MK5060 full circle projects

Merry Xmas and an adventurous 2012!

2011-12-21T08:14:00.000-08:00

Yes, a picture from our own collection, taken in Pingyao, China in 2010 on our travels. For those of you who wonder about it: the haircut is real, no photoshop! It was high fashion amongst kids then....or is that parents:-)?

For sure 2011 was a year full of experiences. I've travelled a road over the course of this year that has given me much, so much to think about. For all I like about being a freelancer what I definitly dislike is the being alone. Of course I work in a network. I have close friends and very close colleagues who give me support, feedback and who help me to develop. But having colleagues is special. Being part of a team, helping to build a team, that is so incredibly special. And for some reason that seemd the common denominator of all my projects this year! The universe provides I believe?! So thank you for allowing me to strengthen your ranks Science Center Delft, educational department of NEMO, The European Library (and through them Dublin Core), Europeana, Erfgoed Nederland and my first client ever and longest client DEN. Thank you for the companianship you gave me, the chances and the trust in me you handed to me so confidently. I have many blogs to write including a couple of views from the backoffice. But that will be something for tomorrow or early 2012. For now for me is a time for thank you's and I could not possibly go into my Christmas holidays without having said them loud and clear. So here you are: thank you. I look forward to seeing you next year!

Sheer happiness

2011-11-10T10:10:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I last blogged here. Nothing but good news though. Actually: the best. Upon our return from our fateful journey through the east we threw a lot of balls up in the air. EthicsEnterprise together with my mate Elisa Dijkhuis, Picnic in the Park and also I reopened MK5060. And all are taking off now it seems. Which is slightly miraculous to me. But above all a confirmation that I made the right choice somehow.

At the start of this year I was in doubt as to what I wanted to do. I seriously thought and even acted upon an urge to find colleagues and a steady job. Mainly because of personal development reasons. I had a couple of chats and made a U-turn back to being self employed. Wholeheartedly. As that is the form that seems to allow me to follow the paths that feel right to me even though they do not seem to make any sense to the outside world. And come to think of it: usually they don't make any sense to me:-) I just tend to take a road that opens itself as it feels right. Of course I make plenty of mistakes, but hey: I get to apologise and mend them as well.

That U-turn back to self employment for now seems to be the true path. Really. And that is what I so much want to share. EthicsEnterprise has brought me the colleague I longed for and the opportunity to explore and expand my background in ethics. Discovering new roads. Finding our way in voicing our very own Ethics Enterprise sound. Which is a wonderful road of personal development as well as a development in partnership. MK5060 is well and truly reopened. I cannot express enough thanks to those who helped me to do so: science centers, library organisations....well: you know who you are. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. How cool (or rather: WARM) is it when you decide to re-open and people call you with the message that they would like to help you get back on your feet. When people continue to do so. Offering warm surrounding to work with truly wonderful people.

Yes, a pause here. Because that is what happened. I am in awe.

Picnic in the park is my (and our, as in my and my husbands) most recent undertaking. For now we're seriously but simply exploring where that road will lead us. Letting it grow organically, planning ahead a bit but not to much and mainly being focussed on maintaining the quality of our products. With step by step professionalisation. Focussing on our dreams of connecting preservering recipes through the ages and throught cultures.

Believe me: for the life of me at the start of 2011 I had not dared to dream that this year would turn out this way. Is it bussy? Heck, yes. And sure, it has it's ups and downs. Time is short with so many things needing attention. When the pressure gets on I can become truly very Dutch, very straight. At times loosing the precious balance between quality, time and cost. But somehow with all people with whom I have the pleasure to work together, it seems to work out just fine.

Jeez, this is almost an evangelical post. But I just had to share it with you: I am so truly right where I want to be with all the balls up in the air. I really hope that we can keep it up for years to come this way. With everything growing in its own right direction.

Maybe this simply is a premature Christmas-thank-you feeling I realised when riding home on my bike. Maybe. Maybe not. What the heck. The beauty of happiness is that you multiply it when you share it right? So here's my two cents worth!

Jan Lee Martin Futures Foundation RIP

2011-08-09T07:12:00.000-07:00

Via the mailing list of the World Futures Studies Foundation I just received the sad news that Jan Lee Martin in Sydney, Australia has passed on, apparantly peacefully in her sleep. We had the pleasure of meeting her in Sydney a good ten years ago now.

In 1999 we moved to New Zealand, not knowing wether it would be for a bit, a bit longer or possibly forever. But knowing for very sure that it was one country we wanted to know, to experience, to smell, to breathe. We wanted to live and work there and just ride the waves of life down under. Having graduated for my MA with a studies on the future of digital services to consumers, I thought futures studies would be a good angle to get to know people. And hence I searched and found New Zealand Futures Trust (now: Futures Thinking Aotearoa) and one evening taking the time difference into account I called the Futures Trust office and got of to a brilliant, warm start with Yvon Curtis whom today we are honoured and proud to call a dear friend. Actually more than that: she feels like family. Back then after a great time together we decided to move on the Australia. Whilst being down under, why not explore the lot? We were free, no strings attached and as hungry as we are now to explore and discover. So Yvon referred us to Jan Lee, saying that we absolutely had to meet her as she was a driving force behind the Australian Futures world.

We moved to Sydney, lived nine lives at once with our jobs in CBD and for the Dutch Olympic Team and indeed met up with Jan Lee. One inspiring woman! She was warm, hospitable, receiving us in her house, sharing stories about her travels to Europe and we discovered that we above all shared a deep and almost limitless hunger for Big Questions and integration of fields. But also her story of selling her business without actually retiring inspired me. As I remember her it was a woman driven by passion and a good hunger for development, one of those truly ageless wise people who just kept working. Tirelessly and with a sense of humor.

It was a meeting of "one night only" but it was a night to remember. A talk that still inspires. Thanks Jan Lee.

FIRST LEGO League Open European Championships: the view from the judging room

2011-06-06T03:39:00.000-07:00

Greetings from all teams in the Chinese and Taiwanese tradition

Friday and Satury Delft was the host of the FLL OEC 2011. An incredible event for many reasons. I was lucky enough to participate as a judge on one of the project presentation judging teams. The view from the judging room is a special one. Teams coming in singing. Offering you their trembling and somewhat sweaty hand. Your hand being equally fuelled with tension. Because you never know what will come, only for sure that it will surprise you. The teams launch into presentation on topics you've hardly heard off or thought about. Epilepsy, stem cells, mini robots that are injected into the bloodstream to destroy blood cloths, minimally invasive methods to beat cancer....But also topics closer by to the kids: the flat feet of the Happy Feet team from India, the incredibly well thought through device of the Brasilien SESI team that allows people to exercise under medical supervision in the free exercise grounds in Brasil, the team from Peru who had developed a pregnancy monitoring device using a simple mobile phone thus enabling women high up in the Andes as well as women living in the city to get the benefits of telemedicine. I cannot even recall what we got in front of our judging tables, from China to Australia, from the USA to Singapore and everything in between. Backed up by fans, families and friends that had trailed along from all over the world.

What makes it especially incredible is that through science and technology cultural, language and political borders are surpassed. Or better: are debunked. They simply do not count any longer. Friendships are formed across language barriers. Inventions are admired across political sensivities. It's magical. The stuff happy times and good memories are made of.

greetings from all teams!

Being a judge on such an event is really tough. Because basically you are asked to judge varieties of greatness, varieties of ingenuity, of learning experiences and varieties of great fun. Entities that do not quite fit boxes on the form: good, average, room for improvement or excellent. A number of times I felt like a proper historical artefact. For example when a 13 year old blankly tells you that the app they programmed is in the android app store but that the performance will be greatly enhanced with the new android platform that will come out this summer. Or when a database of 1500 types of food is presented to you, all indexed to enhance the life of diabetic patients. Or when three girls are measuring brain waves to explain how you can see an epileptic attack coming on.

I had many moment where I felt utterly awed by the body of knowledge that was researched but above all by the passion by which is was researched and presented. Sometimes so strongly that I could litterally feel the air vibrating by the enthusiasm of the team. Anybody who truly believes that wisdom comes with the ages I invite to come to one of these happenings, and have yourself proven otherwise: cynicism comes with the ages. And at times pure stupidity, when you see what is produced here. The question I am left with: when does cynicism kick in? Why can't we keep the spirits of unity and brotherhood across borders up when we grow older? What precisly is so hard about trusting and appreciating the other? How is it that what sets us apart at some point in life becomes the focus of attention rather then what unites us? While we all grow tender when we see kids uniting across borders? An amazing dichotomy that has me seriously puzzled whilst looking back on a marvellous weekend.

Thanks to all the organisers, teams and volunteers involved: we had a blast!

For live images see the MK5060 YouTube channel. And below some photo impressions.

Also see the blog of official FIRST LEGO League correspondent Khaled Marashdeh.

Saudi Arabian style!

Happy feet won a prize

never too old to train your cuddly dragon

Member of the Thai team

Asklepios from Turkey

Brasil

Woody collects signatures

Under pressure

2011-05-24T05:02:00.000-07:00

"Under pressure everything becomes fluid" is a famous Dutch saying, which I hereby undoubtedly translated completely wrongly in English :-) It is something we say when the pressure is so high that the timeline determines everything and that you just work-work-work to get the job done. In practice pretty much without thinking.

With every project I manage and conference I design I am becoming increasingly convinced that quite a few people actually consciously let the pressure build to such an extent that they feel they can let the process take over their decision capability. Which is convenient. Because if you can point a finger to the deadline and the incredible pressure you were under to actually reach this deadline, the finger of responsibility does not point to you. In other words: people put their own responsibility on the shoulders of the rather anonymous process. Because if you take responsibility, if you make conscious decisions, you can decide wrongly. And you are responsible.

I have to admit that this development worries me. Is it the recession that makes people insecure about keeping their jobs and thus fuels an increasing responsibility avoidance in a rather sophisticated way? Is it over all insecurity about what is good? Something else? Whatever the cause, I am positively baffled by what people see as utterly unplannable. As far as I'm concerned it's all about finding the right balance. The right balance between planning and seizing opportunity, between planning and allowing for inspiration. It's the same when chairing a group session. I am becoming increasinly allergic to the adagium of some professional chairs who eagerly state: "well, it hall has to come from the group you know". Right, if so, then why on earth do we need a chair?

Sure, we are only humans and being a philosopher and an ethicist I am actuly aware of our vulnerability. As an experienced project manager I am fully aware of the role of coincidences and events that were unplanned. But when it comes to preparation I side with those who say that success is where preparation meets opportunity. Without the preparation the opportunity will not come neither be ceased. Now tell me, have I accidently exchanged my bright pink sun glasses for looking at the world by a pair of ink black ones? Or is there some rhyme and reason to my muttering?

From communication to participation

2011-05-11T06:31:00.000-07:00

http://asymptotia.com/category/energy/

Went to a thinktank meeting. Subject: how can we better communicate the value of science. Or would that be the relevance of science? My feelings the day after are mixed. Mainly because I feel again the discours was caugt in a sender-message-receiver framework and it was very much guided by a marketing line of thinking. How can we send better? What should we send? To whom should we send? What are our goals? Science is so broad and diverse, can we actually communicate it? The bright side to me: it was all in good spirits with everybody aiming for a good, positieve exchange of thoughts and ideas. And much came to the table.

But why do we always somewhere along the lines get caught in the tranmission model when it comes to science communication, I wonder? Are we right there where society is? I wonder but I am inclined to say that we are not. I have a nagging idea that we could well be underestimating our audience. I think that we all pretty much understand that we are no longer outside a shop window (to use one of yesterdays analogies) looking at the science and technology on display, trying to figure out what suits us best. Rather we are in the midst of that shop. We are in it and of it. These are philosophical terms, whether everybody will use those same words to phrase our position: probably not. But that does not mean that it is not understood, I'd say. It does however mean that we really need to reframe our way of work and our way of thinking, talking and acting vis-a-vis science communication.

