It may seem a paradox to show an emerging, new governance and societal interaction model in the midst of the 160 year old party political democratic system of the city hall of Eindhoven. But that is what evolution is all about. The symbolism of progress, even if the new replaces the old, simply because it is better suited to address the challenges of our era, is worth contemplating with joy and sense of opportunity and faith. Just look at the pictures below. On the wall we see the portraits of all mayors of the city of Eindhoven since 1850. They look over the exposition as a reflective token of the evolution of time, from the military uniforms of a non-disputable hierarchy, up to the new era, on a new wall, of the emerging participation society…..

Our demonstration was simple. A table at the center of the exposition remained empty, symbolizing the challenge of dealing with reality without prejudism, hierarchies, stacks of money or power positions. We place the core human and natural values on this table as defined in our new democracy referred to as Sustainocracy. Together with the four pillars of any society (government, citizens, scientific knowledge and innovative entrepreneurship) we look at our reality from a core values perspective and define our priorities for changes together. Visitors could experience such values driven interaction by simulating it using their own local priorities and issues of great concern.

Around the table, in the hall we then show some of the spin-offs of such innovative drive, each changing our society and its functioning while inspiring the world through its cocreative progession and measureable results. This was the layout of the central table and the surrounding spin offs.

The city council room was left aside as a symbol of the past in which party politics and economic priorities took our attention away from our core values. A new center of debat had emerged, the sustainocratic, multidisciplinary table of shared responsibilities…..

During the 9 days of exposure we received over 1000 visitors from our own citizen’s collective and from many other local and international communities. These visitors from across the world joined our sustainocratic table and got inspired to take the ideas home with them. We organized a civilian participation debat in the council’s room. This also evolved with international presence (Spain, Turkey and Afganistan). Six points of attention were joinedly defined and drawn up as a manifest to our community level 4 leadership (awareness driven eco-system) to enhance our progress even further:

• Acknowlegde and value social entrepreneurship,
• Find ways to make the huge impact social entrepreneurship indexed and measureable,
• Engage citizens to the core values at city neighborhood level
• Dare to be ambitious when dealing with the core values. The silent majority needs to be considered in the progressive plans, not just the strongly heared conservative voices,
• Involve the younger generations through participative learning processes,
• Exchange inspiration, experiences and best practice among the other communities in the world which too are engaged in this evolutionary challenge…..

Many visitors reacted both suprised and committed: “It exists, you are showing it here in Eindhoven, so now we want this too!”

Dutch Design Week 2017 goes global. Contact me by reacting to this blog if you want to engage with Sustainocratic progress and join this week in october 2017 with innovative initiatives, seminar or congress participation, etc.