By Nancy Mattes, Director, Social Prosperity Wood Buffalo
Recently the University of Waterloo opened the new Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre. Special guest Stephen Hawking was treated like a rock star and everyone marveled at the state-of-the-art facility. Without putting anything inside, the building alone cost $160 million! That’s because it was built with the most stringent scientific controls against vibration, temperature fluctuations, and electromagnetic radiation. A lot of care went into the design and construction of this building to create the right conditions to spark conversation and collaboration between researchers from across disciplines, and attract the world’s top scientific minds to Waterloo.
Last week a group of people from Fort McMurray visited Ontario to attend the Tamarack Communities Collaborating Institute. While they were in town, I arranged tours of shared and creative spaces in Toronto and Waterloo. We visited places like the Centre for Social Innovation, MaRs Discovery District, the Communitech Hub, the Accelerator Centre and Velocity (a student residence for young entrepreneurs). These facilities were inspirational, funky, friendly, smart, open and functional. In short, they were all great spaces that inspired innovation and creative thinking. Who wouldn’t want to work in any one of them?
The Social Prosperity Wood Buffalo project has always had at its core the idea that change must happen. For some time now we’ve been working on a change agenda and developing change agents in the community. Recently, I watched a cool video about change management. It outlines a formula to describe when the conditions are right for change:
D (dissatisfaction) x V (vision) x F (first actions) > R (resistance) = change is possible (Watch the video to learn more about this formula)
In June 2012, Social Prosperity Wood Buffalo identified shared space and services as a priority strategy. If the nonprofit sector in Wood Buffalo is dissatisfied with their current work spaces, we need a transformational vision that is big and bold to bring about the change we want to see. Russell Thomas was one of the participants on the trip to Ontario. Over the course of his visit, he began documenting his learning by drawing images. He drew several inspirational pictures, but the one that has become my transformational vision is here:
Why shouldn’t the nonprofit sector also have a great work place that provides the right conditions to spark conversation and collaboration and attract top talent to Wood Buffalo? The nonprofit sector contributes to quality of life and is instrumental in increasing social prosperity. Ken Chapman (who also came to Ontario) told me that businesses succeed in thriving communities. Again, the nonprofit sector contributes to thriving and sustainable communities. The entire community has something to gain from a nonprofit sector that is connected, collaborative and able to anticipate and address emerging community issues in Wood Buffalo.
Let’s give them the tools and spaces they need for success!
