Be visual. Be creative. Be iterative. Be diverse (multidisciplinary). Be human centered.
That’s one approach (from iip/create) to the design of design labs, a term that is interpreted in a lot of ways. In some cases, it’s used to describe a long-term engagement, in others a one-day workshop. The best overview I’ve seen is the January 2012 report, “Change Lab/Design Lab for Social Innovation,” by Frances Westley, Sean Geobey and Kirsten Robinson.
I looked around for video documentation of design lab workshops: diverse and knowledgeable people sharing and stimulating each other, in a creative environment, sometimes in response to a focus question or provocateur. Here are a couple of examples. If you know of others, please chime in.
“Finding the transcendent interest” is a video from Insight Labs, working with TEDActive:
Union Square Ventures brought together internet thought leaders (Yochai Benkler, Lawrence Lessig, John Perry Barlow, Tim O’Reilly, Clay Shirky, Beth Noveck, James Boyle, Tiffiniy Cheng, Steven Johnson, among others) for the April 2012 Hacking Society workshop. In this segment, Fred Wilson asks: “Is it true that a pure network would not have a leader?”
