‘Cheating’ with the Makers Collective – Exploring the unknown

Do!

During that afternoon, Nadiye Çakir officially granted permission to “do something different from what you’re used to.” “We will explore the unknown together.” Çakir is a strategic and social designer at the Ministry of Justice and Security (JenV). She works within the Knowledge, Innovation, and Strategy Directorate at JenV. Compared to the civil servants she collaborates with at JenV, she stands out. With ten more makers spread across JenV’s various departments and related implementing organisations, she forms the Makers Collective. In early May, the makers collective introduced itself to the outside world with a conference. During the workshop ‘Cheating’ with the Makers Collective, officials, policymakers experienced what it is like to collaborate with each other by doing!

After a somewhat chaotic process of matching the 18 policymakers with a designer, six groups of about three pairs formed again. Each group with a maker from the Makers Collective as a facilitator. Like Rick van Vliet, policy officer at JenV and an industrial designer graduate. He was hired last year to drive innovation within the Directorate General of Punishment and Protection. “Where Nadiye facilitates the whole ministry, I facilitate the 250 colleagues within the Directorate General. I also actually help formulate policy.”

No usual suspects

Van Vliet gives his duos a brief explanation before heading outside: “What you want is to speak to different people than usual. No usual suspects.” He also adds a definition of subversion, an A4 sheet with sample questions and space to take notes, and a writing board. Then the pairs take to the streets. There is a good hour to engage in the conversations.

One duo starts somewhat hesitantly, wondering who to approach. Ideally, someone knowledgeable about subversion, but who? Others go straight to the first person they meet. On the sun-drenched afternoon, each duo manages to pick up opinions and insights. Some duos spoke to seven, others four. Some spoke to more people, but many did not have time. Either way, each group picked up different perspectives and insights. Van Vliet: “If you speak to seven people and no one has time, that is an insight in itself.”

Sketch

People who have time share their opinions extensively, whether or not they relate to subversion, which seems to be a somewhat vague term. However, that one Italian ice cream vendor clearly has no opinion on the matter. Two men take ample time to express their concern about the declining respect in the Netherlands and the increasing violence. Another person calmly explains that inequality is at the root of the problem. Then there are the youngsters who, after an explanation of subversion, exclaim., “Oh, we call that sketching!”

Upon returning to the Tower of JenV, the duos present the insights to other duos. “Who do you think draws best?” asks table facilitator Van Vliet. Finally, after 15 minutes, the findings are depicted on an A4 and articulated here and there. Surprisingly, from that seemingly unremarkable mix of insights, a common thread emerges. For example, do citizens and the government speak the same language? Is policy formulated based on the right insights? After an hour of serious and enthusiastic discussions, curious and critical questioning, drawing, and occasionally cutting and pasting, each group of three duos manages to translate the findings into a poster. Six concise summaries of insights become visible by the end of the afternoon.

Thinking behind your desk

Emy Bensdorp, maker from the Makers Collective and social designer at Reclassering Nederland, does want to be realistic: “This is of course a small workshop, a little experiment. We won’t solve undermining with this, but it gives a nice insight into how to retrieve information in a different way. Other than just thinking very hard behind your desk.”

Within Reclassering Nederland, Bensdorp deals with the impact of community service. “We have about 2 million hours to spend, how can we apply them to ‘do good’ for society? That’s my current project.”

Bensdorp rolled into the Makers Collective, so to speak, she says. “When I, about a year and a half ago, started at Reclassering Nederland, I heard that other designers were also working within the safety domain.” Olof Schuring, Innovation Advisor within JenV, and together Çakir and Van Vliet, one of the initiators of the collective, asked Bensdorp to join the collective.

A club of unexpected makers in the safety domain

“When I explain to colleagues what the Makers Collective is, I say ‘we are a club of  makers that all work within the government’s safety domain as solo agents. Within the Makers Collective we look for each other to share experiences, learn from each other and think along on each other’s cases’. At events, like this workshop, we present ourselves to the outside world so that we are found. So that civil servants can come to us with an idea or frustration to work with it design-wise.”

René Poort, strategic advisor at Reclassering Nederland, came up with the idea of hiring a social designer a year and a half ago. That’s where Bensdorp came in. “You could call me a classic policy officer,” says the strategic advisor who has some 20 years of experience within Reclassering Nederland. “What really appeals to me is that you learn to make policy more from the bottom up than from the top down, using different techniques and methods. For example, I can write and analyse well. Those are really standard policy qualities. Emy thinks more in images. That may sound simple, but it is and it helps me a lot.”

Showing the way

In the first six months, Poort and Bensdorp encountered many dead ends, Poort continues. “Our steps were still a bit too far. Emy kept saying, ‘This isn’t working, so what now?’ We just start working, interpreting, and seeing how far we can go.” According to Poort, that way of working doesn’t fit within the “infrastructure” of Reclassering Nederland. “Emy works in short cycles, just starts working. The management expects me to come up with a plan with milestones that I report on. If I have a proposal that the management needs to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to, it can take two, sometimes even six weeks.”

Poort shows Bensdorp the way within Reclassering Nederland. With his more than 20 years of experience and acquired ‘credits’, he still gets things done quickly within the existing ‘infratructure’. For Bensdorp, it is therefore only logical that Poort is also a maker within the Makers Collective. Bensdorp: “He comes up with new concepts, draws unexpected lines, dares to try things out and brings maker power in-house. He is a kind of disguised creative and writes blogs, which is how he makes things visible.”

The fact that the Makers Collective consists of makers from across the security domain is a big advantage for Poort. “Reclassering Nederland is part of a bigger system. If we want to do something different, we also have to talk to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), for example. If the OM keeps saying we have to go left now, while we want to go right, then you’re somewhat trapped.”

Breathe

At another table is table facilitator Senna Snel, strategic designer at OM and maker in the Makers Collective. “Today is going really well. I have a creative table, everyone is working very nicely and are discussing a lot with each other. I don’t have to do much” she says with a wink.

Like Bensdorp, Snel endorses the power of the Makers Collective to meet regularly with other makers. “In your work, you face a lot of resistance because people are used to doing things a certain way, they can be very rigid at times. While as a designer, you’re in a kind of loop. There isn’t always room for that within the OM, which can sometimes be frustrating and lonely. That’s when it’s nice to have other people saying, ‘Take a breath, it’s part of it, don’t give up.'”

For Snel, the four-weekly meetings on Monday mornings are very valuable. “Those are our making mornings, when we get together with all the makers and work on a case. In the delusion of the day, you don’t always have time for that. I also learn then about what’s going on at the Probation Service, for example.”

Motion

Back to maker Van Vliet. For him, the first time he sat with all the makers together was already one of the highlights of the Makers Collective. “There were only five of us then, all with a background in design, all recently employed by JenV, OM or Reclassering Nederland. All with the feeling: we are sitting here together because we think this is important because we recognise that this is useful. We all understood that we should not work in our own quarters. That first meeting felt so familiar that it also became logical to start a movement.”

Çakir looks back on the afternoon during the closing plenary reflection. “It’s fantastic that you were here. You came from all different corners and directions to work together. That brought a lot of energy, at least at my table.” In her conclusion, Çakir briefly indicated another aim of the Makers Collective: “We want to move towards a situation within the central government where people ask: ‘Why don’t you have a maker yet? You also have a communications advisor or hr advisor, don’t you? Where is your designer?”