And that is exactly what I like about Naturalis - and by the way also about the Science Centre Delft, which is aiming for true interaction between the science community and the visitors as well (had some great pictures, but unfortunately iPhone is broken...). Because these institutions are going in full gear towards a participatory model of science education. In which the visitor is both part of the experience and creates his or her own experiences. In fact: in which the visitor helps to shape the institutions. Actively. By deeds, thoughts and actions. This is the fundamental shift I was talking about in my last blog. It's no longer a defined vision of what science is or what a museum is that is thought through and then shaped and communicated. What is presented is rather: this is the work that we do here, help us, experience, participate. An open invitation to visitors to make up their own minds. To shape their own experiences and follow their own interests by asking questions, participating in indexing the collection (in the case of Naturalis) and through their own interests and participation shape their view of science.

It is I feel a much needed turn. Because to keep on fine tuning the message, the relation between the message and the audience, to change the sender...it's all variations on the same theme that I feel do no longer fit the current day and age in which participation is key. Sure, it's about channels, messages and audiences. But channels, messages and audiences are more and more becoming one. The medium is the message, the audience is the sender and the sender is receiver and the medium and vice versa. The question is how to participate in that changing and evolving field. And that is I'd say through fundamentally changing our own mindset and way of work towards a participatory way of working. In which we do not control or even have the directors role. But in which we just present ourselves, as we are, doing the work that we do. And by extending an open invitatin to others to work with us, to experience with us, to get a sense of what has at some stage ignited our passion.

My, it was food for thought hey, yesterday! Anybody ready to help develop this line of thought? Preferably at some stage into a line of action:-)?Because I'm thinking, searching, trying as well here, feeling I'm onto something, but maybe not yet able to write it down correctly.

Naturalis live science

2011-04-30T01:15:00.001-07:00

Live Science in Naturalis

Thursday I went to Naturalis as they opened what might in commercial terms be called their concept store. A science work street, inhabited by employees of Naturalis who do their work in front of the public. Their work of conserving, cataloguing, charting, organizing. At first sight it reminded me of the Darwin Centre of the Natural History Museum in London: exhibiting the process of science, working with interactive displays that allow visitors to be part of the exhibition, the fact that the subject is life sciences....But up close I realised that Naturalis is actually going further. Much further. In the Darwin Centre the process of (life) science is made visible through interactive exhibits including short movies in which employees of the Natural History Museum tell about their work, the relevance of their work and their passion for their work. In Naturalis you can actually see the people at work. Live and in real life. You can talk to them, ask your own questions, assist them in the cataloguing...In short: it's truly interactive. It's not an exhibition made with interactives, in pointed fact it's not even an exhbition anymore. It is an interactive process of which you - the visitor - are a full part of it all - crowd sourcing Naturalis style. I was impressed. Truly impressed. Both by the concept and the operationalisation thereof, but also because having worked with Naturalis I think I have somewhat of understanding of what an enormous change this is for this institution. A complete turn around, from an institution which presented everything 100% finished, researched, thought through to now creating an open ended experience with many unknown and in a way uncontrollable variables. A fundamentally new way of thinking, of working, of looking at the concept of a science center/natural history museum and a new way of looking at science education. Especially the latter has captured my philosophical interest. My hat is off for Naturalis and I will follow with much interest! Some pictures and short movies taken with my iPhone (although it cannot beat the real experience). For the movies please go to my newly opened YouTube channel as I found it totally hopeless to try and upload movies on blogger. Takes forever and a day.

Finding my own way...or not?

2011-04-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

I'm a philosopher (of science and technology to be precise) and an ethicist. So you'd think I would be able to steer myself out of dilemma's and would be able to reason my own way out of difficult questions. Sorry to disappoint. I find myself in a difficult spot. I am adament that I will focus MK5060 more on questions related to science and technology education and communication and on shaping, forming and giving a head and a heart to cooperations between knowledge institutions. Connections that I believe are essential for a fertile future, in fact: connections that are the only way forward. As each institution on its own will not be able to cope with the demands of times, peoples and cultures to come. Anyways, before I go into a long winded blog about this, let's return to the point of this blog entry.
Because where are my limits? Do I have any limits to the services I provide when it comes to enabling these cooperations? Because it sounds all pretty highbrow and I notice that many people - including myself if I don't watch me! - have the connotation of in sector cooperation: libraries with libraries, schools with schools etc. Or at best cross sector, where e.g. libraries cooperate with schools and museums. Out of sector cooperation is rarely on the charts, although it should be. And if so, it can take many forms including sponsorship.
You're guessing the point: a dear client has asked me to assist in fundraising. Now should I or should I not take this on? I am inclined to as I am very reluctant to put boundaries on my services as long as they fit the - rather broad - framework. So why am I in doubt? Because there is still this hopeless gap between content and form, between strategy and operationalisation. Fundraising combines the layers, it cuts straight through organisational boundaries and it is a true form of cooperation, of forming partnerships, across sectors and branches it connects people and organisations. But is still seen as operational. So actually I am wondering: how does that frame me and my services if I take this on? And simultaneously in writing this I realise that I am not inclined to consent to existing boundaries, to judge myself by standards other people may use. To allow myself to be put into boxes created by others that I do not agree with in the first place. My, it's all clear now! Thanks for reading and listening, let me know if you have any thoughts. But I think I sorted myself out. All you need to sometimes do is talk out loud. I guess.

Don't let schooling get in the way of (science) education

2011-04-22T00:25:00.000-07:00

Through twitter this article on the value of free choice learning for science got my attention. This study is ground breaking as it covers both the concept of free choice learning (thus going past the old paradigm of formal, non-formal and informal learning, Dierking and Falk are pioneers in this field I think) and the productivity of this way of educating/learning. As such it is one of the first and few studies that I know of that actually shows how strongly and deeply a science museums can influence the publics knowledge on attitudes about science and technology. And moreover how this type of education can overcome barriers of education, economy, race etc. I would be interested if this is a unique trait of science museums (or science centers) or whether this is a trait of education outside schools anyway. Because if so this would mean a new road ahead for schooling and education. A road in which maybe even at some point schools will be part of museums as an interactive exhibit on teaching and learning. An exhibit that shows how we once thought the educational process should be organised:-) This article also fuels profound questions on whether you can actually teach if there is no innate interest in the receiving party. In others words: what is the value of teaching without a receptive learner? But also on what knowledge is, and how one gets by knowledge. What actually is the learning process, and can we totally, consciously design this? Should we actually aim to maximize the learning potential or should we rather be talking about optimization, thus truly changing the educational paradigm? Most methods are now geared towards maximizing the learning process in an instrumental way, e.g. through mixing entertainment and education, but still eventually measuring the educational output through the looking glass of maximization. The questions thus effectively being: did the student learn more by using this method than that method? In a paradigm that departs from optimizing the learning process that central question would rather be: what did this person learn that he/she previously was unaware of? And isn't that exactly what education, learning and teaching are about in the first place?

(cartoon: Rat Race escape artists)

Educating science communication?

2011-04-07T23:41:00.000-07:00

My week was governed by pushing EthiekZaak (of course!) and for MK5060 by science and technology education or communication (is there a fundamental difference?). It is a week that left me wondering how and when we are going to science e&c 2.0. From a meeting on Monday in NEMO where science professionals from mainly universities and a few science centers representatives discussed how to better position science in society to newspaper articles on wrong science and emotions governing the discussion on nuclear energy (http://tinyurl.com/5svgnsv sorry Dutch only!). A Kohnstamm lecture delivered by Louise Fresco who wonders how we get past the era in which emotions have become a source of konwledge and signals that society suffers from an overkill of non information.

Facts versus emotions. Science versus society. Scientists and communicators who wonder how to redevelop the message they are sending. Because the public does not understand. Because the public chooses to rely on peer information from internet fora rather than trust the experts. And happily lets their emotions rule. So the experts say.

I wonder: why are we still stuck in this polarising line of thought? And in this sender-message-receiver line of working?

In philosophical tradition the relation between rationality and emotions is one of the most difficult subjects and after a good 2500 years we have a rich tradition but no definite answers (hey, we are philosophers:-)). One of the finest works written on this subject in my opinion is Upheavels of thought by Martha Nussbaum. Elaborating on and working on the basis of philosophical tradition and the arts she comes to the conclusion that the tangle of human emotions is an aid and fundamental to our existence rather than a handicap, an impediment. She positions emotions as intelligent responses to the perception of value. This is a nearly cosmis shift in philosophical thinking which has long evaded matters of the heart and placed great value on detachment from these matters and opted for values like "coolness", "pure rationality" and the likes.

Science communication would do well to take this perspective into account I feel as it would help to shift the dynamics of the debate. Rather then alsmost verbally beating up "the public" (whoever that may be) by more facts, more facts, still more facts, labelling articulated emotions as "hysteria" and basically telling the public off for not knowing better, the emotions could be taken seriously and be addressed as such. In other words: make the debate inclusive and consciously accept that emotions are part of science and in effect help shape science. It would mean a move away from th sender-message-receiver line of working and a move towards a participatory way of thinking about science and science c&e. Anybody fancies elaborating this line of thought and experimenting with it?

GOOD Education

2011-03-31T05:59:00.000-07:00

Just read a fascinating article in The Australian. A quote: "By 2025, there will be more Australians with degrees than ever before. This is an important first step, but it will be wasted if graduates haven't also been skilled to be the leaders and the thinkers of the 21st century. Achieving prosperity aspirations will require far-sighted reforms beyond a policy of funding universities on student demand alone."Another plea for thinking outside the square. I am not quite sure though whether this has to solely start with (university) education. Of course we still have not figured out what the essence of the good in education is (some claim it's the toolbox approach that is the substance of good education, others claim there is more to it, that is is about world citizenships etc. e.g. Nussbaum), but still I wonder: is that the only way to allow society to change? Because if you think outside the square, you still have to be able to find a relation with existing squares, so to speak. So not only the current generation of students has to learn how to be the leaders and the thinkers of the 21st century, also the current generation needs to be trained, educated, reshaped, whatever the wording. Otherwise we end up with a new generation that is disconnected and thus not capable of transforming. Because transformation needs connecting, of that I am convinced.

Also I am convinced that education needs philosophical scrutiny. Very few sector experience as many reshapings, innovations, new methods and experiments as the eduational sector, but compared to the intensity of experiments the theorectical foundation is rather poor. What is it that as a society we expect from education? What do we want our children to learn? What do we - grown ups (apparently:-)) want to learn? Who do we want to teach our children, our parents and ourselves? And where do we want to learn? Is the geography of learning and teaching, the where, important? Are schools the right form to work with for children? And if not, what, where and why then? Are schools on their way to museums as a form of education that we at one time thought was elementary to what we wanted to teach, be taught, learn and be educated in? A first grasp of questions that we by now quite desperately need to pay attention to. Starting with: what now is good education? Any thought anybody?

On teachers and teaching in higher education

2011-03-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

In an interview with Loek Nieuwenhuis on BNR newsradio he ponders how teachers can be remotivated for their profession. Government thinks about financial incentives, Nieuwenhuis thinks about creating teams of people and a closer connection between education and the workplace. Whereas he mainly focusses on the vocational education, I think that remotivation of teachers on an academic level is also an issue to be taken into account.

Teachers on an academic level are either Phd students or people with Phd. But with no special didactical skills, training and at times even without any special inclination or ambition for teaching. The reasoning is probably that it is all about the content, but aren't we by now beyond that, I wonder? Can't we make more of academic teaching and training, get more out of academics and academic students if we pay attention to training academic teachers? And wouldn't that also be a simple first step towards knowledge valorisation? It is one of those items that I always wonder about. Lost of energy concerning education goes to primary, secondary and vocational training. Primary and secondary because they are the basis for all higher education. Vocational education takes in the majority of the people. But does that justify the little bit of energy that goes into professionalizing academic teaching? What constitutes good academic teaching? What is a good teacher? And what is good teaching? What is a good academic learning and teaching environment?

