Gillian Sudlow
Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century ...

In Part I of this post, [Dr. Thomas Carey] offered reflections on the discussion paper Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce prepared for Fall 2024 consultations led by the Government of Canada’s Minister of Workplace Development. Those reflections were based on our experiences in the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, fostering collaborations with workplace and higher education partners to advance employee-led innovation in Canada.

This follow-up post complements those previous reflections with insights specific to another emerging focal point for our current collaborations within Canada and beyond: Developing a distinctive role for Canada in Workplace Innovation Skills for Industry 5.0.

Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce (Part II—Industry 5.0)
Gillian Sudlow
Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century ...

In this three-part post, [Dr. Thomas Carey offers his] reflections on the discussion paper Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce prepared for Fall 2024 consultations led by the Government of Canada’s Minister of Workplace Development. These reflections are based on experiences by our team within the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, around our mission to foster collaborations with workplace and higher education partners to advance employee-led innovation in Canadian workplaces.

Reflections on Building a Modern 21st Century Workforce (Part I)
Gillian Sudlow
Helping Students Develop the Communication ...

In this post, Rob Danisch, Communication Studies Professor at the University of Waterloo, reflects on the importance of focusing on teaching creative and critical thinking skills to help students become innovation catalysts …

In my case, I’m a Professor of Communication Studies. This means that my classes focus on the kinds of communication practices that can foster or catalyze innovation. It’s not music we are learning to play, at least not necessarily; we are learning an embodied knowledge about our everyday habits of interaction. And I’ve long wanted to teach the embodied communication practices most helpful for creating a culture of learning and catalyzing innovation.

Helping Students Develop the Communication Skills They Need to Be Innovation Catalysts
Gillian Sudlow
Resources for Building a Sustainable ...

Our WINCan team was delighted to be invited to present our current work at the October conference of the EU’s Workplace Innovation Network on The Future of Work. The focus of the presentation was our recent progress on establishing a sustainable Professional Community for Workplace Innovation Catalysts in the Windsor-Essex region, including the larger plan to integrate workplace innovation as a key enabling element in the region’s Innovation Ecosystem.

Resources for Building a Sustainable Professional Community for Workplace Innovation Catalysts
Gillian Sudlow
Case Stories of Workplace Innovation for ...

In Part I of this post, we provided an overview of a WINCan project with our summer research intern – Kyla, an undergrad in the Integrated Sciences program at McMaster University. The aim was to assess the feasibility of creating  case stories to illustrate workplace innovation activities that would be of specific interest to Science students. The previous post discusses source material for illustrative case stories for two of the innovation activities – Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation – in our adaptable learning resources for Understanding and Applying Workplace Innovation.  

We follow up in this post with illustrative case story sources for Design Thinking and Intrapreneurship. We also describe a potential practice case story with which students could engage as a test of their understanding, based on a Design Thinking experiment to improve a biochemistry lab course at McMaster.

Case Stories of Workplace Innovation for Science Students – Part II

Design Thinking: What’s It Good For?

Design Thinking: What’s It Good For?

I use design thinking, in fact IBM's version called IBM Design Thinking, in my work everyday on a very wide range of problem spaces and with a wide variety of organizations. I'm therefore often surprised by the limited view people have of the applicability of design thinking. Many people believe that it is only relevant to the user interface or the "look and feel" of an app or application. Nothing could be further from the truth. These people are essentially conflating and thereby confusing design and design thinking. I explained the difference between the two in my previous post.

Design vs Design Thinking Explained

Design vs Design Thinking Explained

WINCan workplace partner Karel Vrendenberg (IBM Canada) recently wrote an article with Sara Diamond (OCADU) entitled, "There's no innovation agenda without design thinking" which generated significant interest and discussion. One of the commenters wrote, in part, "...functional and aesthetic design is important but the technological innovation and the ability to implement the ideas are even more so. The kind of design the writers are speaking of acts as a discriminator if there are competing products but without the existence of a new product, does not come into play."

Preparing Graduates for Future Knowledge Practices

Preparing Graduates for Future Knowledge Practices

In this post, WINCan’s co-Principal Catalyst, Thomas Carey identifies a key challenge facing post-secondary institutions and their students “how can we better prepare graduates to engage with future learning and knowledge practices?” Through discussions with other higher ed professionals, a solution emerged: “let’s treat our teaching and learning environments as model workplaces, full of experiential learning opportunities for reflective practice on changing knowledge work, practices and roles.”