Brock { Abroad }

There are three sectors, and 3 million ways, that make up the vast field Social Innovation exists in. Then, there is the hybrid layer. The fourth sector socio-economic silo that the Knowmads platform is comprised of. Taking root in Amsterdam, it focuses on new business design, international project design, creativity, sustainability, and social innovation to create “building blocks for a better world.”

As a student of the world, attempting to grasp what is happening in a movement while all the while being caught up in it at the same time makes it especially fascinating to connect to other movers and shakers in the field.

Amsterdam is my city. Yesterday, however, I managed to travel to three without even leaving town. Whether in New York, Singapore, or Brussels, here is my Sunday of Social Innovation in the city:

I’m fascinated with the field of social innovation. I am full of questions regarding what can often be a fuzzy, in-the-clouds concept. What is social innovation? What is happening in our world that has created such a movement behind this term? When and why do you call something “social” or something “innovative?” Who can we look to as exemplary social innovators? How does this term get put into action and what are some examples of social innovation happening in the field? How can you come to your own conclusions regarding these questions and find your place within it all? I suggest you take a look at this travel guide from the Kaos Pilot team 13:

I can’t believe I’m still awake right now. Knowing I have the second day of a workshop I’ve developed through Knowmads in collaboration with the Hub Amsterdam, I am still buzzing. It’s amazing the amount of things I am able to do with an education as amazing as Knowmads. Going out into the city doing collaborations like The Knowmadic Learning Lab make me realize that there a lot of other “pop-up, start-up learning spaces” happening all across the world.

When I mention this phrase, my mind immediately goes to Frauke Godet of the Hub Berlin. An absolutely gracious presence to have attend our workshop this past Wednesday, she has a rather interesting education topic that suggests the world’s next best “dream school” may not even need a roof. Here are some details on the concept, Future at School:

Facing the global transformation process from moving from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge age. Schools need to educate different skills and competencies:

INDUSTRIAL AGE…………………………….KNOWLEDGE AGE
Interpreted data……………………………. Interpreted information
Hierarchical………………………………….. Personally-constructed meanings
Soloed jobs and roles…………………….. Network org. and Knowmads
Chaos and ambiguity are avoided…….. Chaos and ambiguity are embraced

Inspired by John Moravec, a Knowmads ambassador and initiator of Education Futures:

Accelerating complexity caused by human activity is challenging society and individuals. We need to develop people who are capable to create alternatives in the unknown, to make sense of ambiguity, and to take leadership in chaotic environments.

Vision
To develop young people world-wide who take responsibility to design and create their future!

Mission:
To create a space for cross-generational learning and collaboration to support ideas for a radically better world.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m proud to bring back the second installment of my Summer Book Series! Relaxed, rested, and ready to rejuvenate this series after ten days of meditating, I’ve decided to profile two books similar to my recent mind-expanding experience. Our personal perceptions, how we think, make up the majority of who we really are. After over 100 hours of training the monkey in my mind, I’ll introduce the second part of this series with a book similarly titled.

A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink is centered around a thesis that claims we are entering a new age of commerce, living, and learning. Pink sees three forces driving the Western World in this direction: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. Also author of Drive: The Surprising Science of Motivation, states that there are six critical competencies required for this new era:

1. Design—not just a function but also DESIGN

2. Story—not just an argument but also a STORY

3. Symphony—not just focus but also SYMPHONY

4. Empathy—not just logic but also EMPATHY

5. Play—not just seriousness but also PLAY

6. Meaning—not just accumulation but also MEANING

An incredibly easy read, this book has great flow. As a great fan of Pink, I recommend the following YouTube video adapted as a taste of Pink’s brilliantly simple mind:

Written in the same style as Pink, in terms of format, Global Citizens by Mark Gerzon is my next recommendation. He states that there are three skills required for a 21st Century global citizen. Along the lines of Naomi’s previous post on openness, these qualities are:

• Witnessing- Seeing with open eyes-
• Learning- Opening our minds-
• Connecting- Creating relationships-
• Geo-Partnering- Working together

Gerzon concludes with a section on twenty ways to raise our Global Intelligence along with a great ‘action guide’ appendix of Global Citizen’s resources followed by extensive notes.

Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post profiling these resources! Until then, happy learning! Enjoy the last of these dog days of summer!

During the first morning of the Kennisland Social Innovation Safari, Kwela Sabine Hermanns, a personal role model of mine and also an ambassador for Knowmads, asked us all a very valuable question. She asked us:
What does social innovation mean for you?

