MosaicLab Co

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of joining AMPLIFY's community deliberation on The Intergenerational Divide in Box Hill, Melbourne. My role on the day, alongside Danielle Wood (via video message), was to inform the community on the economics of intergenerational issues. There was a lot of energy, goodwill and views aired (and listened to) from the community on intergenerational issues such as housing, mental health, tax and climate. I’m sure the Amplify team will have more to say on these issues emerging from the community deliberation. But my main takeaways from the day were for policy economists: 1) While our traditional economic analysis tools remain as valid as ever, we need to engage more in a diverse range of policy making processes, including because our traditional tools alone have not always led to action in some critical policy areas. 2) We need to listen more to the community in rooms like these, because unless we understand and respect the diversity and complexity of community views, we’ll never be as influential on policy as we want to be. 3) As has been said in other forms before, if you can’t explain it to the community in simple terms, you probably don’t understand it well enough yourself. Thanks to Georgina Harrisson, Rory Gallagher, Stephen Beverley and the Amplify team for having me along, and for the ongoing support of the Susan McKinnon Foundation. And thanks to my fellow interdisciplinary experts on the day, Danielle Wood, Patrick McGorry AO, Ashleigh Streeter-Jones, Matthew Taylor and Jonathan O'Brien for stimulating and informing the discussions.

We're thrilled to be on the winner's list for the Planning Institute of Australia Awards 🎉 The City of Melbourne team took home the Planning Research Award with partners Jd Consulting and Micromex Research and Consulting, along with the Stakeholder Engagement Award with MosaicLab Co for the People's Panel on Affordable Housing. Our transformation of Southbank Boulevard with T.L.C and Mike Hewson also earned us a Great Place Award. A huge round of applause for all who make our city a destination for progress and innovation 👏

Something inspiring happened in Box Hill yesterday. Over 40 citizens sat down to address the intergenerational divide. We learnt that we have much more in common. Thank you to AMPLIFY for facilitating, & to the participants for sharing your hopes & dreams for our nation.

The final day of a deliberation process with a community panel….. they are equal parts relief and inspiration. Relief that I’ve (co) supported and guided the panel to finalise a set of recommendations to inform their councils next four years focus, they are proud of. Inspiration at the gratitude and sense of achievement panel members feel from the experience. Yesterday the Community Panel of City of Greater Dandenong handed over their 6 recommendations to council. 🙌🏻 The most moving final reflection in our closing circle was ‘Pete’s’ who was so grateful that a group of culturally diverse people could respectfully and peacefully discuss and deliberate on issues that matter to them with open hearts and minds….We all nodded in recognition of what he was saying. #democracy #communityengagement #citizenspanel MosaicLab Co

We are live in Box Hill, Melbourne finding uncommon ground in the intergenerational divide. This morning, our community members heard from a range of experts: -Professor Patrick McGorry AO, the founder of Orygen and Professor of Youth Mental Health; - Matthew Taylor Taylor, the Director Intergeneration Program at the Centre for Independent Studies; - Jason Tabarias Program Director at the Susan McKinnon Foundation; - Ashleigh Streeter-Jones Streeter-Jones the founder of Raise Our Voice Australia; and - Jonathan O'Brien from YIMBY Melbourne With Danielle Wood still to come, this group are deep in dialogue about the issues underpinning the intergenerational divide. Thanks to all our experts and the incredible members of the Box Hill community for their time and engagement. This group has found they have more that binds them than divides them. All brilliantly facilitated by Keith Greaves FIAP2, Lyndal Mackintosh and Gus Richardson from MosaicLab Co.

The beginning of the Council term is always exciting and filled with so much potential. This week, I'm really enjoying the opportunity to spend time with our newly elected Council and my executive team sharing ideas and planning the legacy this Council will leave for our amazing Wyndham community.

"How do we prepare for tomorrow while being fair to customers today?" Our Community Advisory Panel tackled this vital question. Over five days, 45 people deliberated and made informed recommendations based on the comprehensive information provided to them. Find out about the process in our new video. For more information on the Price and Service plan, visit https://lnkd.in/g-8vZREX

The 2024 PIA Victoria Awards for Planning Excellence winners were announced at the Awards ceremony on November 15. This prestigious event, held in Melbourne at The Windsor Hotel, was booked out and brought together over 230 planners and allied professionals to celebrate outstanding achievements in planning. Twenty-eight judges had the difficult task of choosing the winning planning and built environment projects and people, from over 50 nominations across 10 categories. The Judges selected 10 winners and awarded 13 commendations which was testament to the calibre of nominations this year. The PIA Victoria President's Award and People's Choice Award was also announced at the ceremony. Congratulations to all our award and commendation winners! 🏆 Once again thank you to our generous sponsors: Public Sector People URPS Suburban Rail Loop Authority Hansen Partnership Development Victoria Thanks also goes to our co-convener team of Michelle W. MPIA and Oscar Yencken MPIA. To read the full list of citations click the link 👇 https://lnkd.in/e82f6yFD See the Awards Ceremony pictures via https://lnkd.in/eTw3eRrr Congratulations to: Nivedita Ravindran, Karen D'Mello, Cogency, NGH, SGS Economics and Planning, Wyndham City Council, Frankston City Council, LatStudios, Niche Studio: Planning and Urban Design, Hygge Property, City of Melbourne, City of Whittlesea, Colleen Lazenby, Department of Transport and Planning, Plan2Place Consulting, ASPECT Studios, Hansen Partnership, Royce Millar, CoFutures..., Corangamite Shire Council, Includesign , Mosaiclab, Yarra Ranges Council, GovPartners, Tract Consultants, OneMap, Murrindindi Shire Council, Urban Enterprise, Arup, Banyule City Council and more...

I have been organizing a book club since March, and yesterday, we finally reached our final session! In this club, we read Facilitating Deliberation: A Practical Guide and discussed both the challenges and possibilities of incorporating its principles into Japanese culture. Our discussions were lively, touching on ideas like, “This part could be effective if we adopt it as it is,” or “Perhaps this section would need some refinement to better suit our cultural context. < My Key Takeaways > ・In Japan, we still don’t have a strong culture of deliberation, and unlike what’s described in the book, there are rarely spaces where we can dedicate enough time or budget to this process. We all admired the degree to which deliberation is supported in other countries. ・Since Australian culture tends to be more individualistic than Japanese culture, we felt the need to adapt certain aspects of workshop design to suit our context better. ・The convergence process described in the book was impressively thorough and offered many insights. In my experience, high-context cultures like Japan often emphasize divergence in facilitation, while low-context cultures tend to allocate more time to convergence. ・We clearly see the value and necessity of having facilitators lead this process, as organizations like Mosaic Lab do. Personally, I'd love to contribute my skills and experience to create a similar movement in Japan. Currently, this initiative is mostly led by university professors and others in high social positions, but I feel it would be also beneficial to establish a new approach. Could someone start an organization like Mosaic Lab or Involve here in Japan? Or is it up to me to create one myself? 　 This time, many participants were also professional facilitators, which allowed for deep and insightful learning together. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us!