#LifehackLabs – Week 2 – Tool up, Team up

We asked our #lifehacklabs Co- Lead Chelsea Robinson to give us a run down on what happened in week 2.

 

If week one was about downloading information and new ideas and new thinking around wellbeing and technology, week two was about tooling up: from a process perspective it was a time of learning new approaches, learning how to go about making something. Week two was a real balance of learning and creation- you could really empathise with the sense of urgency and excitement that the group had around putting their ideas and excitement into practise, but at the same time it was important to stay on track of learning so these ideas bubbling to the surface could really be fuelled in the long run.

 

Week two was also the week that we started thinking about who we might like to work with. The group was encouraged to think about what a team might look like and we had a  big discussion around what makes a good team and what matters to organising a team well. By the end of the week we were starting to talk more seriously about who we could actually work with.

In the first few days we began to open up the conversation around design thinking and simultaneously learnt more about the areas people wanted to work on. We looked at what kind of questions might we ask and what we wanted to find the answers to, and tried putting those questions through design processes to learn more about the issues at hand.

By Wednesday we were ready to put our design into practice. We spent most of the day focused on prototyping- the idea of prototyping was new to some but everyone loved trying it out. We started with a pile of straws, paperclips, balloons, toilet rolls and ended up building crazy ideas to help each other- we built superheroes out of balloons and beach scenes made out of paper to try and help people to relax. We learnt more about open questions and how to empathise with a person that has a problem. Once you have the empathy you can begin to imagine what kinds of things might make a difference to them and their situation.

 

On Thursday we worked with Terry Fleming from the University of Auckland, who has been heavily involved with blending wellbeing, psychology and internet games. We learnt about how fast technology changes and how academia often cant keep up; but also that academia and research help all interventions to be more insightful and evidence based. We were inspired by the idea that we could bring together the fast pace of technology and startup ventures with the rigour and depth of scientific research.

Friday was a whole day dedicated to starting to think really closely about what people wanted to work on and why. As facilitators we took the group through a process where we ran Open Space in the morning, which involved the group coming up with ten topic areas so that they could figure out which of those areas might become their project. By Friday afternoon the whole room was sitting in little huddles, some bigger than others, discussing what might be possible for the second half of their labs experience.

Looking back over the week we could tell people were getting tired and yet people would still be at the office at the end of the day and well into the night, reflecting on what had happened that day and working out a plan to move forward- you could see the real dedication and the care from everyone. Its amazing to see everyone committing to such a busy time of full immersion, supporting each other while also juggling jobs and families; finding the space in their lives to give a huge chunk of time and energy to make Lifehack Labs possible.