My own inclination would be that the answers to these questions are not only found by academic thinking and by thinking within the box of the academic system. Answers are to be found in practices on all levels of teaching, in cross overs between teaching and learning environments on different levels. In thinking and acting across existing boundaries and systems, so that new ones will evolve. Over the next weeks I will blog some more about this, as the ethics of education have my profound interest!

Yes, still here!

2011-03-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

It's been quiet on my blog for a while. I am still here though and MK5060 is up and running with the first clients a fact again. But I am in the process of developing not one but even two new lines of business, each together with a partner. And I am writing my articles, with one completed in draft version and sent out for comment, the other one in the near final stage and then there is the book on bike2culture that is close to the first draft. I hope to be well underway to a new blogpost here at the end of this week!

FLL Benelux final

2011-02-20T08:29:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was the day of the FLL Benelux final. The FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) is a competition that challenges kids in the age of 8 to 15 to undertake research into the role technology plays in society. This years theme was Body Forward and so a heap of teams presented solutions for heart failure, night vision,artificial limbs, wheelchairs with gearshifts, cool braces for kids with scolioses and other problems. The finals were held in Continium, the recently redone and re-openend science center in Kerkrade. I was part of the team jury judging the team work and that was nowhere near as easy as it looked! Quite a few schools and teams are by now experienced and it is hard to judge the authenticity and truthfulness of everything and everybody I found. And with some teams you feel that they did a great job, but it just doesn't show. And then there are the teams where it all comes together and they give you energy to move on in the wonderous field of science education. As always the entire event was presented by Hidde en Thomas, who outdid themselves once again as far as I'm concerned. And I even got to hand out an award, the one for best team coach. We wholeheartedly and uninanimously decided that it should go to the 13 year old who had coached her team of 13-15 year olds without help of any grown ups. She and the whole team did a wonderful job and it was my pleasure to give her the award. Although we were knackered by the time we got home, we totally enjoyed the experience and the warm hospitality of Continium. Thanks to the entire organising team!

A few impressions (and yes, as we are getting close to Carnival in the South of Holland, Prince Carnaval was in attendance!):

The Green Coach from the German team

Prince Carnival in attendance

LEGO Basketball player

at the end of the day.....Packed and ready to go home

Higher education: on dialogue and real choices

2011-02-09T01:05:00.000-08:00

The pressure on higher education is becoming unbearable and requires fundamental change. Higher education is stretched past its limits of what the current budgets and coming budget cuts allow. That is how I read the message of the Dutch secretary of state for education. I am aware that it is a consicously positive way of reading this message. And that there is another way of interpreting it: politics, "The Hague" comes up with everything without listening to the ones involved. Two world colliding: the managers, politics, money and result drivenness versus the world of emotions of teachers who passionately want to teach, of the students, involved in a system they cannot control and of which they are insecure whether it will help them form their future. Whether the leadership they feel is necessary for the future is awakened in them in this system. But can they see a viable alternative future? The clash between the worlds is evident. But necessary. Because neither the solely managerial perspective offers a fruitful path nor does the alternative offered by teachers and students.

And that is the downside of this process, no matter how positive the interpretation of the message. There is no proper dialogue. No dialogue between the personal, emotional, the passion and the experience from practice on the one hand and the managerial, alsmost technological policies that are now voiced. This dialogue is necessary. Because to proceed how we have been doing of the past decades will not help us to create the future we envisage. This dialogical way of thinking and working, of looking at organisations I think is making progress in a number of areas, notably health care. Or at least in thinking about health care with Kunneman as one of the leading thinkers on the subject (sorry, article in Dutch).

Dialogue in this matter requires true leadership. Leadership that recognizes the value of both perspectives but that is also capable of thinking past the existing frameworks. That is capable of dealing with the emotions involved. Emotions that are valuable and hold a truth that is equal to the managerial perspective. Leadership that enables to mould the future of education, that moves education into the future with a clear idea in stead of merely managing on surviving the future. Leadership that is based on listing and dialogical thinking.

My contribution: this week and next week I have a number of conversations planned with new parties and old friends where this will be on the agenda and where we will seek to find out what we can contribute together to organising and enabling this dialogue. In addition I have submitted a proposal along the lines of action learning for Informatie aan Zee regarding this topic, but then of course focussing on the choices that information and documentation organisations see themselves faced with. Not everything is possible anymore (if it ever was:-), but vis-a-vis a multitude of ambitions, possibilities, demands and budget cuts how do you deal with the inevitable dilemma's? And what are ways of dealing with these dilemma's knowing that whichever way you go there will be fundamental and substantial loss, change and gain?

Please contact me if you want to think and work on these questions!

Physical and virtual learning environments

2011-02-07T01:05:00.000-08:00

Will we still have a need for libraries in the future? This article on the BBC site gives one of the best summaries of the main arguments in the debate on access to information that I have seen for a while. It does give a clear picture of where libraries need to develop. In the western world that is. Because the eIFL.net experience taught me that in the south and east matters do look dramatically different!

Author of Things and Stuff wins Herman de Coninck debut prize!

2011-02-03T03:32:00.000-08:00

Annemarie Estor, with whom I devised and wrote my company fairytale (Things and Stuff), won the Herman de Coninck price for her poetic debut Vuurdoorn me. A personal and professional achievement and I am so incredibly proud of her and happy for her! Above all it is a true compliment for her determination to follow her passion and dream.

For me personally I take it as an inspiration today to work on the books and articles I have started to write. Articles on entertainment and education, on ethics in training of (young) doctors and on using dilemmas in science and technology education. My book on conference management which is still in the very early stages but begging to be taken that step further and on our epically disasterous journey bike2culture. Inspiration for a day of writing thus. With the sole ambiton of getting everything that one step further towards publication. Getting myself through this solitary work singing Dory's song from Finding Nemo: "Just keep swimming". just keep writing, just keep writing....

The same goes for Annemarie: whatever you do, keep writing, keep composing poems. We need your written children for inspiration and enchantment.

Ethics and social media

2011-02-02T04:04:00.000-08:00

Recently I have started my quest to enhance the synthesis between my work and my academic training. One of the implications: ethics should become a larger component of my work. How? What? Where? It's all part of my search. In that search I came upon the Dutch Center for Ethics in Healthcare (sorry, Dutch only). Almost against my will I was drawn to the page that asks you to contribute. Do you have any suggestions as to what should be on the ethical agenda? Experiences in healthcare that you would like to share so that the practice can be changed evidence based?

Should I? Should I not? Healthcare, being a patient in that system is a very personal and intimate experience at the best of times and when things go wrong and your experience turns into a nightmare, it becomes even more intimate. Because it almost makes you feel as if you are a loser or somebody who was not worth caring for. Rationally this is of course not true. But it is a nagging feeling. Maybe too intimate to share with an organisation I did not know?

But I kept going back and thought long and hard. Explored my gutfeeling. My conclusion: my knowledge obliges me to contribute.

I have hands on knowledge of good and bad practices, of my own moral dilemma's in those situations, of dialogues with doctors on how the wrongdoing and going affected me and them. If you don't share what you know and what you experience, how can true change come about? So I filled out the form, taking my experiences to a more general abstract level, signalling the moral issues in e.g. training of young doctors, the needs of informal networks surrounding Alzheimer patients, good care for gynaelogical patients and the increasing responsibility that is allocated to patients by the Dutch health care system. I was not sure whether to expect something: the possibility to deliver feedback is all too often offered by organisations without giving thought to or taking the consequences. You have to do something with the feedback you get.

What followed to me is a prime example of good practice. Within 4 hours I received a personally written (in contrast to automatically generated) e-mail thanking me for my contribution and offering the possibility to discuss my contribution by telephone. Which we did the next day. What resulted was a true meeting of minds on ethics in practice, dilemma's in health care and how to get moral considerations out of the taboo sphere into the open, into informal communities onto the layman. Ethics and ethicists do not tend to be overly communicative. It is all too often taken into an abstract, academic domain. Which I strongly feel is at par with the heart of ethics. Aristotle already noted that ethical theory is distinctly different from theoretical sciences as the methodology must match its subject matter which is the nature of good action. And so it must inevitably recognize that many generalizations will hold only for the most part and that it is essentially practice based. Ethics is studied in order to improve our lives, to enhance ourselves, thoughts and actions. This essential relation between practice and ethical theory in my opinion deserves center stage. So I happily consented in thinking along on how to realise this and equally happily consented to writing an article on ethical and moral issues in the training of doctors. If you want to think along with me, let me know or go to the comments page of the CEG.

Conference 3.0

2011-01-29T00:47:00.000-08:00

Conferences are about telling a story, together with speakers, public and facilitators. Conferences are about strategic, tactical and operational excellence. At least: at surface level. At a deeper level they are abut connecting spirits, minds, souls, about transformation of practice, transformation of people. Nothing esoteric: its simply about making it happen through connecting the powers of kindred and inspiring spirits. Of knowmads.

Almost in with this much of the conference thinking is still firmly stuck in what I call the conference 1.0 and 2.0 thinking.

Conference 1.0: put an inspiring speaker (or a series of inspiring speakers) on stage who inform, educate and entertain the public with their thoughts. There is limited time for interaction with the speaker(s) - if there is time at all. The goal of these conferences: to inspire and educate. To show a new horizon, new ways forward.

Conference 2.0: combine inspiring speakers with workshoplike formats, thus allowing for interaction between members of the audience and speakers.

The conference 3.0 format that I can see arising, is the type of conference where the audience learns from the audience. Where the audience is it's own teachers, facilitated by professionals who know how to connect people and how to connect knowledge. Action learning in groups and teams. Unconferencing. Away from the top down method. Onto a method where you put value to the audience and their knowledge. People will hardly come to your conference to hear something new. The new is out there, in the social media. And the other new - original thinking - is out there in conferences like TED. Which are great, but not every conference can be a TED experience. And not every conference should aim to be. Conferences are about your public and about your goal. It is a working form, a means to reach and end. Not an end in itself.

People come to conferences, to share their experiences and learn from others. They come to transform their organisations and their own functioning.

If you want a conference, note these trends, give some thought to whether a conference is the right means for your end and if so: give these new forms some thought if you want a conference. Dare think about this and dare to do it, before you start organising on the automatic pilot on the 1.0 and 2.0 format.

A lost generation?

2011-01-24T01:19:00.000-08:00

Over much of the last years I have been involved in educating professionals in the field of cultural entrepreneurship, educational leadership and other topics. Sometimes we started off on a specific topic but through dialogue, action learning etc whole new fields were discovered. Education as it is supposed to be: interaction, the human dialogue in the center if and where needed supported by ICT, activiation of tacit and hidden knowledge of participants, making full use of the creativity of all involved.

Yes, there is heaps of creativity in people who are 30+. Why the somewhat irritated yes? Because the main focus these days seems to be on the seeminly boundless creativity in kids. That focus sometimes makes me feel like I am part of a lost cause, a lost generation. Away from the personal an a generational level I think that in focussing so much on the next generation we are forgetting our own strength, ability and responsibility in developing this society.

I am part of a generation that was brought up on regimented schools, learning facts, being taught on the borders of old fashioned school thinking and new instruments and didactical thoughts and possibilities brought on by ICT. A generation that does a lot of DYI when it comes to e.g. ICT and self development. A generation that is currently looking for anchors and sustainable development and that has the incredible challange in doing so while being both the catalysts, designers and subjects of change. We are in and of the changes that we experience, initiate, create and are subject to.