It was an incredibly valid question. Every day in my very sheltered environment, although a school for the world, words like social innovation, sustainability, co-creation, presencing, and many others fly out of our mouths that would make most people outside the program, or at least outside social change circles, say… “what in the world…?”
Christina Jordan, another personal hero, is collaborating with many others to solve that very question. What (in the world) does social innovation mean? Co-organizer of the Cosi10, Christina is working to connect socially innovative initiatives around the world over a three month time span. In a “simple face-to-face unconference event,” they hope to create a networking and learning process that allows people to collaborate and share impact strategies, skill development resources, and even develop revenue models to build thrivable social innovations.

Still, the question remains. What constitutes a social innovation? From my extensive research on the subject, I like this answer best. Taken from the guys over at Social Velocity, they state that social innovation is…
“…a whole group of big, ambitious, new ideas and models for solving social problems. Social innovation is about changing institutions, organizations, approaches, systems in fundamental ways so that we can fix the many problems facing us. It includes things like:

• Creating new financial vehicles where nonprofit and for profit organizations that are working to solve social problems can have ready access to all kinds of funding (seed funding, growth capital, debt, etc.)
• Removing the hurdles placed in front of organizations working to solve social problems (accounting standards, IRS regulations, etc.)
• Restructuring philanthropy to be more effective at supporting real change
• Revamping government so that it can support, rather than thwart, change leaders
• Reforming nonprofit organizations to break out of the starvation cycle and become more effective at creating social impact

And that’s just the beginning.
Social innovation is big. It’s bold. It is a movement of people and organizations from all three sectors (public, private, nonprofit) who are taking a completely different approach, who are turning the status quo on its head, who are building new systems, who are asking hard questions, who are creating a new way forward.”

Finally, attempting to answer the question I first addressed, in one word, social innovation means for me connecting. It means a better connection to self and in turn a better connection to the world around you. It entails understanding that everything is connected to everything else and searching for the required passion to connect work to play.

The Knowmadic Learning Lab, in collaboration with the Hub Summer School initiative on the Knowmads platform, is my attempt to strengthen the power of connection, to be part of the social innovation movement, and to connect to you, wherever you are. We hope to see you on at the end of this month for a great day of playing with our passions at the Knowmadic Learning Lab!

The Social Innovation Safari in Amsterdam was an absolute hit. As a follow up to a week of imaginative innovations that came out of five local project-based assignments, I’m creating a blog post harvesting all the great things that came out of the Safari. Taken from the Kennisland website, here are the cases:

• Jeugdzorg Amsterdam (Office for Juvenile Care) is a looking for ways to innovate in their complex organisation. What is going wrong? Interview the people involved and design simple intervention for a complex problem.
• IJburg is one of the youngest neighbourhood in Amsterdam and already facing serious challenges: small enterpreneurs are having a hard time surviving, different social groups don’t mix. A group of active residents of IJburg want to make their neighbourhood more livable and need your help!
• Filmmuseum Amsterdam will be moving to a new location (Amsterdam Noord) and wants to involve the neighbourhood. What ways can be found to make this cultural institution part of the neighbourhood and how can the people living there profit from this and add their value?
• Mixacademy: An alternative art academy in the center of Amsterdam. What can they do to stimulate creative entrepreneurschip and offer chances to talented people without focusing on prior education?
• Weekend School: A one-day extra-curricular educational program that is looking for a way to better connect their alumni to each other and also to the school’s network.

I’m especially focusing on the project I took on with the Mix Academy.

The Mix Academy, in simple terms, is an incredibly open alternative school for the arts located in the heart of the city. Recognizing that artists need to be entrepreneurs in order to reach their public, it trains students from all walks of life to discover their true self through their creativity. Whether it is through free painting, graphic design, 3D work, illustration, or photography, Mix Academy allows the individual to build a network around them that can launch them into the world. Combining high and low art through a very mixed curriculum, the Mix academy is a concept I greatly believe in.

Which is why it was so easy to take on this assignment that combined my interest in innovative education with art. Ralph de Lange, the initiator of the Mix, is a lovable character who was an absolute joy to work with. Strongly believing in his message that he wants to spread to the world, my team of six spent three days (and nights) working in parks, cafes, and even my apartment one very long evening. Here is the presentation full of innovative ideas that we gave to a full room of guests, including the local media, on the final evening:

For the full list of presentations that came out of the week-long program, see here.

Here are some other resources I’ve harvested on the final outcomes from the Safari:

An article written by Pieter Hilhorst of De Volkskrant, an Amsterdam newspaper. (Dutch, but can be translated)

The beginning of a great blog series on the Safari by Tage Skotvold, a participant and new friend.

