L3 is relaunching into a fully online model
It came as no surprise to our partners, friends, and stakeholders when we made the announcement that our second workshop, originally scheduled for April 29-30 in Halifax, was instead to be delivered entirely remotely. Rather than two full days of programming, we delivered the Atlantic Online workshop as three half-days from April 28 to 30, using a combination of Zoom, Google Suite, and Mural to replicate an in-person experience.
The intense three days of presentations, breakout groups, polling, note-taking, and "unconference" sessions were by all accounts a complete success. They were, however, still constrained insofar as they were meant recreate the in-person events, rather than executing something that was designed entirely for an online format.
Back at “the office,” which was now a disparate collection of L3 staff member's bedrooms, living rooms, home offices, and occasionally back patios, the team put their heads together and determined that continuing forward with the five workshop series, even online, was not the best way to respond to the needs of the L3 Community. Workshops 1 (Toronto - Presented by DUCA Impact Lab) and 2 (Atlantic Online) succeeded in bringing forward vital stakeholder knowledge which continues to inform our knowledge products and our event and workshop design, but moving ahead would see a total shift in how we would deliver services to our Community members.
In L3's final 10 months, it is shifting to a completely virtual experience, in which L3 Community members can engage in several distinct, often intersecting ways.
L3 is launching two different Streams for L3 Community members to join when they would like to take an active role in building solutions that lead to more and better SABRs in their communities and contexts. These Streams are a natural continuation from the first two workshops (of the original five cross-Canada workshops that were planned pre-COVID-19) held in January and April 2020, and are achieving the same results the project always aimed for, but doing so by leveraging the full extent of what online, virtual capacity offers us.
Sneak preview of this week's Relaunch event
On June 11, 2020 at 2pm EDT, the L3 Community and those who wish to learn more about social acquisitions and emerging business succession and recovery solutions are invited to attend a 90-minute session to get more details about the two new Streams, participate in some engaging social innovation activities that will spark creativity, and as always, forge powerful new connections with Canadian professionals who are leading the charge in Social Acquisitions for Business Recovery (SABRs). Registration can be completed here.
Can't wait for the relaunch? Here are the high level details of what we're announcing on Thursday!
The L3 Design Stream
The Design Stream can be seen as the initiative-focused successor of the original five workshop series. The Design Stream will support the development of initiatives (be they products, services, processes, or programs) that contribute to building systemic support for what we call Social Acquisitions for Business Recovery (SABR)* in Canada. The Stream is composed of design groups, each with their own focus area, going through a guided virtual design process at their own pace. The Legacy Leadership Lab staff will be supporting each design group with activities and research, but the ideation, prototyping, and piloting processes ultimately rest with the members of each group.
L3 and its workshop participants have arrived at opportunity areas for intervening in the overlapping small business, social finance, and social and co-operative enterprise systems after collectively doing some system sense-making in earlier workshops. We were able to plant the seeds of some initial design groups around some of these opportunity areas during Workshop 2 - FRAME (both Atlantic Online and Waterloo Region). We also had several Community members present initiatives they were already working on; these can also become part of the design stream should a group form around one of those initiatives.
People who are looking to contribute to building initiatives should participate in the Design Stream, in one or multiple design groups.
There are a few different reasons to join a Design Stream group:
- you or your organization would like to develop a product, service, program, or initiative;
- you feel like you have valuable expertise to contribute to a Design group;
- you would like to be involved in prototyping, testing, or remixing a product, service, program, or initiative.
The L3 Activation Stream
The Activation Stream is the movement-building successor of the original five workshop series, with the aim of raising interest and awareness in Canada for building systemic support for social acquisitions and social purpose conversions. The Activation Stream brings potential new members in to the L3 Community and orients them to the work they can engage in within the L3 Community.
This Stream organizes L3 Community members who want to mobilize their networks to promote the SABR solution in their own contexts. Activation Stream members also locate and connect with individuals and organizations that should be at the design table for products, services and initiatives; and create opportunities for sharing products, services and interventions with their networks.
The L3 staff will run focused events and provide resources to help Activation members get the word out about L3 and the systemic support we that the L3 Community is collectively developing. Our vision is for Activation Stream Members to be leaders in fostering a SABR movement throughout the country.
L3 Community members who believe in the SABR solution and who are talented network-builders or social and community development leaders would go through this Stream.
You might choose to join this Stream if...
- you or your organization would like to encourage your community to embrace SABRs as a viable solution for their business sector;
- you are a Design Stream member that also wants to activate a broader strategy for your community and context.
The L3 Community
L3 Community members who don't wish to join a stream can still participate in meaningful ways. You don't have to be part of a Stream to be considered an L3 Community member. Involvement can range from participating in L3 Design or Activation Streams, supporting participants of those streams at various points in their development, attending L3 Community events, developing or sharing social acquisition tools and resources over L3 communication channels, or simply following along with L3 and L3 members’ work. Anyone who is involved with L3 is a part of the L3 Community.
The L3 Community as a whole exists to assemble and activate a national community of professionals and organizations that will support and advance the SABR systemic strategy and solutions.
The L3 Community is an open community made up of
- any participants in the L3 Activation and/or Design Streams;
- any professionals or organizations that participate in L3 Community events;
- any other professionals and organizations that are involved in activating and enabling more and better conversions of conventional enterprises into co-operative and social enterprises. For a full list of stakeholder groups impacted by L3’s work, click here.
Join us on Thursday June 11, 2020
For more details on each Stream and the L3 Community, how and why to join a Stream, and a deeper dive into social acquisitions in Canada, join us at 2 pm Eastern Daylight Time for our Online Relaunch event. Registration can be completed here.
About Legacy Leadership Lab (L3)
L3 is an 18-month initiative by the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience, funded by the Government of Canada’s Investment Readiness program. We are leading online workshops and events to help build expert-driven solutions for Canada’s transitioning small business community. The L3 Community is developing and activating market interventions and prototypes that allow conventional and social finance players, business service providers, and community leaders to facilitate social acquisitions of existing businesses in their own towns and contexts.
About Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR)
WISIR is a research institute at the University of Waterloo’s School of Environment, Enterprise and Development committed to generating trans- and inter-disciplinary knowledge about social innovations and the social innovation process (the dynamics of learning, adaptation and resilience). Our approach is to pursue collaborative research and projects that bridge University of Waterloo departments, involve researchers from around the world, and engage those beyond academia. We seek to mobilize this knowledge through a range of new curriculum offerings and training opportunities - both within and outside of a university setting.
*Social Acquisitions for Business Recovery (SABR) is the term we use to describe the practice of converting a conventional enterprise into a co-operative or social enterprise or another social purpose form in order to revive and sustain it through an unplanned disruption like the COVID-19 crisis or a business succession/ownership transition.