How can we enhance this generation of 30, 40 and 50 year olds in their quest to develop themselves and so develop society? Not only in instrumental relation to their work but also in more general terms? We cannot only live by putting all hopes on the next generation and putting our time in developing the best curriculum and educational strategies and products for them. In doing so we are cutting corners: it puts way too much pressure on the coming generation to "save the world" whilst simultaneously underestimating the qualities so abundantly available in the current working generation. A generation that I feel we can support by bringing the human interaction back to the center stage of the educational process. By taking advantage of technical solutions but also, and probably mainly by exploring innovative ways of combining ideals, passion, knowledge and emotions into a conscious learning processes.

the flu

2011-01-20T06:37:00.000-08:00

I managed to escape the virus for a while but now I have succumbed: I am in bed feeling definitly beaten and I am trying hard not to cough my lungs out. The hardest thing though is the fact that a headache makes me unable to think clearly. While there is so much to think about... Hope to be up and running soon again.

World wide in The Netherlands

2011-01-17T06:20:00.000-08:00

When you travel and work internationally, even in your home the world comes to you it appears. A comforting thought. Since we returned from our travels we have been able to rekindle many business relations and friendships across the globe through skype, e-mail and phone. And sometimes the travel just comes to you. On our journey from Russia to Australia we produced our own power by biking through the Busch& Muller e-werk. This led to an inspiring meeting with fellow cyclists this weekend.

Dick and Trudy will be off on 1 February. They are about 50, have two grown up daughters, they said goodbye to their work and their own company and sold their house to start living on two bicycles for a year. We discussed the practicalities of the e-werk apparatus, but also the more mundain topics of how as a woman you can go at any time any place when you really need to. Stuff that hardly anybody talks about as it is not sexy and probably does not contribute to inspiring travel enthusiasm. However, as always: practicalities like these can either seriously enhance or taint the on the road experience :-)

For us their visit tuned into our good memories. Moreover it is hugely inspiring to talk to people who are equally passionate. The lure of hard core travel, of discovering for yourself what you are made of and what the peoples of the world are made of, a desire to travel and to explore that it is so intense that at some stage(s) of your life you are willing to give up everything you have worked for, everything you have acquired and fought for to chase that one dream, is quite hard to explain to some. Most people end up making a choice: staying at home, dreaming of going but eventually never leaving, or going never succeeding in making a home again eventually loosing all sense of belonging, all sense of anchor in this world, becoming eternal nomads living from small job to small job. Both entail a loss of essential freedom and an even more essential loss of self we feel. So we set out to have both: to travel AND to work on a professional level, against the odds even both establishing a proper career true to our training and ambitions. All it takes it that we work a bit harder. But that has never killed anybody and I actually quite enjoy it. Every step gives meaning to and lays the groundwork for another step.

We thoroughly enjoyed meeting these kindred spirits, who at their age - when most have firmly settled -give up everything, trustig themselves, their own magnetic north, the future and the part of the world they are going to explore. We wish them the very best of luck, an inspiring journey and a meeting of minds and hearts with whoever crosses their path. As always, may the road rise to meet them.

marketing & education: the case of the Hammam

2011-01-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

Who of you have visited a hammam recently? My last visit was quite a while back, but I am diving into it anew as the hammam here in The Hague has enlisted my help to develop a marketing plan. The hammam has recently come under "new old" management. New, because Hans Klomp and Marian van Vliet had handed over the management to a different board in 2007. Old, because both, and especially Hans, are the founders of this bath house. With this transition to new management the hammam needs to find its place in the local, regional and national landscape. Who are the competitors and why? Who visit the hammam? Which new target groups do we want to reach? Etc. In short: your average good old fashioned marketing plan.

But not quite! One of the reasons I enjoy this so much, is that the marketing for this intercultural institution goes directly to questions of identity. The hammam is not Turkish, not Moroccan, not Tunesian. It is a bathhouse firmly rooted in the Turkish Arabic culture that has the aim to attract multicultural visitors. And in large(r) numbers I may add. But in order to attract visitors, the nationality question is important. People want to own it as "theirs". It cannot be taken over by westerners. In other words: if we would draw up and implement an entire marketing plan to attract westerners we would finish off the entire purpose of the facility. We have to do justice to the hammam as a platform for intercultural meetings, for intercultural contact.

In the meeting today we discussed the first draft of the marketing plan. It needs to be taken one step further but the general opinion was that we are well underway to a feasible plan that will deliver both a guideline for the next five years as well as a concrete plan for action for 2011. Which will be an exciting year for the hammam as not only have they decided to go for a new corporate style (I just linked them up with the graphic designer) but also because they will start training the staff in hospitality, marketing etc. This will put the basis in place for the years to come. Also we quite extensively discussed the use of social media to promote the hammam. Hans and Marian do not feel very digital and so this will probably be something for the staff to take up. For the website we discussed the possibilities that e.g. blogger offers. True, it is a blog, but with any imagination it can quite easiliy be (ab:-)used as a very dynamic website. NRC - a Dutch newspaper - has gone this way as well, be it not via blogger. But I found it inspiring and bearing in mind that the hammam has a low marketing budget and wants easy websitemanagement, I thought this would offer a good opportunity at least for now. Which immediately brought us to the organisational consequences. Using a blog as your website means that it has to be maintained on at least a weekly if not daily basis. Who is capable of doing so? Do we devise ground rules for this? What can we write and what not? But it also requires a different mode of thinking. To prepare for the discussion with the graphic designer the hammam staff and management will create a moodboard, as that makes the discussion with the designer so much easier. So I suggested that they make pictures and take some moving images to put on their website to give voice to their process of professionalisation. And that is when marketing becomes fun and GOOD: when you go past the campaign concepts and past the corporate image to really develop the organisation.

(hand)book on conference management for the non profit secto

2011-01-10T01:03:00.000-08:00

June 2010 we temporarily closed MK5060 full circle projects to enter a time of reflection. I had lived and build up the business for 7 years, guiding myself and the people in my network through turbulent years, working with new people on new fields...turbulent and great years. But it was time for reflection and although this did not work out on the bicycles we did get our time off and we finally find now that there is room in us for new ideas, adventures and projects. Probably the overriding conclusion for me is that I will consciously work on creating synthesis.

For a number of my clients I am a passionate conference organiser, others see me as a marketeer with a deep understanding of the subject and apt at market research whereas for yet others I am a project manager whom you hire for projects that need strategical, tactical and operational attention. Projects that need peoplemanagement. Rarely the marekting, educational and organisational angles come together. So for 2011 that is one of the things that I will aim to create.

As a first step I have started to write. Something that I have always done but that as of late lost the battle with the tremendous amount of work that came my way. Don't get me wrong: I am not complaining. I mean: you start your own business and you have to good fortune to hit the ground running and to keep on running which is a gift, a treasure. But I have agreed with myself now (and aren't those the hardest agreements to keep) that one day a week I will write, with the aim to create a (hand)book on conference/eventmanagement for the non-profit sector. I am itchting to address the gap in eventmanagement between the strategic level and the level of operationalisation. To write on how one can and should address the needs of the guests. How to put hospitality and speakers center stage, how to leave your ego at the door, opening yourself completely to the needs and wants of your public and your speakers so that the story that needs telling, the goal for which you organise the conference or the event is reached.

I just drafted the first table of contents to focus my thoughts. I would love to make this a joint venture and I need your input. Please let me know what you would want to find in a (hand)book on conference management for the non profit sector, either by sending me an e-mail or by responding to this blog. I look forward to hearing from you!

Reading, eating

2011-01-06T23:57:00.000-08:00

Finally getting around to reading some books that have been on the shelf for various amounts of time. Common denominator: too long... Not for profit, Martha Nussbaums warm hearted and to the point plea for a retake on education is a must read I find for everybody interested and/or involved in education. She goes to the core of education, steering away from the form of education (multimedia etc.). I do apologise for making the distinction between form and content here, a distinction that I fundamentally do not believe in: content without form is useless and form without content is nothing. But anyways: best way I can phrase it for now. Sorry. Not for profit is utterly readable for a wide audience and is a timely book. So go ahead, get it and read it! And share your thoughts. Upheavels of thought: the intelligence of emotions is another one I finally finished. Again by Nussbaum, inches thick and at times a slow read but what an utter joy. Philosophy can truly be art.

Also tackled Osterwalders Businessmodel innovation. Innovative content and innovative production process. Form and content rarely had a better marriage. Should have read this much earlier, but well: better late than never I guess.

I am eagerly awaiting Kotlers publication on Museum Strategy and Marketing, which I ordered at Amazon UK about 1,5 weeks ago, but which has not yet reached me. It should arrive any time now really, I am acting like a border colly on the doormat waiting for it:-) In the meantime some light reading in the evening hours: Oprah magazine which I borrowed of a friend and I find that the whole branding of the magazine is baffling in a positive way. And then there is my absolute favorite: Delicious. Yes I admit: I am a foody. Who is trying and finally managing to loose some weight (made it one dress size down already!). My, can I get happy looking at glorious food pictures and studying recipes. Almost as good as cooking and tasting it. But still: one dress size to go, so I need to hang in there and I will.

Alexander the Great

2011-01-06T03:13:00.000-08:00

2011 for me started with a good conversation. Yesterday I was asked which exhibition I visited most recently, what I thought about it and which exhibition I would like to organise myself. Wauw. Inspiring questions! Especially as the most recent exhbition I visited was that of Alexander the Great in the Hermitage in Amsterdam. Having travelled close to Alexanders footsteps in Asia a few times my husband and I were immediately attracted by the subject of the exhibition and we simply had to go see it.

The marketing for the exhibition is excellent. The Hermitage is a fantastic building where cafe, museum store and exhibitions all ooze one thought, one vision. A total concept. Well done branding, in short which we found a joy to experience. Above all: what a great thought to organise an exhibition on Alexander the Great. Somebody who still inspires nowadays leaders and travelled in countries that speak to our imagination and have our hearts. It was really about time that this legendary man got his own exhibition.

What I did not get in the exhibition was an "Alexander experience". What was his world? How did the teachings of Aristotle influence his thoughts and actions? Imagine being taught by this greatest of thinkers and yes, I am guilty of jealousy here. How was he taught? And what did he learn? To what extent did his education shape his future? And can we connect this somehow to todays education?

Despite the many aesthetically thoroughly enjoyable objects (some of which gave a sense of homecoming as we had just seen them real life in Mongolia and China!) I admit that I struggled to get a feel for the magnitude of his undertaking. I had to think about the Terracotta Army at some point. Before we saw it real life we had seen pictures and read about it. But to see it real life really drives home the point of magnitude and scale. The same goes for Alexanders undertaking: with 50.000 soldiers trekking to unknown places, battling on unknown battlefields. Leaving your home leading a pack of soldiers and fortune seekers, crossing borders not knowing what you will encounter. Friends? Foes? What makes the battle worth the battle? How far will you go in risking the lifes of your friends and comrades to conquer ground unknown? How do you find meaning and purpose to your actions when all around you is a big unknown?

Remarking this is easy, but how to realise it? And do you want to do so? Do you aim to offer an "experience"? To bring history alive? That entails moral choices, collection choices, practical and policy considerations, financial limitations and probably other things that I am not even aware of. And I would not dare to claim that I can come up with an absolute answer in a mere blog or let alone something that will not have been considered by the staff. However, thinking out loud freely from a visitors perspective a different use of multimedia could have been of help I think. E.g. a strategic game, a schematic animation of major battles....Definitly not a re-enactment of some sort, but rather a representation that drives home the man and the magnitude of his actions, including the not so rosy side of those. While talking about it I noticed that I feel more strongly about this then I thought I did. Probably because his undertaking back then has such similarities to our current Western effort in e.g. Afghanistan. A window of opportunity to connect an inspiring and baffling past with an equally baffling present day that is the hummus for the future.

DE conference 2010

2010-12-13T03:13:00.000-08:00

Straight upon our arrival back home an e-mail arrived. "We're sending you two mails. This is the first one: we're ever so sorry about what happened!" The second e-mail read: "This is the second mail: now that your back, would you be available to assist us with DE conferentie?" (DE conferentie is that national version of DISH). How could I possibly refuse? Actually, on the plane I had already said to my husband that I would be delighted if DEN and I could keep up with our tradition. And yes, we could! I have been with this conference from the very start, being one of the developers of the conference concept. I couldn't help but reminisce a bit. When we started out with the conference in 2004 we were so happy with just over 100 participants. It was a new conference back then and although DEN and I as well were convinced of the need the proof of the pudding is always in the eating.

