Inquiry
In a Living Lab, the people of a community are co-researchers, not subjects. The research moves in the cycle at the heart of participatory action research, reflection and action, which a Living Lab lives as see, re-imagine, act: co-explorers see their vitality in dialogue, name the community's themes through the feed-forward form, re-imagine what could be, and choose what to act on.
Creative expression
When words fall short, a co-explorer may share a drawing, movement, sound, or a meaningful object: another way to express, and to inquire. It is studied through dialogue: right after, they are invited to put it into their own words, and their words are the core of what the analysis works from, while the Steward describes what was expressed simply and plainly, never interpreting it from outside. Its meaning is always for its maker to say, and every creation is credited as its maker chooses. Only words ever reach the AI used for analysis; a drawing, an image, a video, or a personal object is never shared with it.
Lenses
Every Living Lab looks through the ecological lens, the heart of the shared core, and may add one or more other lenses. In a Living Lab, lenses are often brought by partners and Stewards who, like everyone, are multidimensional and may carry many; the Vitality Steward or the partnership chooses them, and names them at the start, or none. Stewards will find how lenses are added within this guide, in Working with AI.
Roles and voice in the inquiry
In the research, everyone holds equal worth, in distinct roles, each with authority over different things. Like a tensegrity structure, its integrity comes from these distinct forces held in responsive relation, not from making them the same. (The roles themselves are held in MAGICommons' Code of Resonance, and how each takes part is set out in Host a Living Lab; within this guide, see Code of Resonance and Host a Living Lab.)
What this research is, and isn't
A shared map, not an evaluation: a neutral mirror of how people experience vitality, never a judgment of individuals, teams, or whether a community is thriving or struggling.
Deepening, not final: findings grow with each cohort, through measures grown from members' own themes rather than imposed from outside.
Every voice equal, not ranked: no one's experience counts more, whatever their role or status.
For the community, not for sale: insight the community can use to tend its own vitality; offerings from the network come only as invitations, and no outcome, such as funding or growth, is guaranteed.