As a "transformation organization," we focus on cross-sector involvement in processes of change in our region. Transformation is understood as a combination of 5 fields of action.
Each field of action can become the lead dimension (depending on the context), and the other focal points can then be used to identify concrete options for action.
Because they focus on different social contexts, these fields of action also refer to complementary dimensions of social impact.
Empowering Transformation Actors
Our Creative Agency Model
At the center of all transformation processes are people acting individually and collectively. K8 therefore explores and develops complementary forms of collective, public, data-based, value-creating and sustainable action - a multi-sided model of the agency and intelligence of individuals and collectives:
Collective action
Regional transformation requires new forms of cooperation - beyond existing actor constellations and organizational boundaries. Therefore, we call for and make possible: Acting in new roles, assuming new responsibilities, shaping collective ideation, decision-making and participation processes.
Public action
Public actors play a central role in the development and implementation of regional transformation processes. In addition to imagining an "agile" state that reorganizes its processes, K8 is concerned with the (creative, artistic) interactive and immersive presentation of ideas in public spaces.
Data-based action
The collection and analysis of data creates a wide array of opportunities for the design and use of intelligent processes and systems. Regional transformation can be organized differently as a result - from the development of data competencies to the design of data spaces as contexts for new forms of communication, organization and value creation.
Value-creating action
The regional transformation requires the development of a regenerative economy. Beyond entrepreneurial action (start-up / succession / financing), we therefore broaden the view to dynamics of value creation in order to better understand the interplay of different actors and (cultural, social, technological) innovation dynamics and to help them reinforce each other.
Regenerative action
Regional transformation combines four dimensions of sustainability: ecological, social, economic - and cultural. Because without a change of perspective, there is no discovery of potential, without a change of perceptions, there is no creation of new spaces of action, without shared narratives, there is neither individual freedom nor social cohesion.
Methodologies
Process and Systems Design
With roots in the holisms of arts and culture, K8 approaches questions of innovation through of collaborative engagements with environmental, social and economic transformation. Above and beyond the cooperation with state actors and SMEs, K8’s engagement with collaborative and regenerative economy issues reflects an interest in the key role of civil society and social movement actors, the dynamics of peer production, and the cultural, economic and social concerns of cooperativism. Such visions aim to create new collective action institutions and re-imagine the co-creation of value.
Innovation needs more than technology
Technologies contribute to changes in the human condition. But cultural, economic, and social innovations frame the choices we have, both as individuals and as societies. By exploring how we want to live and work, we find more creative ways to think about the future through new forms of collective agency and intelligence.
Anticipation imagines what’s next
Stories can give us an idea of our place in the world. To think about future worlds, we need to create fantastic fictions. Allowing us to explore imagined futures, they give us a better sense of where we want to go next.
Make the viable tangible
Technological transformations make the dynamics that organize our daily lives disappear. Visibility can create awareness, but it does not tell us much about the meaning of what we see. To grasp the ways in which we can co-create our futures, we need to make the viable tangible. If we do this together, we can build trust and co-design systems.
Create worlds, not objects
Connected lives are distributed across vast spaces. And what an object can do depends on how we design these spaces. By creating worlds rather than objects, we can redesign the limits of what we can do.
There is more than one future
Many futures are possible, some are more probable than others. Whenever we decide where we want to go next, change is given a direction. Let us talk about which of these futures we want to live in.
The ethos of collaborative and cooperation shapes not only the organization of research and development, but inspires the design of socio-technical systems that address the growing interest in transparent and trusted regenerative economy models. This is a key area for K8 in the further development of its stakeholder network and methodological approaches.