From the get go the conference has met the need. The number of participants has grown steadily over the years. This year was no exception: over the course of two days we had 500 participants. More wanted to come but we were simply full so we had to close the registration. Amongst the participants were many new faces, first timers at this conference attracted by this years theme: education and digital media for heritage instutions. So we have managed to reach a new traget group! Coming from archives, museums and libraries the participants reflected a good mix of the cultural heritage sector. Also in terms of knowledge: some have just started thinking about doing "something" with education and digital media, others could quite possibly succesfully apply for a job as innovator with google or the likes:-) The digital heritage price went to Deventer library.

As an organisation I think we have grown tremendously over the years of developing and organising this conference. From the conference bags and the badges to how we run things to the information market: it's all so much more professional then when we started! Which is really miraculous when you realise that the people at the DEN office organise this conference, do all the administration and everything else involved with this event in addition to their normal jobs. Arianne for example does the entire office management while organising this conference. Janneke and Ralph do their normal communication tasks in addition to the conference. The same goes for the Director and all other DEN people involved. To be capable of that and then run a conference in good spirits with guests, speakers and sponsors feeling comfortable and very welcome is a true victory. I am delighted, proud and honoured that I was a part of this years conference again!

PS: below a picture with Janneke, Ralph, Arianne and myself. And no, Janneke and I were not on purpose color coordinated!

And so....we're back

2010-12-05T07:49:00.000-08:00

We left the office on 5 June 2010. In principle for a year. But you never know what you will encounter on the road. Or at home. We were attacked by wild dogs in Russia, got caught in a heat wave in Mongolia, encountered the devastating floods in China, met with typhones in Vietnam and HongKong, and cycled through the coldest winter Australia has seen in 50 years. We took it all in our stride and kept going...until a clogged sewer set our house in The Hague partially under water. That is when we decided that it was definitly not meant to be this time. So we came home and rebuild the damaged parts of our property. Now, with the winter coming in strong we are enjoying our rebuild house and the memories of our trip. Yes, we met with epic disaster and bad luck. But the overriding memory is that of the beautiful meetings, the inpsiring moments, the cultures we experienced and the people who let us into their homes and lives. Although it all went entirely differently from what we envisaged, expected or could fathom we are still ever so happy that we did go, that we left our safe haven and thus offered ourselves the opportunity to come back and see the world with new eyes. Which is the incredible gift that travel always gives. We hope to have given you a taste of it via www.bike2culture.org and our youtube channel (bike2culture).

With those new eyes we are now going to re open MK5060 and we're looking forward to the experiences, adventures, sorrows and joys that will hopefully come our way in 2011. Will we meet you soon, sometime, someplace?

bike2culture.org

2010-05-28T00:05:00.000-07:00

On 28 May 2010 MK5060 – full circle projects Ltd after seven years will (temporarily) close the doors of the Dutch office to start a new adventure. A new adventure with a new mobile office. This mobile office will leave The Hague on 5 June 2010 to travel by train to Ulan Ude in Russia. From Ulan Ude the mobile office will continue on bicycle to arrive 9 countries and 365 days later in Sydney, Australia. Our bicycle ride has a mission: a mission to enhance intercultural understanding and intercultural exchange. We translated this mission into a project: the exchange of legends, fairytales and recipes. Our currency for trading are the Dutch legends of Ellert & Brammert, The Flying Dutchman and The Lady of Stavoren and the quintessentialDutch recipes for apple pancakes, hete bliksem, hutspot and red cabbage. We are curious how, where and with whom we will share these legends and food. Curious to read our Dutch legends? Impatient to make our recipes? Then go to our site www.bike2culture.org, where you can also see our route. You can see us telling the legends and making the recipes on our youtube channel: bike2culture. Do you have a legend or fairytale that we should share? A recipe that we should try? Do you have friends living along our route that we should visit? Or do you want to meet us somewhere down our road? Tell us! During our journey you can contact us via info @ bike2culture. org. Our skype address is bike2culture. We love to hear your stories. If you send us your recipes and legends of your country, we will upload them on www.bike2culture.org under world wide contributions . Do note that we will not have continuous internet access so please be patient as we cycle to connect.

This means that this blog will temporarily close. The articles I posted will remain accessible, but for the coming year there will be no new contributions. In stead we will use bike2culture. org as our blog.

Congratulations to the Hunebed museum!

2010-05-23T00:04:00.000-07:00

The Hunebed Museum in Borger, The Netherlands is awarded an international price for empathic archeology for their storytelling project, see: http://www.thebestinheritage.com/presentations/2009/hunebedcentrum,-netherlands,48.html Many congratulations on this marvellous achievement!

Education on display: exploring the future of formal and non-formal education

2010-05-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

This is an article I recently wrote for New Zealand Futures Trust. Although it is somewhat long for a blog, I thought it interesting to share.

Education on display

Nelson Mandela famously said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” This quote is the driving force, the mission, vision and ambition that motivates my activities as a consultant in the field of education, both formal and non formal, for people from 3 to 83. Over the course of the nearly ten years that I have now been involved in this field, I have noted that education seems to be permanently on the move both literally and as a figure of speech. The two are closely interrelated, as both the literal part refers to the place where education takes places and the figure of speech part as the definition of what education is and how it is delivered, is shifting.

This article explores the future of formal and non-formal education, focussing on the relation between museums and schools. In doing so it puts formal and non formal education and the relation between the two on display. The first section of this article puts the purpose of education center stage. Secondly the terms formal and non-formal education will be explored. Thirdly the article takes a closer look at the shifting balance between formal and non formal education. From this background in the fourth section I explore what the future of education might look like.

This article is meant to provide a broad view on education for policy makers and stake holders in the educational field. With this article I aim to extend an open invitation to those interested to start a discussion on the future of education in the Netherlands, New Zealand and - if at all possible- around the globe.

Purpose of education

What the purpose of education is, increasingly is the topic of a heated debate in the Netherlands, Europe and probably world wide. In this debate two main lines of thought can be distinguished.

The first line of thought sees the primary purpose of education in transferring skills and tools to students that enable them to be successful in the labour market, to make a contribution to the economy and to prepare them to adapt swiftly and flexibly to possibly changing demands. The end goal of this education is a problem solver who is capable of dealing with the changing demands of a continuously evolving business environment[1]. This line of thought has been prevalent in The Netherlands for the last decades as is for example signified by the development and implementation of the so called core goals in primary and secondary education. These core goals specify what a student should know and should be able to do at the end of primary school and, for secondary education: per subject[2].

The second line of thought puts emphasis on education as a formative process with the focus on the development of the student as a human being. It comes from a rather more humanist background and sees the primary purpose of education to uncover and develop the possibilities, interests, and capabilities in the student through bringing them in contact with cultural and historical sources of value. In this line of thought the focus is on life rather than on work. Aspects of life such as suffering, joy, disloyalty and friendship should be a part of the educational process and should be discussed, reflected on and lived[3]. These are aspects of a human life that are not manageable, but very much part of human life. It is the conviction of the proponents of this line of thought that when these aspects of life are systematically and structurally integrated into education, society as such will profit from it[4].

From my consultancy experience and from observation in my humble opinion these lines of thought are not mutually exclusive any more. The proponents of the second line of thought realise that it is important that skills and tools are of vital importance for a growing economy which is necessary to finance a blossoming public domain of which education is an important part. From recent debates in the media it has become clear that the proponents of the first line of thought understand that the skills and tools oriented approach is not sufficient to create citizens who share norms and values and who deliver a valuable contribution to the society as a whole.

By consequence the two lines of thought now seem to be in a phase where they are looking on how and where they can meet. This development is signalled amongst others by the increasing demand on topics to be included in the teaching programme of schools. Following several dramatic incidents on schools, amongst which the shooting of a teacher and fights between children in The Netherlands, there is also an increasing demand on schools to explicitly transfer norms and values to their students.

The meeting of the two lines of thought means that education is essentially becoming a two tiered enterprise[5] in which students both learn to adapt to an established world by being outfitted with skills and tools that will help them, but in which they also learn to continuously and consciously intervene and bring about change. It is precisely the latter which makes humans into ethical beings.

In addition to painting part of the educational landscape, this brief deliberation on the purpose of education makes emphasises that educational practices by nature are ethical and political. They are never neutral, but rather they are based on goals, ideas methodologies and ideals. Choices are and must be continuously made on the basis of these ingredients. This makes that education in essence is a profoundly ethical activity.

The geography of education: on formal, informal and non-formal learning

In the educational field a distinction is made between formal and non-formal education, and even sometimes informal education.

Formal education in the framework of this thesis follows the definition of Combs, Prosser and Ahmed and is taken to be “the hierarchically structured, chronologically graded 'education system', running from primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic studies, a variety of specialized programmes and institutions for full-time technical and professional training[6]”.

The definition of non-formal education following UNESCO refers to “any organized and sustained educational activities that do not correspond exactly to the above definition of formal education. Non-formal education may take place both within and outside educational institutions, and may cater to persons of all ages. Depending on the context in a specific country, it may cover educational programmes to impart adult literacy, basic education for out-of-school children, life-skills, work-skills, and general culture. Non-formal education programmes do not necessarily follow the 'ladder' system, may have varying durations, and may or may not confer certification of the learning achieved”[7].

Informal education then by consequence refers to the truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment - from family and neighbors, from work and play, from the market place, the library and the mass media[8].

In addition to these definitions it might be interesting to have a brief look at the history of these terms. Apparently in 1967 at an international conference in Williamsburg USA, ideas were set out for what was to become a widely read analysis of the growing 'world educational crisis'. There was concern about unsuitable curricula; a realization that educational growth and economic growth were not necessarily in line with this, and that jobs did not emerge directly as a result of educational inputs. Many countries were finding it difficult either politically or economically or both to pay for the expansion of formal education. The conclusion was that formal educational systems had adapted too slowly to the socio-economic changes around them and that they were held back not only by their own conservatism, but also by the inertia of societies themselves. If we also accept that the development of educational policies tends to follow rather than direct other social trends, it follows that change would have to come not merely from within formal schooling, but from the wider society and from other sectors within it. It was from this point of departure that planners and economists in the World Bank began to make a distinction between informal, non-formal and formal education[9]. This is the same time when UNESCO can be seen as moving towards lifelong educations and notion of the learning society. From these parallel movements emerges the above defined distinction between educational systems.

Following Fordham[10] non-formal education can be characterized as follows:

1. relevance to needs of disadvantaged groups;

2. concern with specific categories of person;

3. a focus on clearly defined purposes;

4. flexibility in organization and methods.

The distinction made between formal and non-formal education is largely administrative. Formal education is linked with schools and training institutions; non-formal with community groups and other organizations; and informal covers what is left, e.g. interactions with friends, family and work colleagues. In ordinary everyday life boundaries between the different forms of education tend to blur, as people often organize education events as part of their everyday experience. However, this holds less true for youngsters in the school going age (4-18 in general). It is in these ages that the distinction between formal and non-formal education is strict, clear and very relevant. Formal education then is the system through which one can advance socially speaking, where one gets grades for activities, knowledge and skills on the basis of which one can choose a certain job raining or academic career. Non-formal education becomes a tool for teachers to enable their students to understand certain principles or to gain certain experiences. For these experiences they visit a museum as part of the curriculum.

The shifting balance between formal and non-formal education

Institutions for formal and non-formal education are rapidly developing solid partnerships in The Netherlands and abroad. A visit to a museum is on the educational agenda in almost every school in nearly every year in Dutch primary education and I have noticed through European and international projects that this situation is not unique. In secondary education students pay visits to a museum as part of their education. The contribution that museums deliver to the formal educational system is at least five fold.

