The Future of Work, Reimagined

By Claire Harris

The first Changemaker Hub event was on Friday 13 November in Dickson village, Canberra. The Changemaker Career and Craft Hub provides an opportunity to be part of local community gatherings, including workshops and a Craft and Catch-up zone. These events are also part of DESIGN Canberra Festival and are supported by the City Renewal Authority.

The topic for this workshop: Reimagining the Future of Work. It was an honour to receive a Welcome to Country from Ngunnawal Elder, Aunty Violet Sheridan. She spoke about her deep passion for future generations, particularly mothers, to be engaged with meaningful work.

Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Violet Sheridan offering a Welcome to Country.

Tim Mahlberg (Connector / Catalyst / Changemaker and Future of Work researcher) led a walk and talk tour around Dickson courtyards exploring themes including how we work and who we are in our local community. He encouraged changemakers to think about how it is possible to find inspiration, connection and empowerment in unlikely places. And he spoke of the ‘village atmosphere’ and the crossroads (where you can meet others), the garden (a chance to enjoy beauty despite the complexity around us), the sandpit (adding play to our lives).

He also loves how serendipity can be facilitated by us all, including when we put our ideas or desires ‘out there’ with intention.

At one point, as Tim was talking about the benefits of play in our lives, children burst through the group chasing bubbles!

There was lots of conversation and sharing of ideas among the group, which was great to see. And onlookers wondered what was going on! Dickson is a place where people mostly walk around fast, fitting in shopping and chores around their busy schedules.

Tim Mahlberg speaking at the Changemaker Hub event.

Conversation and connection at the Changemaker Hub.

Walking around the Dickson courtyards, exploring concepts of reimagining how we work.

Following the walking tour, everyone joined Karina Dugard, Leadership Coach and Career Strategist from Evoke Change, for a workshop. We explored themes of managing uncertainty, how we want to feel at work, our innate superpowers and our driving values.

A short exercise with a partner — where both exchanged stories of what they did in the morning and reflected back on the other’s natural strengths — was how Karina showed us the power of sharing stories with someone attuned to listening for our natural abilities to uncover our ‘superpowers’.

[Personally it’s been very interesting for me to learn from Karina that often we are terrible at understanding where we excel and the strenghts that are incredibly valuable to others. Because they become so naturally to us, we don’t see them!]

Karina Dugard, Executive Coach and Career Strategist from Evoke Change, speaking at the Changemaker Hub event.

We often don’t think about them as we go about our daily lives but values are guiding principles for our jobs and careers and community activities. If we aren’t in alignment with them we will feel off no matter how ‘good’ a job looks on paper. Karina’s card sorting exercise was a brilliant way of tuning in to the top two most important words on the ping pong table (yes check out these permanent features in Dickson, get paddles and balls from the library if you want to play!).

There was also time for self-reflection as well as sharing with others, and it seemed to me that everyone enjoyed taking a bit of time out to focus on themselves.

After the workshop, many wandered over to the Craft and Catch-up zone to make a Brave Bot for kids at Calvary hospital. These Brave Bots are programmed with bravery… after being created on a domino 3D-printed using sustainable vege-plastic (by David from Game Candy at TROVE Canberra).

Come along to the next Changemaker Career and Craft Hub event on the 20 November. The workshops with the theme ‘Be the Change’ will start at 10am. So book your tickets here on TryBooking (part of DESIGN Canberra Festival).

And the Craft and Catch-up zone is open from 10:00am-12:30pm so drop by and make a Brave Bot.