The Prairie Hub

Co-creating the Hub

2008-04-24T20:49:00.007-05:00

On April 4, 2008 a group of 9 people met to co-create and envision the Prairie Hub. These are the questions that guided our discussion...

What attracts you to the Hub idea?
What is your vision for the Hub?
What do you see as your role in developing this community?
What practice can you contribute?
What design elements should be in the Prairie Hub?
Where does the Hub belong?
What values or ideas can you share toward the Hub's development?

Here are the outcomes of our Discovery Cafe.

We desire to use the Prairie Hub as a conduit to give back to the community.
We envision a physically and financially accessible, safe space for all genders, sexual orientations and political beliefs.
We will create an environment that encourages migration and the injection of new people and perspectives.
The Hub will serve as real-world 'classroom' for experiential learning. A place and community in which we can take risks and test the waters.
The Hub will attract a diverse membership representing fields including planning, design, business, visual and performing arts, community development.

There was additional dialogue around funding sources, incubation, location, building design, technology, membership, and so on. We hope to build on these ideas at the next Hub gathering to take place in May.

Join Us

2008-03-21T18:03:00.001-05:00

This is an invitation to you and anyone you know interested in the Prairie Hub – an exciting endeavour to support and empower young people in Winnipeg to realize imaginative initiatives for a radically better world.

THE BEST WAY TO YOUR FUTURE IS TO CREATE IT. There is a true DIY (do-it-yourself) mind-set at the heart of the Hub concept. With this in mind, the Prairie Hub Cultivation Team is initiating an opportunity for discovery. It’s time to gather together young emerging innovators and great mentors to cultivate, collaborate and innovate for good.

You are invited to attend a Discovery Café to explore the Hub and its potential here in Winnipeg on Friday, April 4 at 5:30pm. The Discovery Café will take place @ Mondragon Coffeehouse & Bookstore (91 Albert Street in the Exchange District between Bannatyne & McDermot Aves).

The Discovery Café is a dialogue and visioning opportunity facilitated by the World Cafe model. Why this model? It is free-flowing, informal, super creative, and fun. It helps us explore questions that matter and encourages the use of our imaginations to grow the concept of the Hub. A few of the questions that can help us frame our dialogue toward breakthrough thinking include: what attracts you to the Hub idea? what is your vision for the Hub? what do you see as your role in developing this community? what practice can you contribute?

Let’s HUB! Please let us know by email (thehub@inspiredpractice.com) if you intend to join us.

Warmly,

Kristle, Leon, Maggie, Tyler & Krys
the Prairie Hub Cultivation Team

Presenting the Prairie Hub

2008-03-16T23:33:00.005-05:00

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Discovery Cafe

2008-02-29T16:45:00.003-06:00

Check back here next week for details on a Discovery Cafe to explore the Hub and its potential here in Winnipeg. It will take place in mid-March at a location in the Exchange District. It's time to gather together young emerging innovators and great mentors to cultivate, collaborate and innovate for good. All you need to bring with you is your creativity and imagination!

London Members Say

2008-02-29T16:27:00.002-06:00

Check out what the London members have to say about the impact the Hub has had on their enterprises and lives. There is nothing better than hearing it from the horse's mouth!

Getting to Maybe

2008-01-25T11:56:00.000-06:00

Last June, Brenda Zimmerman (co-author of the book Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed) came to Winnipeg to speak to the real life stories of social innovation at home and around the world. The book, as she described it, is 'for ordinary people who want to make connections that will create extraordinary outcomes'.

This is how the world is changed...
(excerpt from Chapter 2 of Getting to Maybe)

Support vision, people with a strong sense of calling, and emergent possibilities.
Support intense interactions, networking and information exchange among those who have the potential to tip a system in a new direction.
Remove barriers to innovation.
Speak passionately about the things that really matter to you.
Practice expressing your vision and calling in a way that helps you attract others of like mind and commitment.
Watch for the simple rules that sustain and hold in place the existing sysstem, and work to understand the attractors that will need to change and be confronted in the process of social transformation.
Expect that when real change starts, your own interactions as well as those of others will change. Expect this to feel risky.
Support social innovators in getting to maybe by helping them articulate their passion and commitment. But don't force their passion and commitment into the boxes of operational goals and logic models.
Watch and listen for those who articulate a vision that you share, who are acting on a calling that inspires you. Watch for individuals from whom you can learn. Watch for groups of fellow travellers with whom you can journey.
Take the plunge, prepared to learn - to be disappointed, to be energized, to be up and down, but most of all to learn - about what works for you, what engages you, what matters to you, where you feel you can make a difference.
Allow for imperfections - in yourself and others.

Our Offering

2008-01-20T11:38:00.000-06:00

We’ve borrowed from the best of a friendly café, independent cinema, professional office & the comforts of home… to create new kinds of work and social space.

Attracting. Unusual talent with good ideas for the world
Incubating. Innovators by leveraging knowledge, capital & networks
Prototyping. Radical innovations
Venturing. Market facing opportunities for inter-disciplinary talent

Marrying Your Values with Your Work

2008-01-20T11:22:00.000-06:00

What would it be like if you could marry your values with your work?

Courage. A culture that supports the risk-taking involved in leading through doing.
Conviviality. An enabling organization that thrives on generosity of spirit and interdependence.
Imagination. Seeing things not as they are, but as they could be.

Social Innovation

2007-10-04T14:21:00.001-05:00

Social innovation....what is it exactly? So as not to get lost in terminology (which can often happen) the simplest definition of a social innovation is an idea that works for the public good. Social innovation refers to new ideas that resolve existing social, cultural, economic and environmental challenges for the benefit of people and planet.

Social innovation:
- evolves from new combinations or hybrids of
existing elements
- is rooted in a process of cutting across
organizational, sectoral & disciplinary boundaries
- creates compelling new relationships between
previously separate individuals & groups

things to do. ideas to realize.

2007-10-04T10:57:00.000-05:00

the kinds of people drawn to The Hub are those
working across different fields

designing places and spaces
advancing corporate responsibility
deploying art for social change
creating sustainable product design
empowering participatory dialogue
enhancing communications
rethinking international development
promoting health and wellbeing

An Opportunity: for Winnipeg and young people

2007-10-04T10:49:00.000-05:00

young, ambitious people here and everywhere

need a place to connect, build community, initiate ideas, mobilize themselves and pursue new ventures
Winnipeg has a tremendous opportunity to develop highly resourced, flexible and safe spaces
it is in these spaces that established and young social innovators can become empowered to dialogue, take risks, collaborate and test out ideas