In the first place museums offer a stimulating physical environment. Foreign objects are displayed, stories are told, and increasingly artefacts are displayed in such a way that they can be felt, sniffed, heard, in short: experienced by the visitor. In addition being in a museum means being outside the school, which in itself has proven to provide a stimulus to students.

Secondly museums offer different teaching methods from schools as they have assimilated the methods of other industries. They have developed ingenious ways of communicating non-cognitive attitudes, cultural habits and abstract ideas through the use of media technologies[11]. Think for example about the walk you can make in a zoo through a rainforest park with proper mist and bird sounds all around. But think also about fake cro magnon people behind a glass wall whom you can hear “speaking” to each other when you push a button. In short: museums offer an experience as a teaching method rather than a a guide presenting the story to an audience (although that also happens in museums!).

This possibility to give the educational visitor an experience is the third contribution that museums deliver to the formal educational setting.

Fourthly the collection the museum offers sets it apart and makes it a valuable partner. By nature museums - as houses of muses following the Greeks - gather, collect and preserve historic artefacts or artefacts from other cultures. They do so and have being doing so in a systematic and orderly way for many years. This means that in addition museums have generated an unparalleled body of knowledge regarding these artefacts, their physical components, geographical background and historical context.

Last but certainly not least museums offer a valuable contribution in that they are closely related to the schools as they are partners, but are still outside the curriculum. Where the school has to cover all core goals, has to grade students, flunk them for exams etc. museums do not have to do so. Their educational programmes museums assist schools in achieving these core goals, however they have no final responsibility for achieving these core goals nor are they responsible for grading students. This gives museums a certain freedom in their approach of the subject at hand and of the students who visit.

It is precisely in these five points that the formal education of the school and the non formal education offered by museums meet. Implicit in these five points is where school and museum can be complementary in their education. The formal curriculum in Dutch schools, both in primary and secondary education, is guided by core goals and competencies. With reference to the debate outlined earlier in this article these goals are mainly skill and knowledge oriented. The museums I interviewed over the course of my consulting life professionals clearly stated that their purpose is to work at the level of attitude. This is perhaps most poignantly phrased by Dutch museum director Pieter Matthijs Gijsbers, former director of Orientalis[12] and currently director of the Netherlands Open Air Museum[13]: “Orientalis uses education as an instrument to achieve understanding and respect for others in our multi-religious and multicultural society.(…) Orientalis stimulates its visitors to think about the question how they themselves can constructively deal with the centuries old, philosophical and religious traditions that have developed in our society. “ [14]

Looking at the future of education

The concept of what is a museum and what is a school and the very image of the school as the alfa and omega of education seems to be coming to an end. Other institutions that have thus far been qualified as institutions for non-formal education are rapidly professionalizing. Thus the concept of what is a museum seems to be shifting at a rather fundamental level. Let’s push this point a bit further: looking further down the road a convergence between museums and schools might be a future vision for museum[15]. Where museums slowly but surely shift to an educational redefinition of themselves, formal educational institutions face a continuously growing demand for a broader educational programme that goes explicitly beyond knowledge and skills. Seeing these developments and seeing the increasing professionalism with which museums undertake to fulfil their educational role, one might wonder to what extent to geographical boundaries between schools and museums are of practical or moral relevance in the future. Are these borders not merely artificial and mainly motivated and kept alive by tradition and the monetary flows that reflect this tradition? I cannot help but wonder what would happen if we would put these practical constraints and divisions to the site for the sake of theoretical exploration and then look at education and who provides it. Looking from that perspective, would then the divide between schools and museums still be relevant and necessary? Would it still be defensible? Or would we then come to the core of education, namely the question of what we want students to know, to be able to do and perhaps most importantly to be as persons? I wonder whether the answer or answers to notably this last question would lead us to a functional division between schools and museums. I think not. I think that rather it would lead us to define a curriculum on the one hand and a number of places where (modules of) this curriculum can be followed on the other hand, without making a distinction between institutions. Pursuing this line of argument would obviously have far reaching practical, organisational and even philosophical consequences with regard to the nature of education, but should that mean that we should not pursue it and take it to its very limits to then explore how we can restructure today’s educational system? Which is perceived to be in a crisis, precisely because the direction and goals of education are unclear? Will in the future the museum become a teacher? And will schools and teachers become part of a museum, as phenomena that illustrate an era in which society focussed on the geography and geographical borders between educational institutions rather than on the educational content proper, an era in which the “where” was seemingly more important than the “what”? I cannot substantiate whether this future vision is where museums and schools will end up down the road, nor do I think that at this point in time this is the most important thing to do. What is important, is that this picture, or in rather more brash terms: this future vision, by taking the current developments to its extremes, illustrates the tension that museum face in defining their identity. Looking from the outside in, this tension might seem rather trivial, but looking from the museum inside out, this tension is far from trivial and is the focus of intense moral concern. To move away from the museum identity in terms of moving away from its collection, may also mean to move away from a body of knowledge, that was build and is advanced on the basis of the collection, of continuous research to objects and the building of human networks on the basis of this. For what educational institution is the museum without its collection?

[1] Derkse, W. (et.a.l). (2002). Vitaal leren: pleidooi voor een onderwijswende. Budel: Damon.

[2] See: http://www.minocw.nl/documenten/kerndoelen_voorstel_TK_definitief_na_AO_en_RvS.pdf

[3] Ibid 4 and also following Dohmen, J. (2007). Tegen de onverschilligheid; pleidooi voor een moderne levenskunst. Amsterdam: AMBO.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Cf Freire as mentioned in Suransky, C., (et.al) (eds.) (2005). Global civil society, world citizenship and education. Amsterdam: SWP Publishers.

ibid 3

[6] Coombs, P. H. (et.al.) (1973) New Paths to Learning for Rural Children and Youth. New York: International Council for Educational Development.

[7] www.unesco.org

[8] http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-nonfor.htm

[9] ibid

[10] Fordham, P. E. (1993). Informal, non-formal and formal education programmes in YMCA. George Williams College ICE301 Lifelong Learning Unit 2, London: YMCA George Williams College.

[11] Hein, H.. Assuming responsibility: lessons from aesthetics, p2-3. In: Genoways, H.H. (2006). Museum philosophy for the twenty-first century. Lanham: Rowman & Litllefield publishers Ltd.

[12] www.museumparkorientalis.nl

[13] www.openluchtmuseum.nl

[14] A quote given to me while doing research for my master thesis in Applied Ethics in 2008. The full interview is included in the appendixes of the master thesis, available by request via margo@mk5060.com

[15] I owe gratitude for prof. dr. Willem Burggraaf of Nyenrode University for the line of thought presented in this paragraph. This came up in an informal conversation I had with him following a presentation he kindly agreed to give at a workshop of the Netherlands Association of Science Centers on entrepreneurship. This paragraph in no way officially reflects the thoughts of prof. dr. Burggraaf, but since it was directly motivated by my conversation with him, I would like to thank him for the avenue of thought he showed me.

just ASK

2010-03-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

Due to an incredible amount of spam on my blog I haven't been blogging for a while. Fortunately Thomas managed to solve the problem, so I am happily back on the blogging front. With a reflection on a meeting that took place about 1,5 weeks ago.

Stichting Techniekpromotie has different sponsors and partners. Amongst the sponsors is a hard core of companies that have stood by de Stichting from the start. These sponsors connect with the Stichting mostly through personal contacts: they know the chairman of the board or the director or so and personally feel strongly about the cause. On the basis of this connection they have managed to put their companies power behind the Stichting. Which is a great thing. But the Stichting is developing, there is a new vision, mission and ambition and on top of that the Stichting is growing. This calls for professional development of all parties involved, including the sponsors. It also calls for a joint growth between the Stichting and the sponsors.A growth in which sponsorpartnership is related to but not uniquely depended on the personal link.

Joint growth in the sense that you have to ask: this is our vision, aim and ambition, this is our dream, does that suit you? And if so, how do you feel you can further the cause? What are you willing to contribute? And how can the Stichting reach out to other potential partners? These and other questions need to be answered. Two ways of doing this: either think yourself or....ASK.

I am always an advocate of asking the parties involved how they view your questions and what their answers are. For a number of reasons, but most notably the fact that asking the parties involved is a great way of learning about their vocabulary, about what is important to them and it gives a true feel for what connects you. Your work is to come up with the initiative, to bring the parties together and to formulate your questions and - perhaps most importantly - to truly listen.

Over the years I have noticed that in libraries, museums and the like this way of working is underdeveloped, to say the least. It's also something I was discussing over the speakers dinner for the DISH 2009 conference with Josh Greenberg of New York Public Library. But somehow museums, libraries and the like feel - either consciously or subconsciously - that they should know it all, that asking is litterally out of the question. Incredible. Especially because if you think it all up yourself the story you tell become a very, almost uniquely rational one. And that is not going to work.

The sponsormeeting we had for the Stichting made entirely clear that the Stichting stands on the cross roads of rationality and passion and that the "sales pitch" should reflect that. Of course, we need to come up with key performance indicators, and rightly so, but the companies could define very well which ones they wanted to see and where they draw the line. And that is very reasonable. They want to see how many people the Stichting reaches each year with the programme, what the cost per kid is and a few other figures in that department. Further on they were adement that we communicate our vision with passion, because that is what binds them and what makes them want to go the extra mile for the Stichting even trying to convince colleagues and competitors to become a sponsorpartner.

So once again, as I said in the piece about market research for libraries and museums, do go out there. Converse, create a dialogue and be proud of what you can offer but also dare to ask and dare to doubt. Your best consultants in this field are really your sponsorpartners, how ever small a core you might have.

PULMAN & XT: remembering happy times

2010-02-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

Woke up today with the news that in The Netherlands the number of unqualified teachers in high schools has grown quite exponentially. Too few teachers push schools to allowing physics teachers to teach e.g. chemistry. Saying that compentent makes qualified. Oh dear. I was in need for something nice. Some good news. So I looked back on the past 9 years and decided to catch up with some of the old PULMAN and PULMAN XT team. Getting word back was really, really nice and made me remember good times.

On the other hand having worked extensively on the cross roads of education and marketing for non formal educational institutions, (public) libraries and museums I am also somewhat taken aback by how little seems to have changed at times. PULMAN explored - mainly on a policy level - how public libraries, museums and archives could enhance cooperation, reasoning from the idea that for clients the distinction between these institutions is decidely less important that it is to the institutions themselves. Now, nearly 7 years on the same movement is still the ambition of many institutions and digitization enhances disclosure of information for customers. But in the back office the struggle still continues and it is a slow process to merge, in which sometimes IT is wrongly used to force policy decisions. Tempting, but a no goer. An iterative process between policy and IT, yes. IT to force policy decisions....recipe for disaster:-).

But before I drift off, let's stick with the happy memories that the contacts with the PULMAN team brought back, IT being the key factor in general for easily getting in touch, and linked in more specifically. I am only now starting to realise how great a tool that is, to catch up, to find where people are at and what they are doing and to get reconnected without immediately having to share a project or something concrete. Just catchting up is really, really nice. I do hope to reconnect with many colleagues from the past years!

Education for librarians

2010-02-15T23:59:00.000-08:00

For the new sector institute for public libraries (siob) I am currently making an inventory of educational opportunies for library directors, middle management and front office. It concerns an inventory for internal use only at the moment, and it will serve as background documentation for the sector institute to determine their own course regarding potential developments of professional training and education. Frankly I am astounded by the wealth of training, workshops, masterpogrammes, post bachelor programmes and sector specific training available.

