Hovering modellers, dogged Don Quichotes and a room filled with white privilege — On April 22, Arne van Oosterom and I visited a session in Pakhuis De Zwijger with Kate Raworth (author of the Doughnut Economy) and Marleen Stikker (Director Waag) among others. “Revisiting Ownership” was the topic for an evening with Economists, social activists, digital thinkers, architects, designers and other predominantly (white)…

In my work as (service) designer I’ve always struggled with the paradox of scale: how do you create meaningful interactions with large numbers of people? Something strange happens in organisations when the populations they aim to communicate with, exceeds the size of an auditorium. They appear to give up the…

It must have been somewhere in september 2000. We had just launched our creative design agency PingPong design in Rotterdam — in the midst of an economic downturn. With three designers and a general manager, we left our previous employer Studio Dumbar all at once (they weren’t amused) to start…

As we venture into the season of social connection and reflection, we cannot ignore the subject of Storytelling — also the theme of this months’ Blue Sky Republic Newsletter to which this article contributes. My most vivid memories of story-experience originated during nightly family readings, gathered around a real Christmas…

Hippie-internet and the challenge to outsize your perspective — During one of our typically divergent editorial board meetings for the first Blue Sky Republic Newsletter — where we exchange threads of unhinged ideas, bits of articles and other curiosities — we bumped into two articles: The first is a New Yorker article by Anna Wiener in 2018 which scrutinised…

Gartner analysts identify five priorities that businesses should act on now if they are dealing with data of European citizens. I fear the common reflex will end up being a lot of legal duct tape and ad hoc risk mitigation, but I hope some companies seize the moment and shift their perspective towards personal data. Gartner Says Organizations Are Unprepared for the 2018 European Data Protection Regulation The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will have a global impact when it goes into effect on May 25…www.gartner.com