems conversation without any formal training.
Timelapse of the live graphic recording
I had the pleasure to be the graphic record of those experimental meeting, and after the visual harvesting they printed them as A5 postcards as a memento for everyone involved in the project. It was an incredibly interesting job and an amazing moment of closeness and community during a difficult year.