Based on what the preliminary inventory I have made so far, from my professonial opinion I would say that there are three major points for action. The first action point is to disclose the wealth of programmes available for libraries. By disclosing I mean to categorize (as I am already doing in a very simple way) in a databse, structured per target group, subject, etc. This is not as simple as it sounds (see my blog on website struggles:-)) but I do think that it would be a first major win. Secondly I think that to somehow relate the available courses to competency profiles and job profiles would be helpful, but I would make that part of a larger marketing and educational effort. Because so much is available but knowing the (public) library I would say that you also need to stimulate them to look for training that goes beyond the day to day work, that introduces a dimension rather more on the process level. This could be done by a strong content related marketing effort, thus also educating the (public) library sector on the power of education. Which they usually deliver but to what extent are they themselves taking a professional stance on their own professional education? An open question, to which I think the answer will vary enormously. Thirdly I would think that it would be useful to offer a workform that allows people, notably directors en management, to make the translation from more generic master and post bachelor programmes to the specific (public) library sector. From my experience in similar trajectories for notably science centers, public libraries and project management trainings I have given, this translation to the specific environment, with its particular (unwritten) laws supports the participants to actually apply the knowledge in their own work. Thus progressing the public library sector.

And then there are other possibilities that could be explored such as negotiating framework contracts with training programmes to establish discounts for library participants. Contentwise the option that I would see as an opportunity as well is to develop a specific strategic librarianship programme, focussing on developing the library for the future. Here some librarians already discussed this, but having made the preliminary inventory now I would be able to give some more direction. I feel it should at any rate include a futures thinking component, teaching about scenario making, strategic business thinking about innovation and development, some risk analysis component and a cross over with industry where it is widely known how innovation work (many, many failures:-). That would be first inclination, I'll let future thoughts on this know. I now just need some time to let it all sink in.

Probably this week somewhere my client and I will take a closer look at this first inventory and we will have some preliminary discussions on the next step. I'll keep you posted, but meanwhile: should you have any library training that I should be aware of, let me know! And the same for any thoughts you might have re librarians training, education, and needs for education.

Africa day in the office

2010-02-12T23:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday seemed a bit of an Africa day in my office. It was the 20th anniversary of Nelsons Mandela's memorable walk to freedom. A moment to remember as his quote "education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" has become my motivation, motto and compass. The full quote is: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world…It is through education that a daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a child of farm worker can become the president…Only education will make lasting changes,” was one of Mandela’s enduring statements on education. And thus we had a small toast to commend this truly great man.

And then Africa arrived in my office via skype: Rilwanu Abdulsalami from Kaduna State University in Nigeria skyped in to briefly catch up. We worked together when I organised eIFL.net IP conferences for library directors in Africa and Asia in Istanbul. A great experience and Rilwanu's skype brought back happy memories. The conferences were a great success, judging by the reactions from the participants on the spot and in their feedback forms, but the running up to the conferences were not all bliss. Getting the visa, arranging the right flights with as few visa-needing transfers as possible, finding a good location....there were moments of stress. But we did manage to get librarians from nearly 50 countries together, not once but twice over the course of two years and that made it so very worthwhile. With all the visa regulations and the work that goes in, one could easily be tempted to not even try and organise such a conference. Which would be a shame, because with the right people, time and effort and some (not even a large!) budget it is very possible and a rewarding mutual educational experience. With the help of local organiser Byzas Tours and the good spirits of all participants, speakers and the team at eIFL.net.

Looking forward to what next week will bring. At any rate another New Zealand day including catching up with New Zealand Futures Trust!

Website struggles

2010-02-11T23:57:00.000-08:00

One of the projects I am managing is the cooperation between the three technical universities in the Netherlands (Twente, Eindhoven and Delft) for non-formal education for 4-15 year old children (and their teachers and parents). The idea behind this cooperation is - in a nutshell - that we can organise one front office for clients whereas in the backoffice we can organize structured mutual learning and sharing of ideas, dreams and development processes. One of the first joint products that we have started to work on is the joint presentation of the educational projects, products, programmes and what have you. It sounds almost ridiculously simple, a natural start....As ever reality bites. How do we describe our products, programmes and projects? In The Netherlands we have so called learning targets (determined by government) of what should be covered at the end of primary school and per year in secondary school. These targets are what schools have to teach, and achieving these targets takes up nearly all the available time in a school year. For clarity: the targets describe the content of what should be taught and learned, but not the method. One can thus choose to use non-formal education as a means to teach certain topics. Thus at first sight making it a rather logical choice to indicate exactly which specific targets our individual programmes/products cover. But, how would that reflect on the vision that the non-formal education offered wants to offer a learning experience that goes beyond these targets? Beyond the thought of the tool box learning that seems to govern the entire educational system? The dilemma: not mentioning the targets covered makes potential clients skip further to other sites, mentioning them would potentially contradict the vision behind the activities offered. Mentioning the price is another question mark. We all know that for our (potential) clients the price is a (important) selection criterium. But none of the universities wants the price to be an obstacle for delivering the education.... The dilemma: not mentioning the price can scare (potential) customers away as they may go to others who have clear pricing, but mentioning the price might scare (potential) customers away as they cannot afford the price mentioned and do not feel room for negotiation. In addition the universitied do not wish to come across as a commerical supplier of non-formal educational programmes. They are universities for whom education is central, not the financial profit. For whom the content related contact with the other links in the educational chain is what counts. How will we harness that properly? How can we make it attractive and valuable for (potential) customers and remain true to the roots, aims, objectives, intentions and dreams of the founding fathers? Not to mention the questions and dillemma's that pop up regarding how to describe the products, how to define a limited yet clear list of topics to classify the large number of projects, programmes, events, workshops etc on offer. And the possibilty for taylor made programmes. In short: a good and seemingly operational first step leads to all sorts of dicussions with strategic, political and tactical dimensions. And so step by step we now find ourselves in an iterative and interactive process in which increasingly more layers of the universities become involved. And yet we are still aiming to have the joint website up and running by the end of March. 2010 that is. The operative consultants word being "challenge" I believe:-) I'll keep you posted.

Education, entertainment, truth, fiction

2010-02-02T23:56:00.000-08:00

Following my last blog, I found this article on cnn. Albeit focussed on journalism, it pretty neatly describes the tension between the image culture, trught, entertainment, fact and fiction. Where do we go from here? To what extent should customers wishes and cultural demands be leading?

Education and entertainment: moral intuitions on the cross roads

2010-01-13T23:55:00.000-08:00

Over the course of Christmas and New Year we watched an uncommon amount of tv due to my husbands injured leg. The anesthetic left him unable to read for about two weeks and I was pretty knackered from a succesful but tough year. Although we ordered a meter of feel good movies, we discovered that we cannot watch movies back to back and thus we ended up watching a mix of movies and channels like National Geographic Channel. The overdose of National Geographic made me wonder about the cross roads between education and entertainment.

The beauty of NGC is that they put images to words, thus bringing antiquity to life (as you understand we mainly watched historic stuff, a great many knights templar were smashed to bits on our tvJ). And so realistically that it makes you feel you are watching it as it has indeed happened.

I realised that this approach is in stark contrast with the approach museum professionals take towards what they present. In 2008 I conducted qualitative research for my M.A. thesis Applied Ethics into the moral considerations of museum professionals regarding cross cultural education. The Wereldmuseum, Nederlands Openluchtmuseum, Museumpark Orientalis, Museum Volkenkunde and the Afrika Museum participated in my research, which for a large part focussed on the tension between education and entertainment.

One of the common denominators in the moral intuitions of the museum practitioners I interviewed was that they drew the line with re-enactment or so called living history. The argument being that one can never know for sure whether it was indeed the way we portray it now. Although living history appeals to the imagination, is an educational method that works and scores well in the entertainment department the museum professionals I interviewed felt that a large degree of certainty was needed should one want to use living history as an educational instrument. I wonder what the moral intuitions of the people behind National Geographic are. Because, as I realised while watching, museums and this channel do have the mix of entertainment and education in common. But they have found a different balance, or maybe rather: way of dealing with the apparent tension between the two. The easy answer here would be “sure, NGC is primarily entertainment, and museums are not.” I would argue that this answer does not do justice to the ambitions of NGC nor takes into full account the struggle that entertainment and education provide for museums. A cross roads begging for further (moral) exploration. Because with the increasing multimedia the boundaries between what is true and what is real, what we know and what we assume, are becoming increasingly blurred. Add to that equasion the increasing need for information to be “entertaining”….and we have an interesting mix that on the strategic and operational level pose new questions to identity of institutions and to demands of the public. Question to which different people find different answers, motivated by different goals but also by different moral intuitions which I think we ought to get out in the open so that we can take them into consideration.

Images for the Future: the view from another backoffice

2009-12-17T23:54:00.000-08:00

On 16 December 2009 we had the second national conference for Images for the Future. We had gathered a good set of speakers, including Francisco van Jole and futurist Tony Bosma from www.extendlimits.nl to shine their light on the importance of audiovisual media for libraries with a special focus on cooperation between heritage institutions and libraries. The programma contained a plenary session and different workshops, all organised to inspire libraries to piece together their vision and actions for the near and mid term future. Approximately 125 people participated.

Marco de Niet from DEN in his closing speech reflected on the Images for the Future project from a more international perspective and put forward the BMICE publication, which already is success and might need a print rerun judging by the amount of little brown books that I saw distributed at both DISH2009 and this conference. In his presentation he gave our guests a magnificent insight in European and national research that has been carried out to establish what the state of the art is in the heritage sector concerning digitization. What really struck me was the slide in which research clearly showed the relation between budgets and vision. Now that was a slide with a wake up call! The presentations given at the conference will be made available on the internet, I’ll update this blog when the url is available.

Two things made the Images for the Future conference special in addition to the guests and speakers. One was the availability of four surface tables on the information market that guests could play with. Although technology is only a means and the whole conference stressed the importance of the human factor in cooperation and digitization this hands on experience proved valuable for our guests and definitly showed new perspectives for libraries. The second thing that made the conference special was the human factor. The Zeeuwse Bibliotheek proved to be warm and generous hosts and the whole logistic arrangement was excellent. And that to me proved that point that we often make in the library sector: it’s not exclusively about books, indexing and disclosure of information. It’s also, and very much so!, about offering a warm and open place where you can meet.

DISH2009: the view from the backoffice

2009-12-11T23:53:00.000-08:00

On 9 and 10 December 2009 DISH2009 took place, organised by Heritage the Netherlands and Digital Heritage the Netherlands. I was proud and honoured to be part of the organisation mainly on behalf of Digital Heritage the Netherlands. Already in the contacts with chairs and speakers for the paper sessions, the debates and the workshops I experienced that DISH2009 continued the great tradition of the Digital Heritage conferences DEN organised over the past five years: pracitically everybody was quick and enthusiastic in cooperating with our organisational needs and the chairs and speakers had many fruitful discussions to prepare their sessions. In some cases I even had to interfere as the debate that was scheduled during the conference was already started full swing in the preparations!

This commitment from speakers and chairs is essential for the organisers. We love to be generous and gracious hosts, we love to serve your needs. But to be able to play our role we need our speakers and chairs to be commited as well. And that commitment goes beyond preparing the content and the presentation. It extends to being in the right place at the requested time, in mingling with the participants of the conference and to bringing dongles (the connecting bit from the Mac to the beamer) for MacBooks. The same goes for the audience. As an organiser for all I and we as a team can arrange, in the end it is the preparation of speakers and chairs and the good spirits and commitment of our audiences that we depend on. Looking from that back office perspective the DISH2009 crowd was brilliant.

And then there also are the little miracles that make a conference special and memorable, at least for me as an organiser and especially with a conference happening so close to Christmas. On the evening of 8 December the Municipality of Rotterdam offered and hosted the welcoming reception for the conference participants in the Burgerzaal of the city hall. The Lord Mayor Mr. Aboutaleb was present…..but a van transporting a substantial number of participants from their preconference to the city hall got stuck in traffic. The Lord Mayor was working an incredibly tight schedule and was strictly on time just when I was hoping – against my nature! - that he would have a substantial delay so that the participants could still make it on time to hear this speech. I discussed our situation with the assistant of the Lord Mayor and he generously agreed to postphone his speech somewhat, thus allowing our participants to reach us. And most managed to reach us on time.