An article by Hannah Aukes

Photos: KL Safari First Days

KL Safari Mix Academy

KL Safari BBQ

KL Safari Closing Event

A blog on the Safari by Patrick Veenhoff

Have I missed any other good sources? If so, let me know!

“The Glimpse Correspondents Program is for talented writers and photographers with a passion for storytelling and a knack for finding truly unique stories. The program is open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 36 who will be working, volunteering, or studying outside of their home country for at least 10 weeks.”

Here is a artistic statement written from the prompt:
“Why you are interested in being a Glimpse Correspondent? We also want to know what issues you hope to explore and/or what kinds of cultural adventures you hope to embark on.”

On Pilgrimage:

The ability to craft stories that create a meaningful connection between author, reader, and the snapshot moments spent with people on the path makes up my life. When it comes to using my talents in a passionate way and making a positive impact on the world, storytelling is more than my medium. Storytelling is my passion. There is a Zen belief affirming that upon leaping, a net will appear. This seems a fitting statement for the story. My extremely brief life has been a journey of leaps that led me to Amsterdam. After a long and bitter cold winter squatting with circus performers in Montreal, I became a Knowmad. As a nomadic knowledge worker at The New Business School for the World, my other passion for travel is used on a daily basis.

Joining an international team of young social entrepreneurs working and learning from each other has challenged me to “combine, passion, business, and playful learning,” as our motto states. Studying process design, social innovation and sustainability, new business design, personal leadership, and international project design, Knowmads aims to “educate change-makers.”

I continue exploring my learning journey that has brought me on pilgrimage with purpose. From Santiago to Varanasi, Palestine to Paris, I view life as pilgrimage. I’ve realized now on this journey that the destination never seems to arrive. Taking this approach to heart, I find myself constantly exploring this theme in my writing while listening to the life philosophies and stories of people from all over the world.

When it comes to travel, it’s often the people that make the place. As we continue flowing into an increasingly chaotic world, there’s a certain silence in the stories of people, all over the world. I believe this creates a story in the telling that no other medium can quite replicate. In story, a voice is given to the voiceless. In telling, a much louder sound emerges. This is a sound that holds more power than any army could possibly provide. As a storyteller, I am seeking autonomy from a society that has mastered the art of fear in the unknown through mass-management and hysteria in media and politics.

As I explore myself further through my craft, I also want to explore the broader implications travel has on socio-cultural interactions and innovations. Through bringing people together, there lies a necessity for an authentic cultural understanding. Through story, I attempt to break down the barriers and stigma modern culture and society has been spoon-fed by mainstream media. Through their telling, I hope to close the border between places and their people. I believe this responsibility is the natural step that can break down not just borders within myself, but also the borders within this world.

Recently at Knowmads, in a day-long workshop on Sustainability, we learned about The Natural Step. Founded in 1989 by Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt in Sweden, The Natural Step has been introduced to thousands of organizations as a means of creating a more globally-conscious society. Based on theory and research of the science behind the true meaning of sustainability, it aims to apply this theory into practice using the following framework:

This framework is based on the following four system conditions that positively develop people, planet, and profit:

In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing:

1. concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust;
2. concentrations of substances produced by society;
3. degradation by physical means and, in that society,
4. people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.

With that, I close with a question that I’ve been asking myself lately:

What is the natural step for you in your journey and how can you live life more fully while making a more positive impact not just on yourself, but also for the world?

“Kennisland (Knowledgeland) contributes to a smarter Dutch society. We believe that the best guarantee for future prosperity and welfare, now and in the future, is to strengthen our knowledge society. We help to realise this national goal by developing and delivering key interventions.

Kennisland is an independent think tank. We continuously search for ways to spark the social innovations needed to improve the knowledge society. We start by defining challenges for the Dutch knowledge society and creatively finding possible answers to them. We put these issues on policymakers’ agendas. We need that leverage: broad challenges require a broad approach. But that is not all: we also develop and deliver projects, programmes and platforms to help others fix the issues at hand. We also assist in scaling and transferring success results and knowledge about the ins-and-outs of social innovation, to help others forward.”

This above excerpt was taken from the website of Kennisland, which is hosting a Social Innovation Safari beginning just hours before the World Cup championship tomorrow. Working in small teams prototyping and developing interventions and innovations for four different organizations, 28 very diverse pioneers are coming together from all over the world. See the link above to check out all the participants and the cases we will be working on. Below is the promotional video, in case you’re a more visual type. That’s all for now, I’m off to prepare my five minute Tedx talk, safari-style!