Hosting a hub

To be a hub host, you may want to think about the following:

1.Forming a hosting team and exploring individual needs and roles;

2.Formulating an intention for your hub and the invitation for the community;

3.Organizing space, place and practicalities;

4.High-level designing for the coming weeks/months;

5.Connecting with other hub hosts.

1. Form a hosting team and exploring individual needs and roles

When you decide to host a hub, it’s often helpful to invite others to do this with you. In our experience, it is often easier if you divide and share hosting responsibilities between several people. In some hubs the participants agree to rotate leadership during the process.

Take the time to explore as a team: what is the (time) commitment each of you can give, what are your individual intentions for this hub, what are your needs/strengths/worries, etc. Who wants to take on what role?

As a hub host, the key roles might include:

·Convening, organizing logistics (dates/times, technology, refreshments, snacks, etc.)

·Communication: writing invitation, communicating with hub participants...

·Harvesting: documenting your process and outcomes

·Hosting/facilitation of the meetings

2. Formulating an intention for your hub and the invitation for the community

·Intention: Set the hub's intention, i.e. “Why are we doing this?”, with your hosting team.

·Invitation: Outline as clearly as possible what you are offering, and what people are being invited into (the hub's intention). Add where the meetings will take place, when, who else may be participating, what they can expect (or not). You can also direct them to the online u.lab introductory videos and registration page.

Please note: each person in your hub should register individually for u.lab on the edX platform.

3. Organizing space, place and practicalities

Make sure the place where you meet is suitable in size and access, and free from disturbing outside interference or noise. Should you wish to stream the live sessions, check whether the internet connection is strong and reliable and that you have the necessary equipment (e.g. projector, screen, sound) for everyone to be able to see and hear the live session.

Set-up of room

Depending on the number of participants and the available space, there are 2 set-ups that help to invite a deep quality of conversation and listening into the group:

· Circle (of chairs or pillows), with for example some flowers in the middle

· Cabaret style (small tables with +/- 5 chairs each)

4.High-level designing for the coming weeks/months

Process-design

Throughout the process, hubs go through the different phases of the U. The following could help you plan your hub meetings.

·Present day until u.lab begins: Co-initiating phase: When you first gather, create the conditions (time, space, etc.) that allow people to get to know each other. At this stage, hub participants may find it helpful to share their individual intentions and questions for the upcoming u.lab journey. This may be the ideal opportunity to introduce a few of the course concepts e.g. focusing on ourselves and our need to change rather than how we can change others, hearing from all voices equally, the art and relevance of deep listening. We also recommend exploring whether a collective or shared intention(s) exists, or could be developed. Some participants may join simply to learn and observe alongside peers.

·September 19th - First live session:Co-initiating and Co-sensing

·Co-sensing phase: The source of all great leadership is the capacity to listen, to others, to ourselves and what the world calls us to do, participants will be invited to go to the 'edges' of a system of their choice and apply deep listening and sensing practices to begin to sow seeds for the co-presencing phase and eventual prototyping. To this end, you could organize activities such as learning journeys, stakeholder interviews, or shadowing practices. Perhaps emphasize that these activities are not necessarily to gather factual data, but rather 'deep data': an experience of the system from the perspective of various actors within it. Then, since everyone in your hub will be applying similar practices – though not necessarily on the same challenge, issue, or system – the hub can be a place for people to come back, share and make sense of what they have experienced with others.

·October 16th - Second live session:Co-presencing

·This will probably be the phase that feels the most unfamiliar to the participants, particularly when they are eager to jump to solutions and implementing ideas. After having leaned into the challenge or system in question, and deeply explored the field and reality that your participants are dealing with, this is a time to practice letting go and allowing the deeper sources of knowing to emerge. In addition to creating this space in your hub for stillness practice, journaling, and reflection, you might also want to take some time to explore what this phase requires. Feeling into the questions "Who am I?" and "What is my work?" is essential here, as well as creating a safe space in which people feel they can surrender to and trust the process. What is this reality calling on them to be and/or do? What action is required from them, and where might they need to let go and leave room for things to unfold? Passing through the eye of the needle at the base of the U is a challenging time for many, where difficult personal choices may have to be faced and made. In a time of being ‘stuck’, earlier work in sensing comes to fruition, and may be deepened through for example SPT, sol- time in nature, journaling and lots of dialogue.

·Crystallizing phase: After you have collectively practised letting go and letting come, it is time to help each other crystalize what has come to the surface. Because presencing is the act of connecting to the source of the whole, your participants may feel that what arises for them is not yet all that concrete and relatively divergent. Therefore, the crystallizing phase serves to collect the gems from the presencing phase, reconnect to your intention, and formulate the required next steps to manifest the future you want to create. To that end, you can host practices for participants to get clear on what their next steps might be, such as dialogue walks, 3D-mapping, sculpting, journaling, or SPT practices.

·November 14th - Third live session - Prototyping

·Prototyping phase: Now that your next steps are materializing, you take small actions to generate feedback on your ideas. You can facilitate 0.8 prototyping by first creating space for participants work on their prototypes. This is a good point to reinforce the concepts of Design Thinking presented in the course, and facilitate methods for assisting participants to generate their prototypes, through modelling for example. Feedback may be generated on early prototypes in your hub, for instance by hosting a prototype market, creating role-plays, or using 3D-mapping to make visual representations of ideas.

·Continue co-evolving your prototyping process: Continue the iterative process of next steps, feedback from the system and the universe, next iteration, etc. As a hosting team, you can continue to offer space and time for sharing and learning after the formal ‘course has stopped (no more new materials. For example by continuing coaching circles, keeping participants connected to their intention, and co-evolving the prototyping activities. Participants may wish to follow the course more than once. This happens a lot and this illustrates how u.lab is a lifelong learning.You can go through the process again and again and deepen the learning and insights. In this phase, challenging decisions for personal change may emerge and need to be addressed and implemented over a considerable period of time as iterated prototypes gradually emerge in the crystallizing phase.

·December 12th - Final live session - bringing the community back together and sharing impact.

Some hubs organize short introductory- or taster sessions in the months preceding the u.lab launch. This is a gathering where potential u.lab participants can 'experience' what u.lab is and what the intention of the hub is. We encourage hub hosts to do more than information sharing, but to also integrate the 3 movements in the design and use some of the practices that u.lab has to offer. See Chapter 10 for an example of a design and a story from Canada.

5. Connecting with other hub hosts