Another little miracle happened at the end of the first conference day. We had found a Fred de la Bretonniere diary which somebody had lost. We dialled the mobile number in the diary and left a message on the voice mail that the diary had been found and where it could be collected. We had it announced for everbody to hear: could Mrs. so and so please come to the registration deskt, your diary has been found. Nobody answered. At the end of the day as we were helping the last people to either the dinner or to their homes, a lady comes to the registration desk, we start chatting and just as she is about to leave, she draws her wallet to get out her businesscard. I instantly recognize the style of the wallet: it is the same as the style of the diary. And yes, she is the owner of the diary and she had not noticed it was missing. Diary happily returned to its owner!

A similar miracle occured on the 10th of December. At the dinner in the shark room the evening of 9 December somebody had taken the wrong conference bag home, with somebody elses notes in there. Further on no personal belongings in the bag. She was kind enough to bring that bag to the registration desk the morning of 10 December, saying that somebody might come for it so that hopfully the notes could be returned. And maybe even her bag would show up. Within the hour somebody else reported to the registration desk, stating the exact same thing. Thus the bags were exchanged to the correct owners. In a crowd of – including sponsors and speakers - close to 600 people, that is nothing short of a little miracle.

These little miracles make a conference special. But what touches my heart the deepest are the people who walk up to thank you for a great time. The simple “thank you, I enjoyed this” and the smiling and chatting people who walk past to me is what makes everything shine.

About this weblog

2009-10-21T23:45:00.000-07:00

I have a passion for (non formal) education, philosophy of education, for museums and libraries. With this blog I intent to explore these passions on an operational, strategic and rather more reflective level. Hoping that it will inspire enthusiasts and professionals everywhere to contribute, share their thoughts, projects and ideas. One word of warning: if you come to this blog looking for definite answers you’re in the wrong place. This blog is my instrument to develop en formulate questions and to search for new directions of thought. Maybe occasionally I’ll find and answer, but don’t bet on it!

Science and technology education: avoiding or using dilemmas?

2009-10-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

In the Netherlands science & technology education (STE, but that is already “old”, I still use it because it makes matters very clear) is a priority on many agendas: from government to ngo’s, universities and new institutions especially founded (and funded) for this goal. The idea behind the myriad of programmes and initiatives is to give children and youngsters a perspective on the feasibility of and education in science and technology.

Of course, this has been the goal of science centers around the world for many years now. Actually, it could maybe said that this is their very reason of being. In my work for science centers we increasingly discuss ethical issues with regard to STE. What do I mean by this?

Many science centers have quite a strict policy on whom they cooperate with and whom they don’t. Some projects even have black lists: in the context of the FIRST LEGO League (r) (Stichting Techniekpromotie is the Benelux coordinator) for example the organizers world wide get a so called black list of companies that they cannot approach for sponsoring. For example the army is excluded. But it’s not only within the framework of this competition that this is ‘banned’. Most science center I know in The Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and elsewhere in Europe have quite strict ideas on what they wish to show of the world of science and technology and what they wish to avoid.

I have my questions with regard to this strategy. Firstly, how fair is this choice vis a vis the children science centers wish to inspire? Don’t we owe it to our visitors to show the good, the bad and the ugly? All of it is part of science and technology. Secondly, on a more philosophical level: the notion behind this choice seems to be that science and technology are intrinsically neutral and that with this tool one can either do good or bad. This denies much of the philosophical tradition of science and technology in which there is long standing attention for the social construction of science and technology. In short this holds that science and technology are socially constructed and as such are definitely not neutral in themselves. Bruno Latour is a well known propoent of this theory, and in The Netherlands Wiebe Bijker at my alma mater Maastricht University. Thirdly, this pre-selection by science centers and others involved with STE prevents from what I see as being core to the field as well: the confrontation with dilemma’s. What are the dilemma’s scientists are confronted with? And how do you systematically reflect on those as a person and a professional involved in science and/or technology? How do you choose knowing that every choice you make vis a vis the dilemma effectively involves loss? Fourthly there is of course the slippery slope argument: where do we draw the line? Boeing makes passenger planes….but is a serious manufacturer for the army as well. Perhaps the most simple example to make this point clear, which I often use, is the hammer and the screwdriver. They are used to manufacture many things we consider good: shelves for books, cupboards, pans to cook food in, you name it. But these same hammer and screw driver are essential instruments to manufacture weapons. To put the argument in overdrive: no war without hammer and screw driver!

What I wonder: would it not make better educators, better institutions and in the end better professionals if in stead of taking away these dilemma’s in our education we confront the children with these dilemma’s and assist in their systematic, personal reflection on these dilemma’s? Rather than avoiding them altogether? I would say so. And I do see many practical possibilities to incorporate this in the education activities. What are your thoughts?

Cultural entrepreneurship, market research, museums and libraries

2009-10-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

For the past few years together with a colleague I‘ve been involved in market research for a few museums. Last Friday I attended a workshop at the annual museum conference and I heard that quite a few museums are rather unfamiliar with market research. Or rather: some do some research, others don’t, and others are getting acquainted with it. And quite a few seem to wrestle with the question how to get people/groups in the ir picture that do not visit their museum. This morning we held a presentation on market research for a group of librarians involved with bringing a library IT product, it concerns public libraries to the market. For both museums and public libraries the what, and how of market research and especially WHY they should engage in this activity seems unexpectedly hard to explain. As with the museums Friday the libraries this morning wrestled with the question how to get target groups in focus that are not in the least bit interested in them. The binding question between museums and the public libraries thus being: how do we engage in a good, meaningful conversation about the needs, wants, feelings etc. of people whom we are not in touch with to explore where we can meet?

Museums, libraries, market research….. an until recently uncommon equation. With the call from government and the general public for more accountability over tax money spent and for increasing amounts of self generated income in public libraries and museums market research becomes a necessity I feel, a practicality that fits in the wider framework of the call and need for cultural entrepreneurship. Or rather, let’s call that: entrepreneurship for public libraries and museums. Because cultural entrepreneurship seems a container term already, covering anything from artists going commercial to companies doing something cultural.

What fascinates me is that there seems to be little or nearly no attention for the practical side of this entrepreneurship for museums and public libraries. I can find – and have done so! – rather generic training modules for entrepreneurship in libraries and museums, but I do not feel that these modules meet specific needs nor do I believe that this pars pro toto approach befits the needs of the sector. I strongly beli eve that a very individual approach is needed, as per organisation so many different people, skills, talents, ambitions etc. are involved. For example, some public librarians I met and assisted in developing their skills are excellent salesmen and –women. Others are happier structuring the back office. So different people, different approaches, and different tasks. But entrepreneurships is not only about skills. It’s also about processes within the libraries and museums. I feel that one cannot develop entrepreneurship without addressing those issues as well. All the more surprising that there seems to be so very little attention for this practical side of entrepreneurship, for the fears, joys, transformations, surprises and what have you that people encounter when taking the first steps on this rocky path. I think that especially this attention is so much needed to marry museums, libraries and entrepreneurship. Because I am passionate about it and based on my current experiences and practice I am convinced that it can be done, that there are ways. Practical skills can be awakened, shaped and taught and there genuinly are (many) professionals in the museums and library sector who (potentially, in the Platonic way) have what it takes. And moreover: I strongly feel that museums and libraries should profit from these professionals to make themselves and their products more visible. Any experiences out there with hands on cultural entrepreneurship in various countries? I would be delighted to hear and if anyone is interested I would be happy to explain how we organised several trajectories.

Charter for Compassion

2009-10-12T23:52:00.000-07:00

As the saying goes: "What is a consultant without a model?" I would like to expand that saying with "and without empathy?" What can you actually achieve in any organisation, project, or more broadly speaking, in any interhuman contact without empathy? One look into most practices (including my own!, into the newspapers and probably also to yourself, makes it obvious that this seamingly easy and rethoric question is in pointed fact terribly hard.

The Charter for Compassion, an initiative created by Karen Armstrong, re-establishes the Golden Rule which requires that we use empathy - moral imagination - to put oursevels in others' shoes. We should act toward them as we would want them to act toward us. We should refuse, under any circumstance, to carry out actions which would cause them harm.

I feel this is a great initiative, that I wholeheartedly support. As I see it, we live in a time where the world is increasingly connected by all sorts of transportation and communication tools. But somehow our newly found connectivity is not back upped by this Golden Rule. Rather it seems the opposite: the more possibilities we have to look across the borders of our own lives, both geographically and spiritually, the harder we seem to find it to put empathy into practice.

Having worked extensively in intercultural projects both on a European and international level, I have become more and more convinced of the need for empathy, the power of empathy but also the difficulties of consciously putting empathy into practice in sometimes even the most trivial of situations. Where there is probably also the most need for it. I hope that this Charter will serve at least as a permanent reminder for myself of the importance and as an inspiration to keep up the 'good struggle' for empathic practice in my work.

Of measurement and knowledge

2009-10-01T23:52:00.000-07:00

In her comment on my last post Marian Kat highlighted an area of concern to me: namely that many good and excellent professionals in the museum and library world hardly have time to reflect on their work amongst others because of money and time constraints. One dimension to her comment I think deserves attention: the dialectics of grants.

Part of my work consists of fundraising for educational projects for museums and libraries. When you – like I do – so strongly feel that (non formal) education is important, you have to make it possible I believe. And thus coincidentally I found myself developing knowledge and skills on funds and fundraising for this goal. As such I have noticed that over the years the demands of grants and subsidies have shown a strong tendency towards SMART(ER)-ness. As far as I am concerned this in large part is understandable and to some extent justifiable.

But lately I do feel that we are completely going overboard. We want to be able to measure anything and everything, and we increasingly tend to limit our knowledge to what we can and do measure. Anything else is "esoteric" "spiritual" or, the most deadly of all "irrelevant". Simultaneously we do acknowledge that there are still so many things that we do know and which we cannot measure. I consciously do no put “yet” in that sentence. Because to me that would imply that being able and capable to measure everything is the goal of our activities. And that is something I do not agree with, not in quanitative research nor in qualitative research. To me there will always be space between words and interpretation to numbers that are vital to make meaning.

Having said that, the dialectic of grants does pose interesting challenges to especially non-formal education. Because in order to prove their worth and work, non-formal education programmes have to adhere to the logics of formal education, to toolbox logics and SMART-formulations of goals. Ironically in order to obtain funds to demonstrate their true value. It’s a difficult position: proving your worth via a logics that is not inherent to your activities, vision and goals. Moreover: that you basically at least in part oppose. Many non-formal educational programmes and activities (aim to) go to the heart of education: to the attitude of children and adults. But how do you measure a change in attitude? This is the question that many museums, libraries and science centers see themselves confronted with. It’s something that I struggle with for clients.

Recently while browsing the library of the University of Humanistics, where I take part in an inspiration course on Meaning and Power in organizations, I stumbled upon one of their newly acquired publications: Getting Involved. A great read, I am only half way still (lack of timeJ) but this is a truly inspirational book. In the chapter Pedagogy for Citizenship Ruth Deakin-Circk explores how in different studies the impact of pedagogical methods such as debates, narratives, role-play etc on the attitudinal level has been demonstrated. The overviews in this article would provide grand assistance to anybody looking to for scienctific foundation for their work and, maybe more importantly, for any professional in doubt of the contribution of alternative teaching methods. Methods which often form the core of non-formal education. In a further chapter in this book I read about how narratives have been successfully used to measure impact at the attitudinal level. Both the overview provided and the attention paid to narratives as instrument for measuring have inspired me. Hopefully anytime soon I will get an opportunity to put this inspiration into practice. In the meantime, I would love to learn from people who have done reasearch into this or who would be interested in this type of measurement. Maybe we can form a team and provide museums, libraries and science centers with a valuable road ahead!