Suprises abound at NS GovLab

NS GovLab
2 min readMay 4, 2018

--

By Christine Hamblin, NS GovLab Fellow

It was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I filled in my application to NS GovLab. I was thrilled with the idea of being involved in identifying ways to improve the quality of life for Nova Scotia seniors; but I was worried about what Innovation meant in the Government context.

I’m an experienced innovator: I have a Master’s in Technology Entrepreneurship & Innovation and have continued my study of Innovation Management ever since. Innovation is fast, creative, and built on talking to actual people in the community, uncovering their problems and needs, then solving them. From my experience, Government is slow, bureaucratic, stagnant even, and bases decisions on piles of data neatly tabled in Excel Spreadsheets. I was hesitant, but submitted my application anyway. Even once I was selected as a Fellow, I was still questioning how this was going to go down.

When the Fellows arrived at the initial 3-day retreat, we were given a vague outline of what was to come. But those three days were made up of chaos, creativity, knowledge-sharing, and fun. This wasn’t Government using Innovation as jargon for positive PR purposes, it was real Innovation for social solutions!

The room was full of people from diverse backgrounds, with different viewpoints and experiences, both challenging each other and collaborating to accomplish something different. Through the process, we divided ourselves into teams based on the topic that interested us most.

Over the weeks since the retreat, our teams have been focused on researching our respective topics: identifying real social issues and removing inaccurate assumptions. To do this, we’ve done academic research, spoken with local and remote experts, and interviewed real community members, to accurately define our problem.

When we last reconvened we discussed what we’ve learned and were told to uncover the systems behind it.

In our next in-person session, we’re going to start prototyping something… we have no idea what… but hopefully, with a little Design Thinking and a lot of luck, something new and innovative will come out. If not, we have a tremendous amount of data for someone’s neatly tabled Excel Spreadsheets.

More about Christine Hamblin

Day Job: Product & Growth Lead at ALC’s Innovation Outpost

Other Hats: Single Mom, Mentor, Book Addict, Problem Solver, International Adventurer

Claim to fame: I was the Best (Wo)Man at my Ex-Husband’s wedding.

Christine is an experienced Product and Service Design practitioner, diving into any opportunity to make a difference by developing, testing, and implementing solutions to customer problems. Christine leads high-performing, multi-disciplinary teams, and brings customers’ perspectives on the journey with her, creatively overcoming any barriers to deliver quality end results for her customers. Things Christine is never without: Post-it’s, Sharpies, creativity, and positive energy.

--

--

NS GovLab
NS GovLab

Written by NS GovLab

A social innovation lab focused on population aging in Nova Scotia, Canada. @NSGovLab

No responses yet